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True Murder with your host 31 00:01:30.719 --> 00:01:33.159 journalist and author Dan Zupanski. 32 00:01:41.159 --> 00:01:44.400 Good Evening, a suspense filled tale of murder on the 33 00:01:44.400 --> 00:01:47.840 American frontier, shedding new light on a family of serial 34 00:01:47.959 --> 00:01:51.599 killers in Kansas whose horrifying crimes gripped the attention of 35 00:01:51.640 --> 00:01:55.159 a nation still reeling from war. In eighteen seventy three, 36 00:01:55.239 --> 00:01:58.959 the people of Lobette County, Kansas made a grizzly discovery 37 00:01:59.400 --> 00:02:03.079 buried by trailside cabin beneath an orchard of young apple trees, 38 00:02:03.560 --> 00:02:07.120 where the remains of countless bodies. Below the cabin itself 39 00:02:07.200 --> 00:02:10.360 was a cellar stained with blood. The Benders, the family 40 00:02:10.400 --> 00:02:13.360 of four who once resided on the property, were nowhere 41 00:02:13.360 --> 00:02:16.960 to be found. Discovery sent the local community and national 42 00:02:17.000 --> 00:02:20.919 newspapers into a frenzy that continued for decades, sparking an 43 00:02:20.960 --> 00:02:24.159 epic manhunt for the Venders. The idea that a family 44 00:02:24.199 --> 00:02:29.080 of seemingly respectable homesteaders, one among the thousands relocating farther 45 00:02:29.120 --> 00:02:32.120 west in search of land and opportunity after the Civil War, 46 00:02:32.360 --> 00:02:36.360 were capable of operating a human slaughter pen appalled and 47 00:02:36.479 --> 00:02:40.400 fascinated a nation. But who the Benders really were, why 48 00:02:40.439 --> 00:02:43.520 they committed such a vicious killing spree, and whether justice 49 00:02:43.599 --> 00:02:46.319 ever caught up to them is a mystery that remains 50 00:02:46.400 --> 00:02:50.159 unsolved to this day. Set against the backdrop of post 51 00:02:50.159 --> 00:02:55.080 Bellum America, Hell's Half Acre explores the environment capable of 52 00:02:55.120 --> 00:02:59.759 allowing such horrors to take place. Drawing on extensive original 53 00:02:59.840 --> 00:03:04.759 art kybo material Susan Jonasis introduces us to a fascinating 54 00:03:04.840 --> 00:03:08.199 cast of characters, many of whom have been previously missing 55 00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:11.520 from the story. Among them are the families of the victims, 56 00:03:11.919 --> 00:03:15.520 the hapless detectives who lost the trail, and the fugitives 57 00:03:15.520 --> 00:03:18.919 that help the murderers escape. Hell's half Acre is a 58 00:03:19.039 --> 00:03:23.080 journey into the turbulent heart of nineteenth century America, a 59 00:03:23.080 --> 00:03:28.719 place where moderny stalks across the landscape, violently displacing existing 60 00:03:28.800 --> 00:03:32.120 populations and building new ones. It is a world where 61 00:03:32.360 --> 00:03:35.639 folklore can quickly become fact and an entire family of 62 00:03:35.639 --> 00:03:39.639 criminals can slip through a community's fingers, only to reappear 63 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:43.680 in the most unexpected of places. The book that we're 64 00:03:43.680 --> 00:03:47.800 featuring this evening is Hell's Half Acre, The Untold Story 65 00:03:47.840 --> 00:03:52.439 of the Benders, a serial killer family on the American Frontier, 66 00:03:52.960 --> 00:03:57.400 with my special guests, historian and author Susan Jonasis. Welcome 67 00:03:57.439 --> 00:03:59.960 to the program, and thank you very much for this interview. 68 00:04:00.479 --> 00:04:03.560 Susan Jonasis, thank you so much for having me. 69 00:04:03.879 --> 00:04:07.520 Thank you so much, and congratulations on this incredible book. 70 00:04:07.800 --> 00:04:08.199 Thank you. 71 00:04:09.120 --> 00:04:11.719 It's been a really exciting time to be able to 72 00:04:11.759 --> 00:04:14.840 talk to people about a story that I've been interested 73 00:04:14.879 --> 00:04:16.240 in for so long. 74 00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:20.839 Absolutely, you were a historian, as I mentioned in the introduction, 75 00:04:21.160 --> 00:04:26.439 specializing in crime and culture in the nineteenth and twentieth century. 