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Aired: Tuesday February 14, 2006

Baddies: The Bender Family

Sources: tv.com, wikipedia

arrow 1st Post: Episode Recap
arrow 2nd Post: Lore
arrow 3rd Post: Screen Caps
arrow 4th Post: Video Caps
arrow 5th Post: Interesting Facts
arrow 6th Post: Quotes

Lore:

The Bender Family: Bleeding Kansas One Body At A Time
Article is from Weird US
By: Chris Gethard

In the early days Kansas was notorious for its violence and bloodshed. The intense rivalry between abolitionists and proslavery forces earned the territory the nickname of Bleeding Kansas. Even after conflicts over slavery were a thing of the past, southeast Kansas in particular was known as a rough area. But one case in Kansas history rises above all others in the gruesome and bloody stakes. It is a tale of deception. It is the tale of the mysterious, murdering Bender family of Cherryvale.

The Bender family- parents, son, and daughter- hailed from Germany and settled just northeast of the miniscule town of Cherryvale, Kansas, in 1870. They built a small inn to provide shelter and food for travelers and their horses. With so many settlers making their way through the relatively young and unsettled state in those days, inn-keeping was a lucrative business. But apparently it was not lucrative enough for the Benders. They decided to supplement their income through incredibly treacherous means.

When a traveler would enter the Benders’ home, they would seat him at a dinner table with his back to a canvas curtain. While engaged in conversations by the young and attractive Kate Bender, the unsuspecting traveler would be attacked with a hammer by one of the Bender men, who rained blows down upon the skull of his victim. Then all four of the Benders would loot any money and possessions on the victim’s person, slit his throat, and dump him through a trapdoor into a well-like enclosure beneath their house. Later, under the cover of darkness, the body would be removed and buried in the Benders’ orchard out back. Soon the Benders began preying upon the townsfolk of Cherryville. Kate Bender hung posters in town proclaiming herself professor Miss Katie Bender, with the capacity to cure blindness, deafness, and other infirmities. She also claimed to posses psychic powers, including the ability to communicate with the dead. The Bender men would set upon her clients in their usual manner.

The sign read:

PROF. MISS KATIE BENDER

Can heal all sorts of disorders: Can cure blindness, fits, deafness and all such diseases, also ‘Deaf and Dumbness.

Residence, 14 miles East of Independence, on the road from Independence to Osage Mission one and one half smiles South East of Nornhead Station.

KATIE BENDER

June 18, 1872

In all, the Benders murdered eleven people, including George Lochner and his daughter, who in a disturbing incident became buried alive with the mutilated corpse of her father. The Kansas City Times described the discovery of her body:

“The little girl was probably eight years of age, and had long, sunny hair, and some traces of beauty on a countenance that was not yet entirely disfigured by decay. One arm was broken. The breastbone had been driven in. The right knee had been wrenched from its socket and the leg doubled up under the body. Nothing like this sickening series of crimes had ever been recorded in the whole history of the country.”

Others narrowly escaped being killed by the Benders. When one William Pickering refused to sit with his back to the canvas because of its disgusting stains, Kate Bender threatened him with a knife, at which point he fled the premises. Out of the corner of his eye a Catholic priest stopping at the inn saw one of the Bender men hiding a large hammer, and the priest escaped, using the excuse that he needed to tend to his horse.

After the disappearance of a promising local doctor in 1873, suspicions fell on the Benders, so they disappeared overnight. Soon after, eleven graves were discovered in the orchard and the nature of the murders was uncovered. Here is how the Kansas City Times described the initial investigation of the pit beneath the Benders’ home:

"[The Men] groped about over these splotches and held up a handful to the light. The ooze smeared itself over their psalms and dribbled through their fingers. It was blood-thick, fetid, calmly, sticking blood- that they had found groping there in the void. Blood perhaps, of some poor, belated traveler who had laid himself down to dream of home and kindred, and who had died while dreaming of his loved ones.”

