Case file · Folklore / legend
The Bloody Benders vanish
In spring 1873 the Bender family fled their roadside inn near Cherryvale, Kansas; searchers found the bodies of about a dozen travellers buried in the orchard.
1873 CE · 37.23, -95.46 · status: unexplained
The account
Kate Bender had advertised as a healer and spiritualist medium. The family's fate became a lasting mystery: posses claimed to have killed them, two women were arrested in 1889, and none was ever convicted.
The sceptical view
The murders are documented; what happened to the family is unknown, not supernatural.