76 00:04:26.800 --> 00:04:29.360 A large part of your studies focused on the treatment 77 00:04:29.399 --> 00:04:33.000 of the female criminal during the nineteenth century. How and 78 00:04:33.120 --> 00:04:36.040 when did you learn about the story about the Bender family. 79 00:04:36.519 --> 00:04:39.240 So, I actually first came across the story of the 80 00:04:39.279 --> 00:04:41.959 Bender family in a book that I picked up from 81 00:04:42.040 --> 00:04:45.240 a thrift store. It's like a big coffee table book 82 00:04:45.279 --> 00:04:48.879 from the early nineties about famous crimes that had happened 83 00:04:49.199 --> 00:04:52.079 over the years, and there's obviously lots and lots of 84 00:04:52.120 --> 00:04:56.560 different crimes in there, but this particular story of the 85 00:04:56.600 --> 00:04:59.600 Bloody Benders as they're sort of more colloquially known, which 86 00:04:59.600 --> 00:05:01.639 is really stuck out to me because it was so 87 00:05:01.920 --> 00:05:04.680 different from everything else in the book. There was this 88 00:05:04.759 --> 00:05:07.279 young woman at the center of it, there was this 89 00:05:07.399 --> 00:05:10.319 mystery about where the family went, and there was quite 90 00:05:10.360 --> 00:05:14.040 a like specific set of facts that existed. They kind 91 00:05:14.040 --> 00:05:17.439 of focused just around eighteen seventy three, and I just 92 00:05:17.560 --> 00:05:19.839 kept coming back to it. I kind of look for 93 00:05:19.920 --> 00:05:22.279 other things on the vendors where I could find it, 94 00:05:22.639 --> 00:05:25.240 and eventually, after I finished my masters, I thought, you 95 00:05:25.279 --> 00:05:27.959 know what I feel like, now I'm equipped to actually 96 00:05:28.040 --> 00:05:30.199 kind of dig in and find out about a bit 97 00:05:30.199 --> 00:05:30.920 more about this. 98 00:05:32.560 --> 00:05:37.519 Now, you say you started with nineteenth century newspapers, and 99 00:05:37.879 --> 00:05:41.000 there was inherent problems with that, but also you started 100 00:05:41.040 --> 00:05:45.319 with the Kansas Historical Society state archives. So just tell 101 00:05:45.399 --> 00:05:49.879 us briefly how you underwent this investigation and to gather 102 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:53.160 this new information about the Bender family. 103 00:05:53.600 --> 00:05:56.560 So when I started, like you said, I started with 104 00:05:56.600 --> 00:05:59.439 the newspapers because that was kind of the most readily 105 00:05:59.519 --> 00:06:01.959 available source to me as well because obviously I live 106 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:04.720 in the UK, but I also knew that I'd never 107 00:06:04.759 --> 00:06:07.680 be able to write the book without visiting the Kansas 108 00:06:07.680 --> 00:06:11.639 State Archives, and I had kind of a general idea 109 00:06:11.879 --> 00:06:14.800 of the kind of structure of the story, but also 110 00:06:14.879 --> 00:06:17.560 what was missing from it. So there was next to 111 00:06:17.639 --> 00:06:20.600 no information on the victims. We didn't really have any 112 00:06:20.720 --> 00:06:23.839 kind of first hand accounts written by people involved in 113 00:06:23.879 --> 00:06:26.680 the case at that point. And then so I went 114 00:06:26.720 --> 00:06:30.800 to the archives and I systematically worked through the boxes 115 00:06:30.839 --> 00:06:34.319 of governor's correspondents that they have from about eighteen seventy 116 00:06:34.519 --> 00:06:37.560 right up until kind of nineteen twenty, and there's still 117 00:06:37.600 --> 00:06:39.560 correspondence about the vendors. 