The Bloody Bender
The story of the Bender family, also known as the “Bloody Benders,” is a chilling tale of terror and death in 19th-century America. This family of serial killers, consisting of John Bender, his wife Elvira, son John Jr., and daughter Kate, ran a small inn in Kansas that served as the perfect trap for weary travelers. The Benders would lure their guests into a trapdoor behind their cabin, where they would be murdered and robbed.
Over the course of a year, they amassed a body count of at least eleven victims. Despite multiple attempts by law enforcement to catch them, the Benders managed to evade capture and disappear without a trace. The story of the Bloody Benders remains one of the most infamous cases of serial killing in American history.