The Bender murders quickly became national news, and rewards totaling in thousands of dollars were offered for their capture. Surprisingly, the fate of the Benders is unknown. Rumors quickly sprang up that a posse captured and hanged all four members of the family, though no such posse ever came forward. Some said that other criminals dispatched the Benders. In the early 1880s two females thought to be the Bender women were brought from Illinois to Kansas but were released after a short period, as it was impossible to prove that they were part of the murderous cadre from years before. In fact, it’s possible that the family was not a family at all, just four criminals working together.

Today little remains to remind us of these macabre incidents of Kansas’s past. The inn was destroyed soon after the discovery of the bodies, as souvenir hunters combed and dismantled the building. A marker describing the incidents stands on US 169, near the former site of the inn; it very accurately proclaims the fate of the Benders as “one of the great unsolved mysteries of the Old West.”

Video Caps:

Quotes:

Deputy Kathleen: And it just got back to me. Says here your badge was stolen. And there is a picture of you.
(shows him a picture of a large black man)
Dean: I lost some weight and I got that Michael Jackson skin disease...

Dean: Oh, you gotta be kiddin’ me. That’s what this is about? You yahoos hunt people?
Pa Bender: But the best hunt is human. Oh, there’s nothin’ like it. Holdin’ their life in your hands. Seein’ the fear in their eyes just before they go dark. Makes you feel powerful alive.
Dean: You’re a sick puppy.

Kathleen: (about Sam) Does your cousin have a drinking problem?
Dean: Two beers and he’s doin’ karaoke.

Dean: Don't ever do that again.
Sam: Do what?
Dean: Go missing like that.
Sam: You were worried about me!
Dean: I'm just saying, you vanish like that again and I'm not looking for you.
Sam: Sure you are.
Dean: No I'm not.

Dean: (talking about Sam) When we were young, I pretty much pulled him from a fire. And ever since then I've felt responsible for him, like it's my job to keep him safe.

Deputy Kathleen: So you know his brother Dean Winchester died in St. Louis and was suspected of murder?
Dean: Yeah, Dean, kinda the black sheep of the family. Handsome, though.

Sam: So you got sidelined by a 13-year old girl?
Dean: Shut up.
Sam: I'm just saying, getting a little rusty there aren't you, kiddo?

Deputy Kathleen: Your, uh… your cousin's looking for you.
Sam: Thank god. Where is he?
Deputy Kathleen: I, uh… I cuffed him to my car.

(trying to get out of handcuffs)
Dean: I gotta start carrying paperclips.

Pa Bender: So what, you with that pretty cop? Are you a cop?
Dean: If I tell you, will you promise not to make me into an ashtray?

Pa Bender: Tell me, any other cops gonna come lookin' for you?
Dean: Oh, eat me! No, no, no...wait, wait. You actually might.

Sam: I was looking for you.
Jenkins: Oh yeah?
Sam: Yeah.
Jenkins: Well, no offense, but this is a piss-poor rescue.

Pa Bender: We never been that sloppy.
Dean: Yeah, well... don’t sell yourself short – you’re plenty sloppy.

Pa Bender: Only reason I don’t let my boys take you right here and now is there’s something I need to know.
Dean: How about “It’s not nice to marry your sister”?

(looking at pictures of the family's victims)
Dean: I'll say it again. Demons I get, people are crazy!

haha! I wasn't so keen on this episode the first time I saw it.. but it grows on me more and more as I watch it over... and over.... I love the scene when dean finds sam... and the look he gives him.. it's just SO GREAT!!! xd

Yah.. and he was all giddy.... and sayin how Sam's getting rusty... hahahaha! I heart them so much...

*remember time when both Dean and Sam said 'he's my family'*.... That's SOOOOOOOOOO CUUUUUUUTE!!!! 4laugh

Ah yes... *misses mother... who has just recently gone to sleep... * blaugh but i'll see her in the morning.. All the family I have/need is right here.

bwa... it's 2 AM... and I have to work at 11 tomorrow... but I usually stay up till 7 AM.... you think I'm gonna sleep at all tonight? I think not.. sweatdrop cry