Macabrepedia: A Marriage of True Crime and the Truly Bizarre
Macabrepedia: A Marriage of True Crime and the Truly Bizarre
The Brutally Beastly Bloody Benders who Butchered the Bodies of Bucolic Kansas
In what is called one of the biggest mysteries of the American Old West, the Bender family fled from suspicion and a looming search of their homestead... and nobody can agreed on what happened to them. This search would result in finding the bodies of many people who had gone missing in the area, but what happened, and who were these... Bloody Benders? Join us as we add another entry.
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Marissa:Laura Ingalls Wilder, famous for writing the Little House on the Prairie books, said that her father was part of a search party for a group of murderers that had plagued a small Kansas City. She said that he had told her quote, they will never be found, with a tone of finality. They never were found. And Laura Ingalls Wilder said that she drew her own conclusions for how the vigilante hunt for the killer ended. In Neil Gaiman's American Gods, the main character shadow and his companions visit a clearing, where they remark that it was once used by the benders to sacrifice to cheer in a bog, a Russian did Didi who drew power from those slayings because of their use of a hammer, hence the instrument. There are dozens of instances in pop culture that reference a single real family that was responsible for many deaths. The bloody benders. Join us as we add another entry into this our Macabrepedia.
Matthew:Hello, and welcome to Macabrepedia marriage of true crime and truly bizarre we are your hosts, Matthew and Marissa. And I didn't know that little American Gods reference. I mean, that is a book that does have quite a few references that no one is gonna get them all. Not without like, you know, scholarly, a scholarly kind of reading of it. So today, we're talking about the vendors.
Marissa:That's right. The bloody vendors.
Matthew:The bloody, the bloody Yes, the vendors. Yes.
Marissa:And you know, when it comes with the word bloody, and when it has to BS, that's great alliteration and you know, it's gonna be good. Oh, okay.
Matthew:Let's talk about those.
Marissa:I've set myself up for failure with you know, too high expectations, but
Matthew:those bad, bodacious bloody brutal, keep going. I don't know. I don't know that many other words that would even be remotely close to being appropriate for
Marissa:this. The very bad benders,
Matthew:the very the bad, brutal bloody benders.
Marissa:That's these guys. So just a little background in the 1860s. Hopefully, we
Matthew:should have a lot of background because this is a pretty much the whole story. There's something that happened in the past.
Marissa:Yeah. But you have to understand the setting. Also. Good. Paint me a Picture Go ahead. In the 1860s. In the US this is right after the Civil War. The US government had moved the Osage Native Americans from southeast Kansas to a new area that's now Oklahoma, you know, to this a lot. They've moved to American Indians elsewhere, because they wanted the land for whatever reason.
Matthew:Yeah, that's kind of the whole. That's, that's yeah. The history we are going to get into today. Yeah, that's a topic for generations to bear. Yes.
Marissa:Because of this move, this land became vacant and white settlers moved in. And in 1875, families of spiritualists settled in western Labette. County, about seven miles northeast of where the town of Cherryville would be founded eventually. And they plotted this new area where the next the next year, the robot would come through and plot the area. Okay, one of these,
Matthew:what do you mean plot the area?
Marissa:It means like, section that out. Developed plots. Yeah, okay. Yeah, it's
Matthew:plat something is to make a plot of Yeah, I
Marissa:mean, they ran the railroad through its they had to make something you know,
Matthew:official. Okay. And according to the Urban Dictionary, that is, I'm not going to talk about this is a small penis even when erect? I guess that's what platitudes come from. His tiny penis. That is what
Marissa:the Urban Dictionary says. No, we're talking about
Matthew:hey, this is Macabrepedia. So they come here for those little tidbits. So any micro PD micro penis minute on Macabrepedia
Marissa:We're not going to be having micro penis minutes on Macabrepedia after this one,
Matthew:every every story I have a micro penis episode.
Marissa:So one of these families there were five families one of them was the benders
Matthew:Whoa, hey, why No. Are they bloody at this time? Not yet. Okay, well, soon to be bloody Yeah.
