Who Were the Benders?

One of the chapters in my latest book, Murder and Mayhem in Southeast Kansas, is about the Bloody Benders of Labette County. Most people are at least vaguely familiar with the story. The Benders, a German family, settled north of Cherryvale on the trail from Osage Mission (i.e. St. Paul) to Independence in the early 1870s and started running a roadside grocery. People started disappearing in the neighborhood of the Bender inn during late 1872 and early 1873. Suspicion gradually settled on the Benders, but by the time some men went out to the Bender place to investigate and uncovered 8 or 10 bodies in a backyard graveyard, the family was long gone.
Actually, I've written about the Benders in one of my previous books, and I've mentioned them a couple of times on this blog. But I tried to approach the subject with a fresh perspective, and I did come up with some new information about the Benders, as far as their ages, where they came from before they came to Kansas, etc. At least this information was new to me, and I don't think I've ever seen much, if anything, about it elsewhere. The biggest mystery surrounding the Benders is what happened to them after they fled the scene of their heinous murders, but the exact makeup of the family and their origins have always been somewhat a mystery as well. I try to shed some light on this topic in my new book, but you'll have to read the book to find out exactly what I uncovered. I also offer my insight into what I think happened to the family after they fled, but, like everybody else's speculation on this topic, that's all it is--speculation.