Gruesome Serial Killers: Gruesome, #7

By Nick Vulich

Are you afraid of things that go bump in the night? Don't look now, but some of the most gruesome serial murders occurred in your neighborhood.

 

Fourteen-year-old Jesse Pomeroy had a long history of terrorizing and brutalizing young boys around Boston, then his thoughts turned to murder. Meet America's youngest serial killer. When asked why he did it, all he could say was: "I don't know. I had to."

 

The Servant Girl Murders in Austin, Texas during 1885 puzzled investigators. Three black servant girls, and one of their boyfriends, were brutally beaten and raped in the dark of the night. Texans didn't take it seriously until two white women lost their lives on Christmas Eve. The killer was never found, but many speculate he went on to fame as Jack the Ripper, London's famed Whitechapel killer.

 

Henry Bastian, a Milan, Illinois farmer devised a unique method of getting cheap labor. He paid his farmhands a few dollars up front and promised them big money at the end of a year's service. Then he killed them, instead of paying them. At least nine young men lost their lives to his scheme.

 

Belle Gunness, the La Porte, Indiana serial killer, lured men to her murder farm by advertising for a husband in Scandinavian Matrimonial Magazines. As many as forty-two men fell victim to her wiles.

 

The Sunday Night Murderer rode the rails in the Midwest spreading terror in his wake. Twenty-five men, women, and children fell victim to his ax between 1911 and 1912. He slipped into homes in the middle of the night, bashed his victim's heads to a pulp, and moved on without leaving a clue to his identity.

 

The Dayton Strangler took six victims between 1900 and 1909. He lured them away to a quiet area, choked them nearly to death, then assaulted them. When he finished, the strangler dumped his victims in outhouse vaults.

 

Henry Spencer, Chicago's "Tango Murderer," killed upwards of thirty men and women. "I became cold-blooded," he said. "For five cents, I would kill a man and drink his blood." After his capture, he reveled detectives with stories about how he took his victims.

 

Bertha Gifford was a typical grandma, except for her tendency for homicide. She poisoned at least nineteen people she was charged with nursing back to health. After her arrest, she told detectives, "Arsenic helped me. I thought it might help them, too.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Vulich
• Release date: Feb 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215491751

Book preview

Gruesome

Serial Killers

Copyright © 2021/2023 Nick Vulich

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Table of Contents

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The Bloody Benders

Boone Helm, He Killed Them, Then He Ate Them

The Boy With the White Eye

Servant Girl Murders

Mollie Smith

Eliza Shelley

Irene Cross

Mary Ramey

Orange Washington and Gracie Vance

Sue Hancock and Eula Philipps

The Suspects

Milan Murder Farm

Belle Gunness

Sunday Night Murderer

Colorado Springs

Monmouth, Illinois

Ellsworth, Kansas

Paola, Kansas

Villisca Ax Murders

Columbia, Missouri

Dayton Strangler

Ada Lantz

Dona Gilman

Anna Markowitz and Abe Cohan

Mary Forschner

Lizzie Fulhart

The Tango Murderer

House of Mystery Murders in Catawissa

About the Author

Footnotes

The Bloody Benders

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The Devil rolled into Labette County, Kansas, sometime between October and December 1870, disguised as a family of four. The Benders settled along the Osage Trail that ran from Independence to Fort Scott.

John, Sr., sometimes known as William, and John, Jr. arrived first and set to work building a house. It was nothing more than a small, rude, frame shanty, no more than 16 x 24 feet. It sat back from the road just far enough to give the inhabitants close to a mile’s view in every direction. The house was separated into two compartments by a white sheet hung from several 2 x 4’s.

The front room was fitted up with shelves and counters, and something of the nature of a grocery was kept there, said Sheriff John R. Brunt. About four feet to the west, there was a heat stove. The backroom served as the living quarters and contained a cookstove.

The Benders opened a combination store, diner, and inn in the front half of their cabin the following spring. John Jr. hung out a simple wood sign to announce the business. It said GROCRY.

Most of their neighbors described the Benders as a quirky immigrant family who’d come to the United States from Holland or Germany—no one was sure. John Sr. was 60 years old. His wife, Elvira, Almira, in some accounts, was 55.