Marissa:So this is a family of four. There's John Bender senior and his wife. She has different names depending on which source you're looking at. So she uses their Elvira or Elmyra I'm gonna try to refer to her as Elmyra
Matthew:pick pick one and go with it. Yeah, no, but Well, I mean, it's it's October Elvira is a little easier for this and then it draws a certain image to our, to our, to our minds and I'm just going to picture her as Elvira the queen of darkness. Yes, that's her actual I don't know. I'm not going to look that up as to what it is. I'm pretty sure it's Queen darkness. But huge. And we already talked about planning land and she when Elvira is known for her huge tracts of land, which would be reference to her tall hair.
Marissa:Oh, yeah, definitely. Okay, so I just made that just made me me
Matthew:made me plan a little bit in my pants
Marissa:I don't even know where I'm at. Now. We were
Matthew:talking about my tiny penis. We're talking about a Viagra. Oh, right. Yeah.
Marissa:And then there's also the sun. So, all right, backing up, dad, John Bender, senior, wife, Elvira, and then son John Jr. and daughter Kate. So this is the bender family. At this time, you can make a claim on a piece of land. So John bender. I mean, you know, it was just it was a different time. Yeah, when
Matthew:you say make a claim. This is like what's that? What's that movie with? Tom Cruise?
Marissa:Oh, I don't know quest.
Matthew:Yeah, sometimes. Where he rides out. Dammit. This was our this was about to be our smooth movie reference for but yeah, you just basically ride out and you literally just like they had they actually had it where it's like, you have like X amount of acres in this area. You just go and fucking plant your flag. Did they have a flag?
Unknown:They did.
Marissa:So anyway, sorry. John Bender senior made a claim and took this 160 acre plot of land that was located directly on the great Osage trail which was at the time the only open road if you wanted to go further west. Yeah, so it was actually a pretty important spot.
Matthew:This is out in Oklahoma, Kansas, Kansas. Okay, okay, they were moved to Oklahoma.
Marissa:The Osage is were moved to Orange County, we're in Kansas. So on this land, the family built a small framed one room cabin, a barn and to corral and they also dug a well so that's what they've got on this land.
Matthew:So they're good at digging holes are good to dig and we're gonna keep this in mind for bloody benders and feel like we're gonna have holes we're gonna be burying people.
Marissa:They actually separated the space in the cabin. And the part in the back was their living area. And then they actually hung up this like Canvas kind of curtain and that like separate at the front of the cabin for the back of the cabin.
Matthew:That was also something they would do like in like separate walls in ships. If you are a person of some level of importance. So you had like some kind of privacy some level of privacy to make like this is my section they put up Canvas walls.
Marissa:Well, that is what they did in their cabin. And then the front part of it the back part was their living the front part was like a small grocery store and and snow. Wow. Yeah. Using this as their business. Well, while they lived in the back,
Matthew:yeah, that's just like a big studio loft. Yeah.
Marissa:They carried simple provisions like groceries, shot powder, tobacco and alcohol. Plus was the place to go get a warm meal or a safe place to sleep at night is actually something I mentioned to you. I was like, it's interesting how staples have changed.
Matthew:Yeah. Shot being Yeah, like, musket sharp rifle shot or whatever, like gunpowder and stuff. Yeah.
Marissa:It's just what people need at the time. But yeah, so enjoy Oregon Trail. Yeah. So anyway, by all accounts, they seem to be hardworking immigrants like their neighbors, John having migrated from Germany. He had a very intense look with dark eyes set deep into his face with bushy eyebrows, earning him the nickname Old Beatle Brown, John.
Matthew:I like that, like everybody always throws like nicknames are just like so easy. I have searched my entire life for like a good nickname. And nobody ever like none of the nicknames that have ever been given to me as really, yeah, have really stuck and I've always wanted a badass name, not even a badass nickname, The nickname that that stuck the longest for me. And I know like if any of my family members are going to come up with someone that they didn't, they didn't stick. The one that stuck. The longest was splat which was my mom's boyfriend Rob used to call me splat. And he said that was the sound of a cow shitting on a flat stone. I was like I'll take it I don't care one nickname. Very nice. Well, splat rhymes with Matt I think was also part of it. And I I was just like, Why do you call me splat and he told me that and I was like, I still don't understand why I would be called a cow pie but whatever. I don't care I'll to your right. Yeah, yeah, that's that's an f3 name.
