Dr. William York reined his horse toward the Bender Inn. It had been a long day on the Osage Road and he was tired and hungry. He didn't think he could make it another five miles to the small town of Cherryvale. In retrospect, he should have pushed on in spite of his fatigue.

The doctor was traveling a lonely section of southeastern Kansas between Fort Scott and his home in Independence. Although little more than a cabin, the Bender Inn was a welcome sight. York hardly noticed the crudely painted sign that read GROCERIES above the rough-hewn door. Besides a meal, he knew he could get a bed for the night and a bit of grain for his horse.

Labette County, Kansas, in 1873 was still a dangerous place for a solitary man to travel. Osage Indian raids and outlaw attacks were not uncommon of in this section of wild country. Besides visiting his brother in Independence, York had also come looking for clues about a good friend and his daughter who had gone missing several months earlier. They were believed to have traveled this route.

At the inn, York didn't pay much attention to Ma or Pa Bender, who seemed unsociable and standoffish. Their son, Junior, appeared nice enough, although perhaps a simpleton. The doctor did, however, feast his eyes upon the hostess, the twenty-three- year-old Kate Bender. Her auburn hair and trim figure were a refreshing sight after a long day on the trail. Kate was not only pretty, she was also a charming conversationalist. Locally, she was known as a psychic, occasionally holding sances and lectures on spiritualism. The comely woman welcomed the travel-worn York into the inn, where a canvas screen separated the eating area from the kitchen and the sleeping cots.

Kate seated her guest with his back to the curtain and fed the hungry man while she talked to him about spiritualism and dazzled him with food, drink, and conversation. Perhaps she talked of free love, one of her tenets. At some point after the dinner, York leaned his head back against the canvas divider. Waiting behind the screen, Pa and Junior sprang into action, bashing the doctor's skull with a pair of heavy mallets. If the blows weren't enough to kill the doctor, Kate took care of that. She rushed forward with her knife and coldly slit York's throat from ear to ear. Next, she expertly rifled through York's pockets for anything of value. Within minutes, the blood was mopped up, the booty stashed, and the body unceremoniously dropped into the kitchen cellar. The Bloody Benders, as this infamous quartet of serial killers would later be called, had just bagged another victim.

The Benders would be known in history as some of the most nefarious mass murderers in the West. From 1872 to 1873, they operated out of what locals would later call "the Benders' Bloody Inn." Historians have never learned exactly how many victims (including children) met the mallet and knife at their malevolent hands. The bodies, and body parts, of at least twenty people were found on the Benders' property. Some have suggested the number of victims could be as high as forty.

The story of the Bender Inn has its roots in the post-Civil War period. Settlers complained that the Osage Indians, who had been given a portion of southeastern Kansas by treaty, should be moved so that whites could use the tribal land "the way God intended." Among the first wave of settlers was a cult of spiritualists who took up residence near the Osage Trail (later called the Osage Road). The town of Cherryvale sprung up a few miles away. Among this group of cultists were John Bender and his son, John, Jr., and each settled a section of good prairie land. The Bender women arrived after the men had made the place fit.

The spiritualists were strange, but they were industrious. They came to Sunday meetings and were deemed innocuous enough. After a while, two of the five families could not take prairie life and moved back to more settled areas.

The Benders, though, seemed to prosper. They had an enviable garden and an excellent orchard with more than fifty trees. To help make ends meet, they also opened up an inn and grocery store for the travelers along the road. They offered meals, beds for the night, and a livery with grain for livestock. In the store they sold ammunition, powder, balls, canned goods, dried fruit, jerked meat, and tobacco, among other incidentals.

It was said that if the inn had no guests in the evening, one could see the Benders out working in their beloved orchard. The ground around the trees was frequently harrowed and exceptionally well groomed.

John "Pa" Bender, the neighbors commented, was sometimes hard to understand, because of his German accent. He was thought to be in his late fifties. A large man for his day "at more than six feet tall" with black caterpillar eyebrows, he mostly kept to himself. His son, John, Jr., was a reasonably good-looking man in his twenties who was known to talk to himself as he walked or worked, and he was thought to be a little slow. But, like his father, he was a hard worker, and in those times hard work covered a multitude of sins.

Kate Bender was the only one of the four who was considered outgoing. She was affable and friendly, the sort of woman who was instantly liked by everyone. Still, she had ruffled the community with her revolutionary philosophies. She was considered by some at the time to be Satanic ("free love" in Christian small-town Kansas in the 1870s was a bit too avant-garde). But while her ideas offended some of the locals, her reputation as a looker, a hostess, and a psychic drew a number of interested customers. So did her hazel eyes and well-proportioned figure.

On occasion, Kate took her presentation on the road, visiting towns around Kansas. She was sometimes billed at lectures as a "Professor of the Supernatural." People who were interested in psychic phenomenon or who needed spiritual healing were said to seek her out. She professed to have the gift of "second sight," the ability to see into the future. She said she could communicate with spirits and could heal with herbs and charms. Kate was the perfect front woman for a confidence game.

Ma Bender also claimed to be a psychic medium, although it was said she wasn't as good as her daughter. A large woman in her early fifties, Ma was said to have a temper, and she kept her husband and son in line. She never seemed to be angry at Kate, however.

It doesn't appear that the other families in the spiritualist group knew anything about the extracurricular activities at the Bender Inn. And the family members, with Kate as the ringleader, took good care to cover their tracks.

The Benders largely targeted lonely souls who wouldn't be readily missed. After they were satisfied that the man was a good prospect, they would kill him and rob him. Travelers usually were safe from Bender malice if they were in a group or if there was another guest present. If a traveler had a local connection, if someone knew he was staying at the Bender Inn, or if the person was a regular, he would also be safe. Cattle buyers, investors, land speculators, and travelers did business cash-on-the-barrelhead, making it difficult to trace their whereabouts, and making them ideal Bender marks. The Benders preferred victims on long sojourns. Such a person might not be missed for months, and the likelihood of authorities tracing the victim back to the southeastern Kansas plains, let alone the Bender Inn, were remote. Besides, violence and trouble on the Osage Road were not uncommon. There were natural hazards to be accounted for, including getting thrown or dragged by a horse, bitten by a snake, caught in a blizzard or tornado, or swept away in a flash flood, among other things. Folks simply vanished and sometimes their remains were never found. There was also the possibility of an attack on a lonely stretch. More than one man was shot and killed for his horse or saddle, not to mention his poke of cash.

By 1873, however, the number of disappearances along the Osage Road had gotten so high that officials and local residents began paying attention. This region in southeastern Kansas had become one of the most dangerous places to travel in the West....

-from the first chapter, "Serial Killers: Harpies Most Horrible"