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    Kate Bender, The Kansas Murderess: The Horrible History of an Arch Killer
    Kate Bender, The Kansas Murderess: The Horrible History of an Arch Killer
    Kate Bender, The Kansas Murderess: The Horrible History of an Arch Killer
    Ebook53 pages53 minutes

    Kate Bender, The Kansas Murderess: The Horrible History of an Arch Killer

    By Vance Rudolph

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    About this ebook

    First published in 1944, this is an unusual little edition concerning the infamous Kate Bender and her family, also known as the “Bloody Benders,” who owned an inn and small general store in Labette County of southeastern Kansas from 1871 to 1873 and systematically murdered at least a dozen travellers that passed through their hotel and store, with Kate luring men with promise of a meal and a rest.

    Consisting of John Bender, his wife, Elvira Bender, their son, John, Jr., and daughter, Kate, the Bender family were widely believed to be German immigrants. Kate Bender, who was around 23, was cultivated and attractive and spoke English well with very little accent. A self-proclaimed healer and psychic, she distributed flyers advertising her supernatural powers and her ability to cure illnesses. She also conducted séances and gave lectures on spiritualism, for which she gained notoriety for advocating free love. Kate’s popularity became a large attraction for the Benders’ inn.

    This book details the family’s crimes and explores some theories on the family’s fate following the discovery of their crimes and escape from justice.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPapamoa Press
    Release dateJun 28, 2017
    ISBN9781787204706
    Kate Bender, The Kansas Murderess: The Horrible History of an Arch Killer
    Author

    Vance Rudolph

    Vance Randolph (February 23, 1892 - November 1, 1980) was a folklorist who studied the folklore of the Ozarks in particular. He wrote a number of books on topics including the Ozarks, Little Blue Books, and juvenile fiction. Randolph was born in Pittsburg, Kansas in 1892, the son of a lawyer and a teacher. Despite being born in a privileged home, Randolph dropped out of high school to work on left-leaning publications. This did not stop him from attending college and he graduated from what is now Pittsburg State University in 1914. He pursued graduate work at Clark University and received a Master of Arts degree in psychology. He later dedicated his book Ozark Superstitions (1947) to the memory of his Clark mentor G. Stanley Hall. In 1927, Randolph had his first article published in the Journal of American Folklore, based on work on Ozark dialect and folk beliefs. The dialect work led to multiple publications throughout the 1920s and 1930s in American Speech and Dialect Notes. He moved to Pineville, McDonald County, Missouri in 1919. He never moved away from the Ozarks and remained in the Ozark Mountains from 1920 until his death. He made a living by writing for sporting and outdoor publications. While writing, Randolph used pseudonyms, but never for his work on the Ozark culture. For example, his 1944 work, Kate Bender, The Kansas Murderess: The Horrible History of an Arch Killer was published under the pseudonym Allison Hardy. Randolph wrote about non-folklore aspects of Ozark society, such as music. His Ozark Mountain Folks (1932) describes the creation of a distinctive church choir singing style created by a corps of uncredentialled, itinerant choral instructors. Pissing in the Snow and Other Ozark Folktales (1976) was a national bestseller. He published over a dozen works on Ozark folklore. In 1949 he and the poet John Gould Fletcher founded the Ozark Folklore Society. Randolph died in 1980 at the age of 88

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      Book preview

      Kate Bender, The Kansas Murderess - Vance Rudolph

      This edition is published by Papamoa Press – www.pp-publishing.com

      To join our mailing list for new titles or for issues with our books – papamoapress@gmail.com

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      Text originally published in 1944 under the same title.

      © Papamoa Press 2017, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

      Publisher’s Note

      Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

      We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

      KATE BENDER, THE KANSAS MURDERESS:

      THE HORRIBLE HISTORY OF AN ARCH KILLER

      BY

      ALLISON HARDY

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Contents

      TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

      KATE BENDER, THE KANSAS MURDERESS 4

      REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 27

      KATE BENDER, THE KANSAS MURDERESS

      The State of Kansas, in the 1870’s, was a wild and lawless region. Like the Indian Territory which adjoined it on the South, Kansas was a haven for criminals and outlaws who had fled from more thickly populated regions in the North and East. Settlements were few and far between, and the citizens were reared in the tradition that a man’s past was his own business. Such law and order as existed was administered by a few local officers, and some of these marshals were themselves fugitives from justice. This was the setting for the Bender murder farm, where more than a score of travelers were butchered for their money. The disclosure of these crimes, in 1873, made front-page news all over the United States.

      The origin of the Bender family is shrouded in mystery, and a great deal of material that has been written about them is based upon fireside tradition rather than upon established fact. One story is that they came from a German settlement in Pennsylvania, having been driven out by their neighbors because Mrs. Bender and her daughter Kate were suspected of hexerei or witchcraft. According to this yarn the two women went into a graveyard at midnight, in the dark of the moon, and removed every stitch of their clothing, which they hung on an infidel’s tombstone. They began in German with a verbal renunciation of the Christian religion, and swore to give themselves body and soul to the devil. Then they both delivered their bodies up to the Dark Stranger—a man who was inducting them, into the mystery. The sexual act completed, all three chanted certain obscene couplets—terrible words which assemble devils, and the spirits of the evil dead—and ended by reciting the Lord’s prayer backward. This done, the two women were pronounced witches, bound by unspeakable oaths to serve their new master through all eternity.

      It is a fact that many Pennsylvania Germans, even today, are firm believers in witchcraft and the like. I have myself met people in rural Pennsylvania who believe that a woman who has sold her soul to Satan in this fashion has supernatural powers, and is able to do many things which are impossible for ordinary mortals. A witch, these backwoods Germans say, can assume the form of any bird or animal, but cats and wolves seem to be her favorite disguises. Witches are supposed to delight in casting spells upon their neighbors, evil spells which cause illness or insanity or violent death. Crop failures, loss of livestock, fires, cyclones, floods and other calamities are often attributed to some woman in the neighborhood who is supposed to have sold herself to the Devil. The testimony given in court, in connection with several so-called hex murders in Pennsylvania only a few years ago, might have been copied from some medieval book on demonology.

      The Benders were German all right, and other Germans who talked with them in Kansas said that they spoke the broken dialect of the Pennsylvania Dutch, but the story about Kate and her

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