Marissa:Still a nickname?
Matthew:Yeah, whatever.
Marissa:Whatever.
Matthew:That'd be cool too, if that stuck, and I was just always known as I'm known to fight as fireball to a few people. Not for the whiskey but because I played Dungeons and Dragons. Yeah, that'd be cool. All everyone, everyone, all people now on this this podcast Macabrepedia with your hosts, Marissa and fireball. Not the whiskey, but it can't be the whiskey. Alright, so anyways, back on track anyway. Oh, don't worry about your nickname.
Marissa:My dad gave me a nickname when I was a kid that stuck with me for a long time. And then I feel like I had one in high school that was, I think, kind of supposed to be mean,
Matthew:but stuck for your kind of like, ownership of it.
Marissa:Those sort of things really bothered me like that. Which is surprising, but it really was like, whatever. So anyway, I want to keep going. Well, no, you had to tell us what the nicknames were. Suzie Q. Oh, yeah. And then Mimi.
Matthew:Mimi. That was supposed to be
Marissa:me. There was a character on The Drew Carey Show named Mimi, and I think that's
Matthew:Oh, yeah. Did you have a lot of eyeshadow? No, no, no, you weren't that fat then? No. Just you were a bitch.
Marissa:Well, yeah. Okay. These were like my friends slash frenemies who gave me this? Yeah, I think it was like a backhanded type thing. But whatever.
Matthew:Tell us about these. Tell us girls go back to
Unknown:Elvira. Hello, Ira. Elvira bender.
Marissa:So now I've already lost my place. I
Matthew:know we weren't really on a bar at that point. But we were talking about him having the nickname for his bushy brows.
Marissa:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So he did he was called Old Beto Brown, John. He often had long hair and a bushy beard, making him look a little wild. As you can imagine what the name the nickname, brown shirt Beto Brown, John. He and his wife Elvira both had heavy accents that were difficult to understand. And Elvira had a very stern look. So she had like, notably a resting bitchface people actually noted this as being so stinner sinister that she was called a She devil. Interesting. And liven after the fact.
Matthew:Yeah, I feel like she's it's probably all I mean, they're running a business in the 1860s and stuff she's probably a no nonsense kind of a person you can't push around and she's from Germany and shit like that. She well. Story will tell they're called the bloody benders. I feel like maybe they were right. But at the same time, I feel like if you're just an assertive lady, at this time period, you're probably going to be like What a
Marissa:bitch. She claimed to speak with the dead and would use various herbs and roots to create spells and charms. She's got quite the reputation again these were spiritualists. That came over to us. Yeah, so they could communicate with
Matthew:seances and all that. Yeah. If you if you haven't heard our episode on seance say what? Go back for spiritualism
Marissa:their son John Bender, Jr. He spoke English fluently, but he also did have a bit of an accent. He was about 25 He had auburn hair and a mustache. He did, however, randomly burst out into hysterical laughter, which made people believe that he was kind of stupid. Just randomly just start giggling
Matthew:Sure, he just uses it on a job that nobody else can hear.
Marissa:Yeah, and this was later seen as something that he might have been putting on as an act. But with
Matthew:that kind of changes the imagery that I had in my head as to when he would do it. I'm thinking more almost Joker, right, more recent Joker, Joaquin Phoenix Joker.
Marissa:He could be could have been like that. But anyway, the daughter Kate was 23 she was said to be beautiful and very charming. Her and her brother John were both easily accepted by the community attending events and being very social. And Kate herself would also give lectures on spiritualism. And she claimed that she was a psychic and healer. She also claimed to be able to communicate with the dead which helped her to make some money on the side it turned out to be quite profitable.
Matthew:And that time in spiritualism was turning over the money and that's another reason I guess to look stern and stuff to
Marissa:that was her mom, but yeah, this this case, Oh, yeah. Awesome. But however, she also went around advocating for free love. Nice. Yeah. And also talking about justification for murder. Which was
Matthew:a little less nice. Yeah, unless nice there. Yeah. Well I mean, there's all right, whatever. Well, we won't get into that let's I want to know where her justification for murder is good.
