Great American Crime Stories

by Bill Bowers

  At the Coroner’s inquest, Coolidge was examined with other witnesses, and stated that Mathews had been at his office twice the day before, for the purpose of borrowing $200, which he wanted to make up the sum of $2,000 he had promised to raise. The last time it was a little after eight o’clock at night when he received the money of which one hundred dollars was in a note he had received of W. R. Doe. Denied that he had written any note to Mathews the day before, or at any time.

  There was then a post-mortem examination of the body, when Coolidge, remarking that they could not tell whether the wounds in the head were sufficient to produce death, unless the scalp was turned back, cut and turned back the scalp. It being then proposed to examine the stomach, it was taken out by Coolidge, and the contents emptied into a basin. They smelt strong of brandy. A few minutes afterwards he re-marked to a bystander that they had better be removed, as they might scent the room. They were accordingly taken out, and after remaining awhile behind an old hogshead, were locked up in an ice-house; whence they were taken, on the following Monday, and delivered to Professor Loomis for examination. When Coolidge was asked, on Friday evening, if the contents of the stomach had not better be examined, he inquired of the witness if they had been preserved; and on being told that they had, he replied, they had lain so long, nothing could be ascertained from them.

  These contents were carefully analyzed by Professor Loomis, and found to contain prussic acid by several tests. Several physicians, who were present at the post-mortem examination, also testified that the liver, lungs, spleen and brain, indicated the action of prussic acid, and that they perceived its peculiar odor.

  The medical men further thought that the wounds in the head not having been attended with inflammation, were probably given after death, with a view of preventing suspicion of the real cause. From these indications of the presence of prussic acid, and other circumstances, Coolidge was now strongly suspected of the murder, and was accordingly taken into custody. It was then found, and it was proved in court, that, on the 17th of September, he had written to Boston for an ounce of hydrocyanic (prussic) acid, “as strong as it can be,” which he received: and that, on the 19th of September, he also wrote to Hallowell for an ounce of the same acid, “as strong as it is made.” This acid, when used in medicine, is commonly diluted to 2 per cent. The pure acid is seldom called for. Dr. Coolidge previously had by him some of the diluted acid.

  On Monday, after the murder, a boy found in the top of Coolidge’s sleigh, a gold watch and chain, which were proved to be the same as those worn by Mathews the Thursday before. They were wrapped up in white paper, which was of the same description as some found in Coolidge’s office.

  Coolidge endeavored to persuade two witnesses to conceal from the coroner’s inquest that he wished to borrow money of them—having himself stated to the jury that, so far from wishing to borrow money, he had lent Mathews $200, and to one witness he proposed to give fifty dollars, and declared he was a ruined man, when he could not succeed.

  Many minor circumstances corroborated the inference from the preceding strong facts, but the testimony of Thomas Flint removed every shadow of doubt of the prisoner’s guilt.

  The witness was a student in Dr. Coolidge’s office, and he stated that, about nine o’clock on Thursday night, when he was going to bed, at his boarding-house, he met Dr. Coolidge, who requested the witness to go to his office with him. When there, he said, “I am going to reveal to you a secret which involves my life; that cursed little Edward Mathews came in here, and went to take a glass of brandy and fell down dead; he now lies in the other room. I thumped him on the head to make people believe he was murdered.” After some consultation, they decided on carrying the body to the cellar, to remain there until it was discovered the next day. The next day he found in the office a note from Coolidge; requesting him to sweep the office carefully, which he did, and removed some signs of blood. About noon he saw Coolidge charge Mathews with $200 lent. Coolidge handed him a sum of money, requesting him to keep it, saying the jury might ask to see his pocket book, and he did not know but there was too much money in it. After the examination of the body, Coolidge told the witness, while in the office together, that there was $1,000 under the carpet, beneath the iron safe, which he wished witness to take care of. In the evening the prisoner seemed to be greatly agitated. He took the money he had given witness, selected some of the bills, put them into his pocket book, and gave the witness others from the pocket book. The money was put in one of a number of jugs in the office, and the prisoner requested the witness to sleep with him that night. The next day he seemed unwilling to receive back the money he had given to the witness, but afterwards went to the office, broke the jug and threw the notes into the stove. He stated that a letter produced to the coroner’s jury (from Coolidge to Mathews, requesting the latter to call at his office on Thursday night), he had withdrawn “from the bag” on Friday night and destroyed. He told the witness there was a bottle at his office that had contained prussic acid, which ought to be destroyed, and that the bottle which had come from Boston should be filled up, for some of it had been used. He also desired that the brandy bottle should be rinsed, and the water in the sink thrown out. He requested the witness to take the watch from his sleigh, and throw it into the river. Witness slept with the prisoner the two or three following nights, and when he did not, believes that Mr. Baker did. The witness admitted that when before the grand jury, he did not state anything about the money, the watch, or washing out the stains from the floor. He had partly disclosed to his father the facts stated to-day, and also to Mr. Baker. General Simons, his father, had encouraged him to testify in the case.