118 00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:40.639 But in that. 119 00:06:40.519 --> 00:06:44.120 Specific period from eighteen seventy to kind of eighteen eighty, 120 00:06:44.560 --> 00:06:49.279 there's all these letters written by law enforcement, written by detectives, 121 00:06:49.319 --> 00:06:52.600 written by local people who are looking for family members 122 00:06:52.680 --> 00:06:56.720 or community members, and then written by the family of 123 00:06:56.839 --> 00:07:00.439 William Yorke, who obviously end up really pushing the search 124 00:07:00.519 --> 00:07:03.920 for the venders that ultimately leads to the discovery. 125 00:07:03.399 --> 00:07:04.439 Of the murders. 126 00:07:04.480 --> 00:07:06.439 And it was amazing to finally be able to have 127 00:07:06.519 --> 00:07:09.639 the voices and to start filling in those gaps that 128 00:07:09.680 --> 00:07:12.839 had existed for so long and working out just exactly 129 00:07:12.920 --> 00:07:17.079 when townspeople started to be concerned about people missing in 130 00:07:17.120 --> 00:07:20.600 the area, how close detective actually got to the family, 131 00:07:20.800 --> 00:07:23.879 and then kind of the bureaucratic elements that actually stood 132 00:07:24.319 --> 00:07:27.199 in the way of that. And then on top of that, 133 00:07:27.240 --> 00:07:30.199 there's an amazing account written by a widow of one 134 00:07:30.199 --> 00:07:32.720 of the victims, by Mary York that she wrote in 135 00:07:32.759 --> 00:07:35.800 eighteen seventy five because she was very fed up with 136 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:38.800 all the attention kind of being on the venders themselves 137 00:07:39.199 --> 00:07:41.600 and not on her family and the families of the 138 00:07:41.600 --> 00:07:44.360 other victims. And that was a really important account as well, 139 00:07:44.399 --> 00:07:46.759 because it felt like it gave the story just added 140 00:07:46.879 --> 00:07:47.680 emotional weight. 141 00:07:49.240 --> 00:07:53.000 Let's go to the benders and when they appear in 142 00:07:53.800 --> 00:07:59.079 Osage Township and also in this area between Fort Scott 143 00:07:59.120 --> 00:08:04.680 and Independent and in this place called Labette County. So 144 00:08:04.920 --> 00:08:08.120 tell us it's the southeast corner of Kansas. But tell 145 00:08:08.199 --> 00:08:11.079 us about the vendors coming to this little neck of 146 00:08:11.079 --> 00:08:15.319 the woods in Kansas in eighteen sixty seven or eighteen ninety. 147 00:08:15.360 --> 00:08:19.480 Pardon me, was there eighteen seventy Oh. 148 00:08:19.399 --> 00:08:21.040 Yes, yes, eighteen seventy. 149 00:08:21.199 --> 00:08:24.079 So the venders sort of appeer as lots of people 150 00:08:24.120 --> 00:08:26.839 did at this point in time on the frontier. They's 151 00:08:27.160 --> 00:08:29.879 just turned up looking to take advantage of the Homestead 152 00:08:29.920 --> 00:08:33.559 Act and set up farmland essentially where if they worked 153 00:08:33.559 --> 00:08:35.320 it for five years they could bed buy it it 154 00:08:35.360 --> 00:08:39.759 would be theirs. And so the men arrived first just 155 00:08:39.799 --> 00:08:44.360 before Christmas, and they built this cabin on the Osage 156 00:08:44.440 --> 00:08:48.399 Mission Trail, which was a trail that took was joining 157 00:08:48.480 --> 00:08:52.200 all the new settlements in the area together, so lots 158 00:08:52.240 --> 00:08:54.879 of people traveled on it, but there were also portions 159 00:08:54.919 --> 00:08:57.879 of the road which were very desolate, which was where 160 00:08:58.039 --> 00:09:00.919 the vendors chose to build their cabin. Reasons that then 161 00:09:01.200 --> 00:09:04.960 became obvious. And then the women joined them kind of 162 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:08.279 in early eighteen seventy one, and they set up a 163 00:09:08.480 --> 00:09:12.120 grocery store and marketed themselves as kind of an inn 164 00:09:12.120 --> 00:09:15.279 where people could stock up on goods or spend the night. 165 00:09:15.879 --> 00:09:19.600 They were the older couple, so mar and Pa, who 166 00:09:19.720 --> 00:09:23.639 we know really next to nothing about. They didn't interact 167 00:09:23.639 --> 00:09:27.279 that much with the community. Marv didn't really speak English. 