Marissa:Well, before that, she's just like this before anybody suspected anyway,
Matthew:I know. I'm just talking about like me is there is there a time or some situation where I'd like self defense that's justification for her but then I guess you have to get into the definition of what is technically murder me about that. I don't know. So. Yeah, really murder. That's yeah, there's a difference between killing somebody and murder for sure. And there's really not a lot of good reasons to murder somebody. Guess how bad That's a really wrong view. And you recently found out, it's not like a passion thing, but like, they did something very, very bad, like, you know, vigilante style.
Marissa:But she ended up getting quite the reputation and she was seen as satanic by her neighbors, because of course, why not? Yeah. Which meant that she ended up receiving a lot of the blame for what eventually
Matthew:happened with her family, Ah, man.
Marissa:1871 is when the vendors open up their store, which travelers would frequently stop at for provisions and to rest overnight. This is also when some of these travelers began to start disappearing.
Matthew:Okay. And part of these connected? Why maybe?
Marissa:Importantly, these people were often carrying a lot of money. Oh,
Matthew:yeah, he's connected. Okay. Well wait and find out,
Marissa:intending to either purchase a claim and settle, or, you know, sometimes they would just be trying to like, find family and provide for them and stuff like that. But though they were travelers, they usually had people who cared for them. They weren't like, you know, just vagabonds, they were usually coming from somewhere where they were known with some money to try to go and make a new life. And these people would also the people who loved them, once they went missing, they would try to track them down. But they could no track them no further than the big hill country in Southeast Kansas, which is where the vendors
Matthew:right where those vendors were, man.
Marissa:And with the first few disappearances, there was not really an overt suspicion aimed at the area or the vendor family. But over the next two years, rumors gained traction. And travelers began to avoid the trail if possible. neighboring communities even started making accusations. So the SH township holds a meeting and they kicked
Matthew:them, they wait. They kicked, they kick the Osage Indians or Native Americans, sorry, out of the out of the area. I was so called and then they just were like, but we're gonna keep the name that were the Osage people.
Marissa:Oh, that's what the source I have.
Matthew:You know, I mean, it's fine. I mean, it's not like we don't live next to Catawba. True. Yeah.
Marissa:So the two binder men attended this meeting. This meeting discusses the 10 people by this point who have gone missing in the area. Yeah, one of which was a well known physician named Dr. William H. York. The people at the meeting decided that this was truly a problem that they needed to focus on. So they decided to search every farmstead in the township between big hill Creek and drum Creek, which is this area right here.
Matthew:Yeah, we have a follow around map.
Marissa:So everybody volunteer to allow their property to be searched, except for the bender. Oh, wow.
Matthew:Okay.
Marissa:Little suspicion
Matthew:Well, bet you got 160 acres you can come on now.
Marissa:A few days later, a neighbor named Billy toll went by the vendor property and noticed that it looked a little abandoned. And the animals had not been fed. This was quite suspicious. So Billy told reported this to Leroy F. Dick, the township trustee, and a search party was formed, which included the missing Dr. William York's brother, Cornel am York of Fort Scott, which is nearby fairly nearby. They all got together and marched off toward the bender home, wondering what they would find there and why it was abandoned. When they got there, they noticed that it looked like the vendors were not coming back. The cabin was emptied of personal possessions, food, clothing and anything that somebody might need. Really. They're gonna be out on the road. It was all gone. There was also a terrible smell. That's never a good time.
Matthew:They have 160 acres you said. I feel like they're gonna hide bodies under their fucking floorboards.
Marissa:Well, they're not most they're mostly not far.
Matthew:It's 160
Marissa:acres less convenient.
Matthew:I get it, but it's not like you're in the middle of a town
Marissa:this. What I'm about to get to you doesn't make a lot of sense as far as people coming to the store to me, but whatever. So after searching the small cabin, they found a trapdoor hidden in the front and in an area that was nailed shut. Grabbing a crowbar, the men pry open this trapdoor and underneath it the men find a six foot deep hole that's full of clotted blood.
Matthew:But six feet of blood.
Marissa:I don't think the entire thing but it's a six foot deep hole
Matthew:that's more than a couple of bodies. That is that is that is that is going to open a Do a hole to hell and the Cthulhu that's going to be a tunnel to the to the island.