  In consequence of this variance in Flint’s testimony, the counsel for the prisoner endeavored to invalidate it; the jury, however, after a deliberation of twenty-four hours, returned a verdict of guilty, and the prisoner was sentenced to be hanged, after the expiration of a year spent in hard labor. The law of Maine, by a seeming compromise between those who would abolish, and those who would retain capital punishment, has thus postponed the execution of the sentence of death, that the person convicted may profit by subsequent evidence, so as, if not to establish his innocence, to raise sufficient doubts of his guilt to obtain a pardon; or he may effect his escape by force or artifice, or finally escape ignominious punishment by disease or suicide.

  3

  The Bloody Benders Family

  Between about 1871 and 1873, the Benders, a family of two men and two women, murdered and robbed at least eleven people who had stopped for the night at the small inn and general store the Benders operated in Labette County, Kansas. Most of the victims had their skulls crushed—most likely with a large hammer—and their throats cut. The Benders were never brought to justice. Apparently fearful their terrible crimes would soon be discovered, they fled, and their ultimate fates are unknown.

  Devilish Deeds.

  Fearful and Diabolical Butchery in Southern Kansas.

  A Farm Planted with Corpses – Eight Bodies Already Discovered – Four Persons Implicated – How A Family of Human Hyenas Preyed Upon the Passers by.

  What follows in its facts may read like the recital of some horrible dream, wherein nightmare mirrors upon the distempered brain a countless number of monster and unnatural things, yet what is set down in the narrative is as true as the sun.

  From the information furnished to us last night by a gentleman just from the

  SCENE OF THE BUTCHERY,

  and from dispatches and accounts already published, we are enabled to give a tolerably detailed account of the monstrous series up to date.

  THE BEGINNING OF THE END,

  came about in this wise: On the 9th of March Dr. William H. York, the brother of that other York famous now for his penetration of the guilty secrets of Pomeroy. and his betrayal in the supreme moment of the senatorial crisis, of the trusts confided to his keeping—left Fort Scott on horseback for his
home in Independence. Kansas. He did not come home. His friends watched and waited for him, his family prayed for him, the talk of the town dealt day after day with him, expectations at last deepened into downright earnestness about him, until, on the 28th of March, the Lawrence Tribune gave a brief account of the mysterious disappearance. All at once thereafter all the papers in the State took up the tale of his journey, of his non-arrival, and of the fears of foul play. He was traced to

  CIIERRYVALE

  Cherryvale is a small town on the Leavenworth, Lawrence and Galveston Railroad, and is in Lalbette County, about fifty miles from the south line of the State. To the smith of Cherryvale, some two miles or less, stands a frame house, having in front a large room where the meals are served, and in the rear a sleeping room furnished with two beds and some scant additional furniture besides.

  WILLIAM AND THOMAS BENDER

  lived in this house with their wives. To the right of the dwelling house was an outhouse, as the diagram shows, and in the rear was an enclosed garden of possibly two acres. The search seemed to suddenly end at Cherryvale.

  One day early in April some men from Cherryvale rode over to the Bender house to inquire concerning Dr. York, and to learn, if possible, some tidings of his fate. They learned nothing, however.