168 00:09:27.440 --> 00:09:29.679 And then you have the younger couple, which kind of 169 00:09:29.799 --> 00:09:33.399 most accounts tend to focus on. You've got Kate Bender, 170 00:09:33.559 --> 00:09:36.559 who's a young woman in her late teens early twenties. 171 00:09:36.919 --> 00:09:40.000 There's lots of debate over how attractive she was, but 172 00:09:40.080 --> 00:09:44.080 she was certainly initially charismatic enough for lots of people 173 00:09:44.080 --> 00:09:46.159 to be interested in her and to visit the cabin. 174 00:09:46.840 --> 00:09:50.080 And then you've got John Gebhart, who was in his 175 00:09:50.200 --> 00:09:54.000 late twenties and was not as popular as Kate because 176 00:09:54.440 --> 00:09:56.559 a lot of people thought that there was something a 177 00:09:56.600 --> 00:10:00.360 bit off with him, but not necessarily nefarious. So you 178 00:10:00.440 --> 00:10:03.919 have this little group of people who are presenting themselves 179 00:10:03.919 --> 00:10:08.120 as a nuclear family and as kind of youthful people 180 00:10:08.159 --> 00:10:11.679 in the community. And you've got then Kate as well, 181 00:10:11.720 --> 00:10:15.519 who travels about offering to heal people because she's a 182 00:10:15.559 --> 00:10:20.320 spiritualist and believes that she essentially has magical powers that 183 00:10:20.440 --> 00:10:23.840 allow her to speak to the dead and treat people's illnesses. 184 00:10:24.320 --> 00:10:27.639 You would introduce Leroy Dick, who is Leroy Dick in 185 00:10:27.720 --> 00:10:28.440 this community. 186 00:10:28.919 --> 00:10:31.559 So Leroy Dick at that point in time was the 187 00:10:31.600 --> 00:10:35.759 township trustee, So that's someone who looks after all the 188 00:10:35.799 --> 00:10:39.480 burgeoning communities in the area. He ran a Sunday school 189 00:10:39.519 --> 00:10:42.320 at Harmony Grove, which was really the hub of Labette 190 00:10:42.360 --> 00:10:45.799 County's community at that point in time, it was his 191 00:10:45.879 --> 00:10:48.600 job to kind of make sure that the community were 192 00:10:48.639 --> 00:10:52.879 supporting each other, but also to deal with problems between 193 00:10:52.919 --> 00:10:55.799 neighbors and that sort of thing. And he becomes a 194 00:10:55.840 --> 00:10:59.840 really integral part of the story because he sort of 195 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:03.200 ignores the disappearances for a while and writes them off 196 00:11:03.240 --> 00:11:06.399 as just issues with living on the front here, which 197 00:11:06.440 --> 00:11:10.360 to an extent was fair enough. And then as more 198 00:11:10.440 --> 00:11:14.679 people start to disappear, his own cousin disappears, it then 199 00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:17.440 becomes kind of obvious that something else is going on, 200 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:22.039 and he continues to be very invested in apprehending the 201 00:11:22.519 --> 00:11:26.600 Venders right up until eighteen eighty nine, when he is 202 00:11:26.879 --> 00:11:30.399 heavily involved in the arrest of two women he thinks 203 00:11:30.440 --> 00:11:31.559 are the perpetrators. 204 00:11:31.919 --> 00:11:35.519 You introduce another character, Rudolph Brockman. Tell us who he 205 00:11:35.679 --> 00:11:40.240 is and the behavior at the grocery at this stop 206 00:11:40.320 --> 00:11:43.919 for tourists, what, as you write early on, what is 207 00:11:43.960 --> 00:11:48.080 the experience of people were connected to Rudolph Brockman and 208 00:11:48.159 --> 00:11:52.240 people recommended to stay at this place that the venders 209 00:11:52.240 --> 00:11:52.879 are operating. 