Marissa:Maybe there's a human being like whatever the hell it is. Alright sacrificing to.
Matthew:I mean, I'm saying like you're bringing forth a demon out of that there's no way you're having six foot deep by body or body of water or body of blood and hey, it's good, sir.
Marissa:So full of trepidation. Of course, they searched this hole, but they found no actual bodies in the hole. It was just blood. What I thought was strange, is what I just touched on. How did they How did they get away with having a bit of blood in their front area with people coming in and buying their stuff?
Matthew:That could be why people were like, I think it was the benders because they're, like, ever smelled that smells like they've been gutting animals in their front freaking lawn or in their front, their front storefront.
Marissa:But soon the men move the entire foundation of the cabin, which sounds like quite the undertaking to search underneath it, but they find no bodies there either. However, this is definitely suspicious. They're investigating multiple disappearances. Yes, I think I heard you said that. This family has disappeared. There's a pit full of love. They keep looking. They keep digging in the area that the vendors had used as a vegetable garden and apple orchard. And here they find a spot of freshly turned Earth and find the first body buried head down with feet barely covered. This was the missing Dr. William H. York School bashed in and throat cut.
Matthew:And then were they were they bleeding them into the hole and then dragging their bodies?
Marissa:No idea. Yeah. Nothing ever said anything about that. And the bloody benders? Never said. So
Matthew:maybe. I mean, maybe. Yeah, maybe they weren't. Surely they had to open right? Because I mean, maybe they were just worried that someone was going to see like a blood trail or something. So maybe they were I don't know, that just seems real. Anyways,
Marissa:but anyway, they keep digging in this area. And basically, over the next day or two, they find nine more bodies buried on the property, including a woman and young child,
Matthew:where all of them head down. Do
Marissa:you know? And no, I don't know.
Matthew:Because there is a superstition to that you bury somebody's face down, or upside down so that when they're when their corpses rise from the dead, they have trouble finding their way out so they dig in the wrong direction.
Marissa:So where are they found all this? These people the bodies, this area became known as Hell's half acre, for obvious reasons.
Matthew:Because they didn't use the fucking real amount of the acreage that they had. Yeah, really. This is just one half acre I mean, we would never have found this shit if they actually put forth some effort. A little further
Marissa:garden and an apple orchards that means like the the soil was not as was it was more like turned up, I guess. Sure. It was easy to dig in. To put the bodies there. I'm just
Matthew:saying you dig a body pet somewhere where people gonna go fucking snooping around? I don't know. I mean, I also get it. You buried the bodies underneath your apple orchards and your your gardener. And that's just that's like longtime fertilizers as it decomposes. All right. All right. All right. Vendors you thought this was going to be this is a long term projects. Okay.
Marissa:A $1,000 reward, which is about $22,000. Now, it was offered for information leading to the vendor family arrest, and shortly after the governor Governor added an additional$2,000 which is about 45,000 to the reward, if all four could be apprehended. Okay, news of the murders spread fast. And as they do, people came from all over to check out the scene of the crime.
Matthew:Oh, yeah, let's trample some evidence. Yes, 1000s of
Marissa:people descended upon the farmstead ripping the cabin apart for souvenirs given down to the bricks lining the cellar. I mean, I don't know I'm surprised still about
Matthew:these things. But yeah, I was the first two times we heard Yeah,
Marissa:it happens every frickin time. Reporters came from all over as far away as Chicago and New York to report on the story. People found out that it seemed the vendors hadn't been quite what they seemed the only two who had been who had been related by blood. Were Elvira and Kate, mother and daughter.
Matthew:Oh, okay. Yeah,
Marissa:they ran their business as a shop and in and when visitors stopped in, they were be they would be seated at the table with their back the large dividing canvas that separated the two parts of the cabin. Kate would then come in and start to charm them and distract them. She was known to be quite charming, pretty and was able to hold their attention. And while she has
Matthew:their huge tracts of land, see, that's why we went with Elvira Well, we're just
Marissa:okay. So when she had their attention or whatever means the vendor men would step out from behind the canvas and hit the poor traveller in the back would head whack Yeah, with a hammer.
