27- "The Worst Scoundrels To Ever Infest Kansas": The Bloody Benders

Feeling weary after a long day traveling in a rickety wagon? Stop into a cozy little house and forget your worries with a simple seance ritual; or so you think. Join us on today's episode as Hatter takes us on a messy ride to the Osage trails multitudinous murders of unsuspecting travelers, succumbing to the charms of a sweetly dubious Kate Bender and her devious family

0:00 Settling back into the frontier with this intro

03:44 Benders arrive to conduct seance business with some pretty weird mannerisms

12:13 Too many disappearing travelers for the Osage trails taste

18:15 The Bender’s constant evasion from the law concerning their heinous crimes

26:14 Conflicting narratives of incarceration or executions of the Benders

31:07 Unknown family origins and shocking discoveries of who they truly are

35:55 Share your thoughts at investigatingwithus@gmail.com and help us debunk the way complete strangers could conspire together

37:40 A sneak peek into our next episode & outro

Resources:

Kansas Historical Society

Legends of America

Richmond, Kansas: A History of the Sunflower State

Zink, Wicked Kansas

Smithsonian Magazine

https://www.humanitieskansas.org/get-involved/kansas-stories/people/true-crime-in-kansas-the-mystery-of-the-benders

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Benders

https://web.archive.org/web/20111010080847/http://www.flexassistant.com/images/Benders.pdf

https://legendsofkansas.com/labette-county-kansas/

https://kualumni.org/stories/bloody-benders-property/

https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2024/10/bloody-benders/

https://nypost.com/2022/03/26/how-a-serial-killer-family-murdered-8-and-got-away-with-it/

https://www.kansashistory.gov/kansapedia/bender-knife/10106

https://www.kansashistory.gov/kansapedia/kate-bender/11980

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/ks-benders/

Send us your stories at investigatingwithus@gmail.com. We want to hear from you!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.