John Sr., better known as Pa, stood just over 6 feet tall, had piercing black eyes, and a bushy beard. He nearly always kept his head hung down as though he feared the noose of the hangman. Neighbors knew nothing about him; besides, he spoke little to no English.

Elvira Bender, or Ma, was fat, unfriendly, and had sinister eyes. The Bender family called Elvira a medium. However, the neighbors referred to her as a she-devil.

Elvira had iron-gray hair and hard, steel eyes that emitted a sinister and forbidding light. She was a tiny woman who appeared ten feet tall in a spiritual trance. As a result, it was said, the entire household feared, dreaded, and performed the devil’s work for her.

John Bender, Jr. was 25 years old. He spent most of his time sitting outside the Bender Inn, lost in reading the bible or perhaps keeping watch for likely victims. John Jr. had a strange habit of laughing aimlessly, making most people think he was a half-wit. Or maybe, it was a clever ruse to ward off suspicion.

Kate Bender attracted the most attention and hatred from her neighbors. Her description varied by who you talked with. She was 23, beautiful, super-friendly, enjoyed chatting with strangers and claimed to have psychic powers that allowed her to cure the sick and infirm. She stood five feet six inches tall, was of average weight, with long yellow hair, and was passably good looking.

Katie was a regular talker, said her neighbor, Thomas Tyack. She talked from morning till night and was not done then. Tyack’s wife was a magnetic healer and medium who conducted several seances with Kate Bender.

Kate liked to bill herself as a professor. An ad in the Independence Journal said, Prof. Miss Katie Bender can heal all sorts of diseases. Can cure blindness, fits, deafness, and all such diseases, also deaf and dumbness.

Many reporters said, the younger Mrs. Bender bore a very slippery character on the point of morality, most likely because she lectured on free love. Others hinted that she prostituted herself to travelers to earn a few extra bucks. One hundred years later, movie producer Samuel Goldwyn, Jr. described Kate Bender as sexy and beautiful with a crazy thing about spiritualism.

Strangely, a contemporary account published in Harper’s Weekly Magazine on June 7, 1873, described Kate as a repulsive-looking creature with a vicious and cruel eye. They supposed she was the ruling spirit of the family, directing the murders.

Not long after the Benders settled in Labette County, several people turned up missing much as if the earth had opened up and swallowed them.

Two boys found William Jones’s decomposing body floating in Drum Creek, near the Bender place, in May 1871. His skull was smashed in, and his throat was cut from ear to ear.

During the winter months, travelers found two naked bodies at different places along Cherry Creek, near Cherryvale. Each man had been struck on the right temple with a hammer-like instrument. Wagon tracks were discovered near the creek bank. A chunk of calico cloth dangled from a thorn bush, leading investigators to think a woman was involved. Neither body was ever identified.

On April 1, 1873, the Lawrence Daily Republican Journal reported seven persons missing and supposed to have been murdered between Osage Mission and Independence within the past six months. The Daily Commonwealth suggested a band of robbers and murderers were responsible for the seven missing travelers. The matter has become so notorious, reported the paper, that no traveler is safe on the route from [Topeka] to Osage Mission or Fort Scott.

Things came to a head in March 1873 after the disappearance of Dr. William York.

Dr. York left Fort Scott on horseback on March 9, 1873. He visited his father in Independence, Kansas, then started home. When he didn’t arrive within a reasonable time, his family looked for him.

York did everything he could to find his missing brother. He learned that William fed his horse at J. C. White’s residence on the Fort Scott Road. Dr. York stopped to talk with Harvey Burns near Walnut Station. Before leaving, York told Burns he intended to stay at Bender’s inn on his way home. That was the last anyone heard of him until his body surfaced in the Bender’s orchard.

When York stopped at the Bender place in late March, they admitted his brother stayed there. He left the following day. After that, they had no idea what became of him. John Jr. suggested that maybe a band of robbers got hold of him. Someone had shot at him not too long ago when he’d been riding near Drum Creek. Perhaps they got Dr. York. He described the place in detail and then led Colonel York’s party there, but nothing came from it.