Matthew:Ah, this was the turn of balls coming back. Then
Marissa:the women would search the corpse for money, getting everything of value and then dumping the corpse into the trapdoor. Oh, I guess it's been a while since this research, we're Kate would slit the throat so yes, they did leave the bodies into the pit.
Matthew:But they dropped them into the pit where Kate was already waiting to slip to throw, and then climb back out.
Marissa:I think she slit the throat in the trapdoor because later that night, the body would be buried in the garden, but not until later that night. Yeah,
Matthew:so they are just dropping their their Yeah, they're draining it out. And this actually super easy cleanup.
Marissa:Yeah, this actually worked for a while for them. But eventually they murdered the wrong people. As you do as you do, a family and daughter last name longer, went missing in the winter of 1872. Dr. York had actually come by looking for them stopping at homesteads along the way. He made it as far as Fort Scott, which is actually past where the vendors live. He made their safely where his brother lived. But then he had begun to return home to independence. But he never made it. So they knew he made it all the way to Fort Scott. But he didn't make it. His two brothers lived at both of those places. So there's one brother in Fort Scott and one brother in independence. So they were communicating and they knew very well when he met went missing. They knew of his plans. So
Matthew:why not like a ton of places? And this time? I mean, if this is the main thoroughfare, right, so
Marissa:when he didn't return, I mean, yeah, there were only there was a pretty good path. They knew he was going so they could play where he was going.
Matthew:And if he's and if he's like stopping and asking these questions, you can basically just triangulate based upon who last saw him somewhere
Marissa:my brother come by here. So when he didn't return home I searched party was organized with 50 men who went from homestead to homestead asking questions. They even stopped at the vendor home and spoke with them, where the vendors convinced the search party that the doctor had left by admitting that he had stopped there. But he must have loved and been stopped by the Indians who had murdered him. And they convinced the search party this is what happened. Sure.
Matthew:The best the best lies from one that contains a bit of truth. Yeah,
Marissa:I mean, it could have happened. So Kate, someone who claimed to have psychic gifts offered to search for him using her powers. Nice. Yes. And because this suspicion was lifted from vendors, sure. And after the meeting about the problem of missing people in the area that the vendors attended, the vendors fled and the bodies were found, including the doctor and Mr. Longer and his daughter, who was only about seven or eight years old.
Matthew:Oh, yeah. When they get away from a child murder on Macabrepedia I
Marissa:know it's just there's only one but yeah, okay. I know.
Matthew:That doesn't matter how many we have.
Marissa:I know. We specifically steered away from some Yeah,
Matthew:you've made that well, that those are the moments that like make like these, like a lot of murders like really stick is either the huge body count or involving children. Yeah, for sure. Over the course of 200 years when we're covering these things.
Marissa:When they found the girl's body she had injuries that weren't like the other corpses. They were bruises and cuts all over her body. They speculated that she may have been buried alive. Yeah, her breastplate had been dented and word. Her arm was broken. her right knee had been wrenched from its socket, and her leg was doubled up onto her body. The other bodies found on the property belonged to Henry McKenzie, Ben Brown, WF Makati, John Gregory, and a woman and man who are never identified. Johnny boy's body was found in the well. There were also multiple dismembered body parts of other victims, they had no way of identifying. And four more bodies were later found outside the property and drum Creek and surrounding area with crushed heads and slit throats. It's speculated that all of these people were killed by the vendors who were able to gain just $4,600 for two teams of horses and wagons, a pony and a saddle from killing all these guys.
Matthew:Yeah, $4,600 I mean, what's that? 80,000 It's not
Marissa:nothing,
Matthew:but it's a lot of bodies for a pony.
Marissa:Many of the men the vendors killed had nothing of value on their person. So it's believed that they may have just been killed for sport. Or they, in one instance. A traveler came by and he was dressed very nicely, so you will click he has money. Yeah, but he was kind of like an authorial guy he never actually had money he just like to look like he did. So when they killed him, indeed have anything on them at all. So that was just him trying to look nice ended up likely me being the reason he died. So I think lifeless and look like a slob
Matthew:well I mean I'm when I was at my absolute well not my absolute poorest but one of my poor moments in life I would do that sometimes is dressed up nice nicer just to try to make myself feel better. Yeah. And then I made the mistake of picking up a person who may have been trying to get me into a secluded area so that he could try to rob me. But I threatened him first, I think and I scared him away. Yeah, that's a story for another Macabrepedia Yeah, but yeah, that also another lesson Hey, guys, don't pick up strangers. No, not not not not no matter what their sob story is at two in the morning in a Walmart. Nope.