210 00:11:53.519 --> 00:11:56.919 So Rudolph Brockman ran a kind of similar, I guess 211 00:11:57.039 --> 00:12:00.720 establishment to the Benders that existed before they arrived in 212 00:12:00.720 --> 00:12:04.200 the area, so you could stop at Brockman's or you 213 00:12:04.240 --> 00:12:06.519 could stop at the Benders to pick up on goods, 214 00:12:06.879 --> 00:12:11.360 and early on, Rudolph Brockman sort of recommends people to 215 00:12:11.440 --> 00:12:14.679 stay with the Benders while they're looking for places in 216 00:12:14.679 --> 00:12:19.080 the area. But then there's a particular event where some 217 00:12:19.279 --> 00:12:22.559 female relatives stay with the Benders. They go for a walk, 218 00:12:22.639 --> 00:12:26.279 they come back, some of their items are missing. They 219 00:12:26.600 --> 00:12:29.559 start to accuse the Benders of stealing them, and the 220 00:12:29.639 --> 00:12:32.840 Venders kind of whisk them away to another person's house 221 00:12:32.879 --> 00:12:36.080 and say, oh, no, there's just horse thieves in the area. 222 00:12:36.559 --> 00:12:40.759 It couldn't possibly be us. And so Rudolph Brockman develops 223 00:12:40.799 --> 00:12:45.039 this kind of unfortunate association with the Benders, which ultimately 224 00:12:45.039 --> 00:12:49.720 because he's also German and they're obviously German, so at 225 00:12:49.759 --> 00:12:53.039 the time the crimes are discovered, he becomes a real 226 00:12:53.159 --> 00:12:55.960 focus point for the community and they actually try to 227 00:12:56.000 --> 00:13:00.399 hang him as an accomplice, but he thankfully manages to 228 00:13:00.399 --> 00:13:01.559 survive that experience. 229 00:13:01.919 --> 00:13:06.759 Let's get back to the Venders and how it slowly 230 00:13:06.960 --> 00:13:11.399 is revealed that this family is up to much more 231 00:13:11.559 --> 00:13:15.679 nefarious things than what they purport to be, so tell 232 00:13:15.720 --> 00:13:18.840 us how this unravels and what it leads to the 233 00:13:18.960 --> 00:13:21.600 characters looking for retribution. 234 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:26.240 So the essentially, over the three year period that the 235 00:13:26.320 --> 00:13:29.879 vendors are living in Labette County, at least, and I 236 00:13:29.960 --> 00:13:32.399 say at least because I feel personally that there were 237 00:13:32.559 --> 00:13:36.679 potentially more, but at least eleven confirmed people were murdered 238 00:13:36.879 --> 00:13:40.159 by the family. That's sort of a slow drip feed. 239 00:13:40.240 --> 00:13:43.720 At first, a couple of unidentified bodies turn up on 240 00:13:43.759 --> 00:13:47.120 the prairie. There's a man called William Jones who's found 241 00:13:47.120 --> 00:13:49.600 in a creek by two boys, and he's got very 242 00:13:49.600 --> 00:13:53.000 distinctive head wounds, his temples have been bashed in, and 243 00:13:53.039 --> 00:13:56.559 his throat's been slit. And he's then identified by his 244 00:13:56.639 --> 00:13:59.080 wife and she says that he was traveling in the 245 00:13:59.120 --> 00:14:03.120 area trying to land claim. And then in the autumn 246 00:14:03.159 --> 00:14:08.559 of eighteen seventy two, five men disappear in very quick succession, 247 00:14:09.399 --> 00:14:13.480 including a man called George Longka and his little eighteen 248 00:14:13.480 --> 00:14:16.840 month old daughter, mary Anne, and their neighbors of a 249 00:14:16.879 --> 00:14:20.799 man called William York and William York. When he gets 250 00:14:20.919 --> 00:14:24.440 wor that George and mary Anne haven't arrived at their 251 00:14:24.480 --> 00:14:29.000 intended destination. He sort of having known about other disappearances 252 00:14:29.039 --> 00:14:33.000 in the area things something's really not right, and decides 253 00:14:33.039 --> 00:14:35.120 that he's going to set out to look for them. 254 00:14:36.080 --> 00:14:37.960 And then he disappears. 255 00:14:38.159 --> 00:14:41.960 And he is the brother of a man called Alexander York, 256 00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:44.039 who at that point in time was a kind of 257 00:14:44.360 --> 00:14:50.879 infamous Canson celebrity. He'd been involved in exposing corruption in 258 00:14:50.919 --> 00:14:54.440 the Kansas Senate, but in doing so he'd also completely 259 00:14:54.480 --> 00:14:58.279 destroyed his own political career, and the newspapers were very 260 00:14:58.320 --> 00:15:00.919 interested in him at the time, and the family also 261 00:15:00.960 --> 00:15:04.200 had a lot more money, so they organized this big 