Kate Bender was slightly more helpful. She volunteered to hold a séance to summon up Dr. York’s spirit, but only if Colonel York returned alone the following evening. Unfortunately, the non-believers in his party blocked her ability to channel the spirit world.

York wrote the Benders off when he left as an ignorant German family, fossilized with witchcraft and superstition, too besotted to carry out any act of treachery and lawless violence.  No one suspected the Benders.

Colonel York returned to the Bender Inn on April 3. A woman said she’d fled the Bender place after Elvira threatened to shoot or stab her. He wanted to know what it was all about. At first, Elvira pretended not to understand. Then, she blew up and went off like a boiling teapot. Finally, she kicked York’s men off her property.

Not long after that, Colonel York hosted a meeting at the Harmony Grove Schoolhouse. Seventy-five people attended, including John Bender, Jr. and Sr. The committee agreed to get search warrants to check every property between Drum Creek and Big Hill Creek.

A few weeks later, on May 2, Silas Tole discovered the Benders had abandoned their home and store. Detective Thomas Beers of Independence, Kansas, searched the Bender home with York’s younger brother, Edward. They found a bit of Dr. York’s harness in the back room. A few minutes later, Beers discovered a trap door. There was a sickening stench, like decomposing human remains, when he opened it.

The pit measured six feet deep and had a concrete lining. The ground inside was covered with blood and human gore. A half-acre apple orchard and garden behind the house looked like they had been recently plowed.

York and Beers walked through the garden, looking for anything suspicious or out of place. There it was. They both saw a depression in the southwest corner.

Get a wagon rod! screamed Beers.

Beers plunged the rod deep into the ground, testing several locations. If the rod stopped, it meant the clay was undisturbed. If it sunk easily into the ground, someone had been digging there.

Moments later, Beers struck something that could be human remains. They grabbed shovels and began digging. They found a partially decomposed body lying face down four feet below the surface.

Beers got down on his knees to examine the corpse. He decided the only way to identify the body was to preserve the evidence. He had a doctor chop the man’s head off. It was carefully cleaned and placed on a sheet. York immediately recognized the head as his brother, Dr. William York.

Searchers kept digging. Eventually, nine make-shift graves were found. They were all from three to five feet deep. Some accounts say seven feet. Others say they were barely covered, so it’s unclear how deep they were buried. All the bodies were laid out straight in their graves, with the right-hand flat on the right breast. The left arm was stretched out beside the body.

The Victims

In the early fall, John Boyd left his home in Independence and headed for Parsons, Kansas, to find a new job. He had just a few dollars in his pockets, maybe enough to cover food and lodging on the twenty-mile walk. That was the last anyone heard from him.

L. G. Brown came from Cedar County. He had recently sold a horse to his friend Mr. Johnson and had the misfortune to stop at the Benders for a hot meal. The next time he was seen was when searchers dug his body up in the Bender’s garden. Johnson identified him by the silver ring on his finger.

George Loncher (possibly Longchor or Longchore) purchased a team of horses from Dr. York before heading to Iowa with his daughter, Mary Ann. Accounts are all over the place on Mary Ann’s age. They range from eighteen months to eight years, but seven or eight seems closer to the truth. They were last seen on Drum Creek. A traveler found Loncher’s team sixteen miles south of the Bender cabin. Like Dr. York, the amount of money he carried varied widely. It was estimated at anywhere between $36 and $1900

Loncher and his daughter were found buried in the same grave. He was naked with the back of his skull smashed in and his throat slit.  Mary Ann was fully dressed and had no marks on her body, leading investigators to think she’d been buried alive.

Peter Boyle’s wife identified his mutilated body by his shirt. He’d set out for Osage, Missouri, on foot the previous December. It was believed he had $700 when he left his home in Independence.

William McCrotty was somewhat easier to identify. His name and birth year were tattooed on his left arm, along with his civil war regiment, the 123rd Illinois Infantry, Co. D. Like the other victims, his throat was cut, and his head smashed in. McCrotty carried close to $2,600 when the Benders did him in.

Henry McKenzie was an Ohio farmer looking for land. Some accounts said he was carrying $6,000 or $7,000 in