Marissa:No, I'm sure your heart was in the right place. But yeah, well, it was for a little while.
Matthew:And then like I said, I then had to, and then my patients was at an end. We'll save that for Patreon.
Marissa:All right, so as word got out about these terrible crimes, other people came forward with their own tales of spending time at the bender and one guy was William Pickering who said that he stopped in wants to eat there. But he was grossed out by the stains on the canvas that was draped in the middle of the cabin. Blood spatter just stains. I don't know. He it's you know, separated the area. But when he wouldn't sit in that spot because it was gross to him. Kate allegedly threatened him with a knife after which he fled.
Matthew:Hmm, okay. Yeah, I guess that's a smart move.
Marissa:Yeah, another man a priest so that he fled the cabin after seeing one of the vendor men attempting to conceal a large hammer. Okay, that tracks do Yeah, they did find fresh wagon tracks leading away from the vendor home, and they followed them to theater a town 12 miles away. There. They found that the vendors had purchased tickets on the northbound train to Humboldt. They found the binder wagon and horses nearby the horses nearly starved to death. So it appeared that they had been pushed really hard also, and had not been given proper trip sustenance. The train conductor said that he saw Kate and John Jr. disembark at Chanute and took a southbound train to Red River Country near Denison, Texas, before ultimately fleeing to an outlaw country between Texas and New Mexico. Meanwhile, ma and pa Bender carried on the northbound train and ultimately wound up in St. Louis. However, nobody ever collected the rewards offered. But there were rumors that several groups of people had captured them and killed them various different ways. One even claiming that they burned Kate like the witch that she was. Another group said that they'd killed them all on a gunfight and then buried their bodies on the prairie. And other claim that they had actually called them and thrown their bodies in the river.
Matthew:Are these attempts to get the reward for this? These are just people just call tail and well, we
Marissa:killed them. They're gone. They never found out what happened to them. So spoiler, I mean, come on.
Matthew:I figured that's ready to go.
Marissa:But nobody ever claimed the rewards and ultimately, most people believe they just gotten away. There was a couple who was arrested for being MA and Kate Bender, but they were later released due to lack of evidence. Later investigation found out that paw Bender, John had actually been a man named John Flickinger, an immigrant from either Germany or Holland. He may have committed suicide in 1884 in Lake Michigan, but others say it was Kate and MA who killed him for trying to run off with all their valuables. Ma was born on Mira mag, or let's go see our Elvira mech in the Adirondacks where she had buried a man named George Griffith when she was a teenager and had a dozen children by him. But he did at some point die of a strange hammer shaped hole in his head. And she allegedly killed two other husbands and some of her older children, so they could not testify against her. And Kate was her daughter.
Matthew:Okay,
Marissa:there's a lot, but John Jr. was actually a man named John Gabbert, who may have tried to appear much less clever, as I said by pretending to just like burst out in laughter to like, avoid attracting attention, right. He and Kate appear to be to the world brother and sister. But they were actually likely husband and wife instead. They were rumors that if Kate became pregnant, they would simply bash the infant school and once it was born.
Matthew:Rumors,
Marissa:rumors deserves rumors. Everything I'm saying right now was a rumor. There's no
Matthew:BS slander in the vendors name. We got nothing. We can't prove shit. They were bad people. We can't prove shit.
Marissa:Yeah, they were bad people but they seem to have gotten away with it. I don't know. I mean, like one of these stories could be true. Yeah, but we just don't know which one. So yeah. Later one detective claim that he had tracked gebert John Jr. for a while before finding out that he had died of apoplexy. Kate was born Eliza Griffis originally, and allegedly worked as a prostitute at the vendor end. tacking on a fee for spending the night with someone. Kate was believed to be the most really
Matthew:great one stop shop. Yeah, yeah. Get your shot, you can shoot your load wherever you want. That's what the icky stains were.