262 00:15:04.279 --> 00:15:08.639 search for William. And there's also an amazing letter written 263 00:15:08.639 --> 00:15:11.519 by a man who lived in a settlement called the Door, 264 00:15:11.840 --> 00:15:13.679 which was getting a lot of blame for crime in 265 00:15:13.679 --> 00:15:16.240 the area, and he writes to the state and he says, 266 00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:19.120 we need help, and we need help now. And that 267 00:15:19.279 --> 00:15:21.559 was one of the sources that I was really pleased 268 00:15:21.600 --> 00:15:24.960 to find because it was such a clear cry for 269 00:15:25.080 --> 00:15:28.279 assistance and the fact that they'd essentially been ignored until 270 00:15:28.360 --> 00:15:32.720 somebody more prominent had disappeared. But yeah, ultimately the vendors 271 00:15:32.879 --> 00:15:36.840 interact with Alexander York. They then feel that they can't 272 00:15:36.960 --> 00:15:40.200 kind of maintain this veneer anymore, and they flee in 273 00:15:40.240 --> 00:15:43.120 the middle of the night. And then about a month later, 274 00:15:43.679 --> 00:15:47.720 neighbor of theirs discovers that the farm is abandoned, and 275 00:15:48.679 --> 00:15:51.320 the kind of discovery of the bodies in the orchard 276 00:15:51.399 --> 00:15:51.840 goes from that. 277 00:15:52.639 --> 00:15:55.639 You talk about the discovery by one of the neighbors 278 00:15:55.679 --> 00:16:00.240 comes by and here's some whining from an animal. So 279 00:16:00.279 --> 00:16:04.480 then goes to the where the animal might be, and 280 00:16:04.799 --> 00:16:08.519 smells are obviously a dead caf. But you write about 281 00:16:09.080 --> 00:16:12.720 either this person or another person have an experience in 282 00:16:12.759 --> 00:16:17.919 the Civil War that was fairly recent, and they recognize 283 00:16:17.960 --> 00:16:20.919 the smell of human death. So tell us about this 284 00:16:21.039 --> 00:16:25.679 recognition who does this? And the introduction of the Tall brothers. 285 00:16:26.360 --> 00:16:30.200 So the man who discovers that the farm is abandoned 286 00:16:30.360 --> 00:16:34.559 is a young man called Billy Toll, and he initially 287 00:16:34.879 --> 00:16:38.639 thinks that the people who have been causing the disappearances 288 00:16:38.679 --> 00:16:41.480 in the area have potentially taken the venders as well, 289 00:16:41.879 --> 00:16:44.279 that the benders themselves might be victims of foul play. 290 00:16:44.960 --> 00:16:48.039 So he goes to Harmony Grove Schoolhouse where he tells 291 00:16:48.120 --> 00:16:51.840 Lee Roy Dick, who's obviously the trustee, that the vendors 292 00:16:51.879 --> 00:16:54.320 have abandoned their farm, that it looks like it's been 293 00:16:54.360 --> 00:16:56.840 abandoned for a long time, and that they left in 294 00:16:56.879 --> 00:16:57.360 a hurry. 295 00:16:57.600 --> 00:16:58.480 And then Lee Roy. 296 00:16:58.399 --> 00:17:01.320 Dick, who is and most of the men actually involved 297 00:17:01.440 --> 00:17:05.160 in the discovery of the bodies, and a lot of 298 00:17:05.240 --> 00:17:07.640 the men on the frontier as well are veterans of 299 00:17:07.680 --> 00:17:10.759 the Civil War, so they have kind of a passing 300 00:17:10.799 --> 00:17:14.079 knowledge or very kind of grim experience of what it 301 00:17:14.119 --> 00:17:17.720 means to be around kind of dead, decomposing bodies. But 302 00:17:17.839 --> 00:17:21.440 Leroy Dick visits the site on his own and he 303 00:17:21.559 --> 00:17:27.079 immediately recognizes this smell of human decomposition, and he becomes 304 00:17:27.079 --> 00:17:30.519 frustrated because he can't work out exactly where it's coming from, 305 00:17:30.920 --> 00:17:34.960 and there's no clear kind of indication on the property 306 00:17:35.119 --> 00:17:39.720 except this seller that's below the cabin. And he then 307 00:17:39.839 --> 00:17:44.519 organizes this big search and which includes the Toll brothers 308 00:17:44.559 --> 00:17:47.680 and also people like Maurice Sparks or the local men 309 00:17:47.720 --> 00:17:50.400 in the era who've previously been at a meeting discussing 310 00:17:50.440 --> 00:17:53.519 what should be done about the disappearances. They all turn 311 00:17:53.640 --> 00:17:56.279 up and they dig and they dig and they dig, 312 00:17:56.400 --> 00:18:00.519 and then eventually in the orchard in next to cabin 313 00:18:01.480 --> 00:18:04.079 is where they find the bodies of the missing people. 