A FAMILY OF MURDERERS,

Dunstan Times, Issue 972, 3 December 1880, Page 3

A FAMILY OF MURDERERS,

A Beries of dreadtul Crimea have just been disclosed which wore perpetrated by four persona of the name of Bender. Many years ago Header and Ida wife, who are both aged people now, made murder and theft the occupation of their lives. Finding, possibly, that fresh victims could not always bo readily obtained, they hit upon the expedient of opening an inn, which they called Render’s Hotel. The funds to carry on this place at the outset were obtained by tire butchery of a man named Holbrook, on whose person they found a large sum of money. Bender had, dreadful to relate, a son and a daughter who showed a shocking aptitude in carrying out many of the murderous schemes of their parents. Bender descrilxss them in his confession as “very good children,” their only fault, in his eyes, being that they both ran away from home before they were 20. It seems, however, that they amply made amends to him for their youthful escapade by their subsequent devotion to the horrible occupation pursued by their father. When Bender had settled down in his hotel at Kansas, and had been joined by his children, he proceeded to construct a traii-door. It happened, however, that the Ibst man doomed could not be lured upon the trap door ; but Miss Bender was equal to the occaaon, for she despatched him with akn fe. After this, Bender was in the habit of standing behind a curtain and pushing the intended victim on to the trap, d w.i wh ch he fell a sufficient distance to disable him from niakiuany seiioua resistance. The younger Benders, who were in waiting below, then fell upon him with knives and completed the crime. In tliis way not only men and women, hut their young children were butchered. How many lost their lives at the hands of this bloodthirsty family has not yet been ascertained, but the number seems to he very great from the admissions already made by the criminals. It may he mentioned that a fifth individual, a cousin of the Benders, is incriminated, a fact which might he used by s* me people as an argument in supported the theory that a disposition to homicide is an inherited evil.