Kate Bender: Outlaw Woman of the Wild West

Introduction: The Forgotten Outlaw

When one thinks of outlaws in the Wild West, the traditional image that comes to mind is that of a scruffy male who may have worked with others but was essentially a loner. One does not envision a young, attractive woman working with her family. This is partially due to the fact that American media has romanticized the outlaw, setting him up as the perfect foil to the traditional American hero. While outlaws may have been criminals and lawbreakers, the motivations for their crimes have frequently been romanticized, so that they seem more harmless than they actually were. Perhaps that is why few people know about Kate Bender.

A murderer and thief who preyed on people making their way out to the Wild West, Kate should be one of the more notorious outlaws of her time. Instead, she has become little more than an obscure footnote in the history of the frontier. This treatment is remarkable given the sheer enormity of her crimes. In fact, Kate should probably be considered among the first female serial killers in the United States. However, she is not mentioned on those lists; she is barely mentioned in most historical treatments of notorious criminals or western outlaws. Perhaps this is because Kate — an attractive young woman working with her family to perpetrate her crimes — fell outside the stereotype of the criminal.

The Bender Family and Their Kansas Settlement

In the years following the Civil War, the United States government moved the Osage tribe from Kansas into Oklahoma and opened up Kansas for settlement. In 1870, a group of spiritualists moved into western Labette County. These spiritualists were similar to a modern-day cult and adhered to the same religious beliefs and practices. The Bender family was one of the five families in the group.

The Bender family was composed of four members: the father, John Bender Sr.; his wife, known as Ma Bender; a son, John Bender Jr.; and a daughter, Kate Bender. John Sr. and John Jr. both staked claims to land, though the family only built on John Sr.'s claim. They constructed a cabin, barn, and corral on the property and dug a well. The family used the cabin as both a living space and a storefront, advertising the sale of groceries. They operated it as a type of general store, selling powder, shot, groceries, meals, liquor, and tobacco to people traveling along the Osage Trail. They also used the cabin to offer shelter to those travelers.

Initially, people had a relatively neutral impression of the Benders. The family hailed from Germany, and Ma and John Sr. spoke with heavy accents, which made communication with their neighbors difficult. These difficulties may have given neighbors the impression that the Benders were unfriendly, and this was compounded by several factors. John Sr. was a very physically large man with a heavy beard, thick eyebrows, and long hair; his lack of grooming combined with a sullen expression reinforced the idea that he was harsh and unfriendly. Ma was a heavyset woman with an unfriendly demeanor who claimed to be able to speak to the dead and to cast charms and spells. Neighbors referred to her as a she-devil (Weiser). Unlike his parents, John Jr. spoke fluent English and was considered handsome. However, he was apparently prone to aimless laughing, "which led many people to think of him as a half-wit" (Weiser). Despite that, John Jr. was accepted into the community.

Kate Bender's Public Persona and Lectures

Kate was considered the friendliest and most outgoing member of her family. She was regarded as beautiful, and the surviving images of her certainly reveal an attractive woman. She was in her early twenties when her family moved to Kansas. She spoke English with hardly any German accent, and her social skills were far better than those of the rest of her family. Kate socialized with strangers and was, in many ways, her family's link to the outside world. For example, though the family and its small group of spiritualists were described as cult-like, Kate actually attended Sunday school at a nearby church.

Despite her church attendance, Kate advocated a lifestyle that varied tremendously from the church teachings of her day. Like her mother, Kate believed she had psychic powers — that she could heal people and communicate with the dead. She began conducting lectures on spiritualism and leading séances, eventually becoming a popular figure on the lecture circuit. Her lectures were nothing short of spectacular. She spoke of her psychic abilities but also broached other topics, including advocacy for free love, which was well outside the realm of acceptable behavior for a woman of her time. Even more outrageous was her use of these lectures to justify murder. Her outspoken positions, which placed her clearly outside acceptable norms for women of her era, coupled with her claims to speak to the dead, led people to begin describing Kate as satanic (Weiser).

The Murders at the Bender Inn

The Bender family opened their store in 1871, and immediately male travelers began to disappear. Their worried families could trace them to southeast Kansas but could find no further sign of the missing men. Communication was so difficult at the time, however, that it was not unusual for travelers to seemingly vanish after reaching their destination without notifying family or friends. Moreover, travel during the late 1800s was still perilous, and it was not unusual for people to die from natural causes during cross-country moves. Therefore, the first few disappearances failed to raise any major alarm.

The Bender family was not actually related by blood. Ma and Kate Bender were mother and daughter, but John Sr. and John Jr. were not related to either of them. However, the four worked together like a family to carry out a gruesome series of money-motivated murders. When wealthy-seeming visitors came to the Bender Inn, the family would target them. A canvas wall separated the family's living quarters from the rest of the inn. Potential victims would be seated in front of this canvas, where Kate would distract them. John Sr. and John Jr. would then come up behind the canvas and bludgeon the victim with a hammer. Kate and Ma would take the victim's money before pushing him through a trap door into a hole beneath the cabin. To ensure the victims were dead, Kate would cut their throats. The body would remain beneath the cabin until nightfall, when the Benders — presumably the men — would transport it outside and bury it somewhere near the cabin.

While the Benders may have focused their efforts on seemingly wealthy travelers, there is no reason to suspect that money was their sole, or even primary, motivation. They killed over ten people, but once the murders came to light, it was discovered that the killings netted the Benders very little profit. Their two-year killing spree resulted in "only about $4,600, two teams of horses and wagons, and a pony and a saddle" (Weiser). Moreover, some of their victims carried nothing of value. These facts led many to speculate that the Benders killed because they enjoyed killing, rather than for financial gain.

It is this aspect that makes the Benders similar to many other celebrated Wild West outlaws. Though most outlaws were motivated by financial concerns, the extremity of violence surrounding these criminals suggests they were not solely driven by money but may have been driven by bloodlust. Unlike most other outlaws, however, the Benders engaged in substantial secrecy. The trap door in the cabin floor demonstrated considerable forethought — more reminiscent of the torture chambers associated with modern serial killers than the gunplay associated with a traditional Wild West outlaw. The Benders took great pains to hide their actions: bodies were transported at night, buried underground, and the Benders initially pretended to help search for the missing travelers.