314 00:18:04.319 --> 00:18:07.960 Now, what is the response you talk about the media 315 00:18:08.119 --> 00:18:12.079 at that time, What is the media's response, and what 316 00:18:12.400 --> 00:18:15.279 is law enforcement's response? What do they do? 317 00:18:15.640 --> 00:18:19.799 So the response from the media I found absolutely fascinating just. 318 00:18:19.720 --> 00:18:22.880 In terms of how immediate it was. 319 00:18:23.759 --> 00:18:27.319 So the day after William York's body has found, his 320 00:18:27.440 --> 00:18:29.559 body is the first to be found, and his younger 321 00:18:29.599 --> 00:18:32.160 brother Ed is there as well as a detective when 322 00:18:32.160 --> 00:18:35.519 it happens, and the following day it's kind of front 323 00:18:35.519 --> 00:18:38.920 page news in the local newspapers, and then sort of 324 00:18:38.960 --> 00:18:42.119 three days later, it's front page news across the nation. 325 00:18:42.279 --> 00:18:45.440 It's in the New York Times and newspapers like that, 326 00:18:46.039 --> 00:18:51.559 and there's kind of a weird tabloid elation that's such 327 00:18:51.599 --> 00:18:56.640 an insane, awful and also completely out of the blue 328 00:18:56.640 --> 00:19:00.000 crime has been committed. There hadn't really been a crime 329 00:19:00.119 --> 00:19:03.440 committed like this before. The fact that a young woman 330 00:19:03.720 --> 00:19:06.759 was involved in the crime and that the crime involved 331 00:19:06.799 --> 00:19:12.440 the child being killed kind of catapulted it into infamy overnight. 332 00:19:13.119 --> 00:19:15.519 And they really latched onto this idea of the family 333 00:19:15.559 --> 00:19:19.160 being spiritualists as well, and they talked a lot about 334 00:19:19.160 --> 00:19:22.279 how Kate had, you know, like other friends in the 335 00:19:22.319 --> 00:19:26.279 era who practiced spiritualism, and maybe they were also complicit 336 00:19:26.920 --> 00:19:29.759 in the murders. And there were lots of bunk arrests, 337 00:19:29.880 --> 00:19:33.759 i'd say, in the immediate aftermath, just because law enforcement 338 00:19:34.039 --> 00:19:38.400 had essentially ignored disappearances for so long, and the scale 339 00:19:38.440 --> 00:19:43.240 of the tragedy is revealed, and they panic and arrest 340 00:19:43.720 --> 00:19:47.720 a bunch of James Roach's family, who's the man who 341 00:19:47.759 --> 00:19:50.119 wrote the letter appealing to them for help in the 342 00:19:50.160 --> 00:19:54.240 first place, which they ignored, And those men are eventually released, 343 00:19:54.680 --> 00:19:57.799 but they're kind of arrested as a knee jerk reaction, 344 00:19:58.480 --> 00:20:01.759 just I think because it's such an awful crime for 345 00:20:01.960 --> 00:20:05.000 the community to have to deal with. There's an embarrassment 346 00:20:05.119 --> 00:20:10.559 that the perpetrators have gone, that they've been gone for 347 00:20:10.599 --> 00:20:14.799 a month and nobody realized. So law enforcement kind of 348 00:20:14.799 --> 00:20:18.720 make a rash series of arrest and it's really Alexander 349 00:20:18.839 --> 00:20:22.039 Yorke and his friend Colonel Peckham and a group of 350 00:20:22.480 --> 00:20:26.039 private detectives who end up being hired by the Governor 351 00:20:26.079 --> 00:20:29.839 of Kansas to go out after the vendors. After that 352 00:20:29.920 --> 00:20:32.000 initial kind of space to the arrest. 353 00:20:32.440 --> 00:20:35.559 You talk about Alexander York. But you also talk about 354 00:20:35.559 --> 00:20:40.720 the detective and Detective Beers who became a reinvented himself 355 00:20:40.759 --> 00:20:43.680 as a private investigator, but is involved in this case heavily. 