Kansas site of 1870s ‘Bloody Benders’ serial killings is on the auction block
A piece of land where Kansas’ first known serial killers murdered at least 11 people in the 1870s is up for auction.
The 162-acre tract of cropland known as the “Bender Farm” will be sold off to the highest bidder by an Indiana-based auction company next month in Parsons.
It’s the same parcel where the Bender family — John Sr., his wife and their adult children, John Jr. and Kate — carried out a series of gruesome slayings between 1871 and 1873. Accounts say they lured road-weary travelers into their small, two-room cabin with the promise of a hot meal and rest.
But instead of hospitality, the “Bloody Benders” slit their guests’ throats or bashed their heads in once they sat at the dinner table. They then tossed their bodies into the cellar until they could be hauled out and buried at night.
An 1870s excavation found 11 bodies in the garden and surrounding prairie.
Some theorize more still lay in deep, undisturbed graves elsewhere on the property. Some accounts suspect the family of killing up to 21 people.
What happened to the Benders is a mystery. The family fled when people became suspicious over the missing travelers. They were never captured.
The property where the Bender murders reportedly took place is among 1,061 acres of mostly cropland on the auction block on Feb. 11 in southeast Kansas. The land is divided into 15 tracts collectively known now as the “Wagner Farms.”
The tracts can be purchased separately or with others, according to a news release about the auction.
Most of the tracts are located along or near U.S. Highway 400 in Labette and Montgomery counties. The old Bender property is located on the northwest corner of the highway’s intersection with Chase Road.
Nothing on site identifies it as the serial-killing family’s former homestead.
The closest sign is a Kansas historical marker at the U.S. 400-Highway 169 rest area that doesn’t give the property’s exact location, and only says that it’s near.
The current owners of the land live out of state and want to sell because they are “completing family financial planning,” said Brent Wellings, southwest auction manager for Indiana-based Schrader Real Estate and Auction Co.
They bought the Bender land in the 1950s or 1960s, he said — long after the original homestead was picked clean by curious spectators who took whatever souvenirs they could find.
“It’s strictly cropland. There’s not been any improvements or anything there for many years,” said Wellings, who read about the Bender lore before announcing the auction in a news release that gave only a brief, downplayed nod to the family’s notorious legacy.
Although he expects the tract will likely remain cropland after it’s sold, Wellings said buying the property would be “a neat opportunity for somebody who’s interested in that type of history.”
“The visibility on Highway 400 I think makes the tract unique because it would be a really interesting place to have some type of a historical landmark. ... It’s a story that’s a big part of the history of Kansas that people know about.”
Some of the tracts also include hunting and recreation opportunities with three ponds and several creeks, the news release says.
The auction, which is open to the public, is scheduled for 6 p.m. Feb. 11 at the Cardinal Event Center, 1306 Main in Parsons. The tracts will be open for inspection twice before the sale: from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Jan. 23 and from 2 to 5 p.m. Feb. 10.
Descriptions, maps and photographs of the tracts are posted on www.schraderauction.com. The Bender land is listed on the website both as “Farm 2” and “Tract 9.”
For more information, call Wellings 800-451-2709 or 972-768-5165.
Don Richardson, a self-proclaimed “unofficial expert” on the Bloody Benders and their crimes, said he’s surprised the land is up for sale.
Last he knew, the owners had been leasing it to a farmer who used it as a wheat field. He didn’t know about the auction until The Eagle contacted him to verify the location of the property.
Richardson is on the board of directors of the Cherryvale Historical Museum — home to a Bender exhibit that includes a set of hammers the family may have used to murder victims — and routinely gives tours of the old homestead.
From what he knows, the land “never saw a plow until the 1940s.”
No one knows for sure where the Benders cabin once sat or the location of the garden where the Benders buried their victims, he said.
Richardson said a few years ago a TV crew talked to him about trying to use technology that could help find subterranean parts of the Benders’ old water well.
“If we could find that well underground, we could pinpoint where the house was,” he said.
Technology also could help determine whether a 1873 excavation for the Benders’ victims missed some of the graves.
If reports of bodies being buried 7 feet deep are correct, then it’s possible some bones might still lay undisturbed, The Eagle wrote in a 2013 article.
Wellings, the auction manager, said he is “pretty confident” that no one has used any tools to scan the land for buried victims.
“Properties like this are not offered to the public very often. It might be an opportunity that only comes up once every 100 years,” he said.
“If people want to come and see what happens and watch the farm sell, they’re welcome.”
This story was originally published January 22, 2020 at 5:01 AM.