Marissa:Kate was born Eliza Griffith. I just said that you threw me off. Anyway, Kate was believed to be the mastermind behind it all. We're seeing a great deal of the blame. As I said, you know, people just kind of figured she was the most charming one. And I think they were all taken aback by her the most because that is believed that the vendors killed up to 20 people. But as they were never found, at least not in a way anyone can agree upon. This is one of the biggest mysteries of the American Old West. Nice. Yeah, I know. It. It's actually said now that the place where the vendor property wants stood is haunted.
Matthew:On a ley line. That's why it was using American Gods. There you go. It's a long book. Read it. It is long book. It's also a TV show. Yeah, I don't know how much they get stopped after season one.
Marissa:But um, yeah, I mean, a lot of these places that we'd cover they seem to be haunted now or people say they're haunted now. So
Matthew:yeah, have friends here. Yeah, depending on how many bile bodies you pile up into an area you have a good chance of hitting some. Some haunting?
Marissa:For sure. So anyway, that is the story of the benders, the bloody benders. And so what about you, Matthew? Do we have a McCobb? Minute? Oh, sure.
Matthew:I thought you're gonna ask how many bodies are buried? Oh, never tell talk about that later. Nope. Not even on Patreon. It's zero before anybody calls the police on me. So today's McCobb minute is coming from. Basically, this is pulled from an article from CNN, where a man dissolved into acidic water after he falls into a hot a hot spring at Yellowstone. Oh, I saw that. And this was back in June of 2016, where a man and his sister were doing something referred to as possibly as hot potting whether you try to find like a hot spring and in like, you know, jacuzzi, natural Jacuzzi kind of part of the issue with this, this thing is that it is insanely hot water. And it pulls up sulfuric acid from from the you know, the bowels of the earth. And because of that, yeah, so on a trip to Yellowstone, i a 23 year old man from Oregon. What and his sister were in an area you're not supposed to be in, in Yellowstone, you know, because that's what people do, right. And they're trying to find a hotspot or a hot pot to get into. And at one point, and I'm leaving their names out of this just just because it's too new. But at one point, the man tries to reach in to test the heat of the water to see if it's how hot it does. Turns out very, very hot. And he then loses his balance and falls into this boiling pot of water. And his sister, which I don't think there's a video for that. She took a video of him testing the water. I did not do much effort into trying to find this video because I don't need to see that. And it was never supposedly released by the police or anything. But he fell in and his sister then runs to get help. When she's trying to get help they go there they before they can get out to the area that seems a little weird but before they can get out to the area like this massive thunderstorm rolls in and they were like he's he's most likely not going to be alive when we get there. So they I don't know I don't know the details of that it just seems weird that they didn't like they Time is of the essence of this do just fell into a into a boiling pot of water. But they call off the search to try to find them or try to retrieve him because of the storm and the next day they go out there and he if it was reported that there was no remains to pull, because he in very short order. There was a significant amount of dissolving. Yeah, so you have to think this is if you boil somebody right all their all their meaty bits boil off and turn into you know, boiled meat bits and bones generally Often over time, what if you do it in a pot of sulfuric acid? It's gonna be Yeah, got nothing. Yeah, there's like you're not gonna find hardly anything a little bit of whatever. But anyways,
Marissa:I remember seeing that article. I always thought that was kind of disturbing. It definitely stuck with me.
Matthew:Yeah, so the other parks geysers in springs are acidic because they are fed from like thermal water, that that picks up sulfuric acid as it rises to the surface. And then the sulfuric acid is produced by micro organisms that break down hydrogen sulfide within rocks and soil. So yeah, don't don't don't do that. And the other Ranger, I believe, said because Yellowstone is wild, and it hasn't been overly altered by people to make things a whole lot safer. It gets dangerous. He said, and a place like Yellowstone, which is set aside because of its incredible geothermal resources here is even more so. But yeah, so you know, don't don't be real stupid, you know, like people who take selfies at the Grand Canyon and fall in and stuff and
Marissa:yeah, that's terrifying. It's,
Matthew:it's so easy not to though. You know, like, grim, it is really easy not to die from falling off of a cliff or a picture. Don't do it, that all but Anyways, that was a McCobb minute for you. As always, thank you for listening. And join us next week as we add another entry into this hour Macabrepedia