356 00:20:44.119 --> 00:20:48.279 And you mentioned Colonel Peckham. But Alexander Yorke felt, as 357 00:20:48.319 --> 00:20:51.880 you write, incredible amount of guilt. He felt that he 358 00:20:51.960 --> 00:20:55.799 had let this family get away, and so he was 359 00:20:55.880 --> 00:21:00.680 really adamant about the search and this manhunter the Venders. 360 00:21:01.119 --> 00:21:04.119 So tell us about Governor Osborne's rule in this and 361 00:21:04.680 --> 00:21:08.880 how this group of people help bent on vengeance, go 362 00:21:08.920 --> 00:21:12.079 about trying to hunt this family down in. 363 00:21:12.400 --> 00:21:15.359 The direct aftermath, although it does take him a couple 364 00:21:15.359 --> 00:21:18.400 of weeks, which I thought was surprising. But Governor Osborne 365 00:21:18.519 --> 00:21:22.680 issues a proclamation offering a two thousand dollars reward, and 366 00:21:22.720 --> 00:21:25.799 at that point in time, the maximum reward you could 367 00:21:25.839 --> 00:21:28.359 offer was five hundred dollars per person. So it's the 368 00:21:28.359 --> 00:21:32.839 maximum reward. It's posted everywhere, it appears in all the newspapers, 369 00:21:33.480 --> 00:21:38.720 and he enters into quite an intense correspondence with Colonel Peckham, 370 00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:43.359 essentially because Peckham is needing funds for the search, and 371 00:21:43.400 --> 00:21:45.599 there's a lot of anger in the press that the 372 00:21:45.640 --> 00:21:48.440 reward is only two thousand dollars. Lots of people think 373 00:21:48.440 --> 00:21:51.920 it should be much higher because it's also obviously only 374 00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:55.880 payable on delivery of the venders, which means that in 375 00:21:56.000 --> 00:21:59.000 order to go after them you would need a good 376 00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:01.799 amount of money. Any It's not like you can go 377 00:22:01.880 --> 00:22:05.960 after them just one person. They're obviously for at least 378 00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:09.799 four criminals we now know, with various very violent, very 379 00:22:09.880 --> 00:22:14.680 dangerous associates within a wider network. And the search is 380 00:22:14.759 --> 00:22:19.960 kind of immediately hampered by Governor Osborne's reluctance essentially to 381 00:22:20.039 --> 00:22:24.039 release funds. I thought this was a really interesting element 382 00:22:24.079 --> 00:22:28.039 of the case because he really has to be persuaded, 383 00:22:28.319 --> 00:22:30.720 whereas I would have thought you'd release as much money 384 00:22:30.759 --> 00:22:33.400 as you could to catch these people, because not only 385 00:22:33.839 --> 00:22:35.960 you know, do they need to be brought to justice, 386 00:22:36.039 --> 00:22:39.240 but then you could say you were the governor who'd brought. 387 00:22:38.960 --> 00:22:39.799 The venders down. 388 00:22:40.079 --> 00:22:43.480 But so the Beers and Peckham are kind of given 389 00:22:43.519 --> 00:22:46.640 a small amount of money to go down to and 390 00:22:46.680 --> 00:22:50.480 they trace the vendors down to Texas. A man comes 391 00:22:50.559 --> 00:22:53.599 up from Dennison and says, hang on a minute, I 392 00:22:53.640 --> 00:22:56.680 think the venders were staying in kind of the yard 393 00:22:56.720 --> 00:23:00.519 across from my hotel. I think they've gone further out west. 394 00:23:01.200 --> 00:23:04.079 And one of the really interesting things when I was 395 00:23:04.119 --> 00:23:07.000 researching the book was that there was a misconception that 396 00:23:07.200 --> 00:23:10.200 the authorities didn't know where they'd gone, but they did 397 00:23:10.440 --> 00:23:13.160 kind of right up until at least the winter of 398 00:23:13.240 --> 00:23:17.400 eighteen seventy four. And then another source comes along much 399 00:23:17.480 --> 00:23:20.480 later who tells them exactly where they were up until 400 00:23:20.480 --> 00:23:24.000 about eighteen seventy seven. But they detectives were there. They 401 00:23:24.039 --> 00:23:26.799