  WILLIAM BENDER,

  the eldest of the brothers, had a wife who was a Spiritualist. The balance of the Benders called her a medium, the neighbor a she devil. She was forty-two, with iron-gray hair, ragged at the ends and thin over the temples. Her eyes were steel-gray and hard. The light that came from them was sinister and forbidding. She had not a single prepossessing feature. Her form, angular and tall, seemed to lift itself up when the Spiritual influences took possession of it, and to become not only gigantic in height, but super-natural as well. At times she dealt in incantations, and the boiling of herbs and root that had charms and spells about them. Her will was indomitable. All the household feared her, dreaded her, obeyed her, and, as the sequel proves, they did the

  DEVIL’S WORK FOR HER

  beyond all the atrocious devil’s work ever done in Kansas.

  Time went slowly by, and a man riding in one day from the prairie saw no smoke arising from Benders’ chimney. The windows were down, the doors were closed, there was no sign of life anywhere. These evidences of emigration did not even interest him. This man, however, in riding by a pen to the left of the house, saw a dead calf in the lot, and upon further investigation, and with the practical eye of a practical farmer, used to guessing the weight of live stock upon the hoof, he knew that the calf had

  DIED OF STARVATION.

  Then the truth came, as an overflow comes often to a Kansas creek, all of a sudden and over whelming. Such a death suggested flight, flight meant guilt, and the nature of the guilt was surely murder. He galloped into Cherryvale and related what be had seen. The town aroused itself. A party was organized instantly and set out for the Bender mansion.

  In the rear, as we have said, was a garden. This, at first, was not examined. The front room of the home was next carefully searched, every crack and crevice being minutely looked into, and subjected to the application of rods and levers to see if the floor was either hollow or loose. Nothing came of it all. No blood spots appeared. The floor was solid—the walls were solid. Then came the back room. The beds were removed. In his flight the elder Bender had left everything untouched. After the beds had been removed, one of the party noticed a slight depression in the floor, which, upon closer examination, revealed a

  TRAP DOOR

  upon hinges. This was immediately lifted up, and in the gloom a pit outlined itself, forbidding, cavernous, unknown. Lights were procured and some of the men descended. They found themselves in an abyss shaped like a well, some six feet deep, and about five feet in diameter. Here and there little damp places could be seen as if water had come up from the bottom or been poured down from above. They groped about over these splotches and held up a handful to the light. The ooze smeared itself over their palms and dribbled through their fingers.

  IT WAS BLOOD

  thick, foetid, clammy, sticking blood—that they had found groping there in the void. The party had provided themselves with a long sharp rod of iron, which they drove into the ground in every direction at the bottom at the pit, but nothing further rewarded the search, and they came away to examine the garden in the rear of the house. Shovels were set at once to work, and in a few moments a corpse was uncovered. It had been buried upon its face. The flesh had dropped away from his legs. There was no coffin, no winding sheet, no preparation for the grave, nothing upon the body but an old shirt, torn in places and thick with damp and decay. The corpse was tenderly disinterred and laid upon its back in the full light of the soft April sun. One look of horror into the ghastly face, festering and swollen, and a dozen voices cried out in terror:

  “MY GOD, IT IS DR. YORK!”

  And it was. He had been buried in a shallow hole, with scarcely two feet of dirt over him. Had he been murdered, and how! They examined him closely. Upon the back of his head and to the left and obliquely from his right ear, a terrible blow had been given with a hammer. The skull had been driven into the brain, and from the battered and broken crevices a dull stream of blood had oozed, plastering his hair with a kind of clammy paste, and running down upon his shoulders.

  It seems as if the winds carried the tiding to Cherryvale. In an hour all the town was at the scene of the discovery. A coffin was procured for Dr. York’s body, and his brother, utterly overwhelmed, sat by the ghastly remains as one upon whom the hand of death had been laid. He could not be comforted. But the

  HORRIBLE WORK WAS NOT YET COMPLETED.

  The iron rod was again put in requisition, until six more graves marked (E) were discovered, five of which contained a corpse and the sixth, that in the second row, (E) containing two, an old man and a little girl. Some were in the last stages of decomposition, and others, not as far gone, might have been identified if any among the crowd had known them in life. Coffins were provided for all, and again was the search renewed. It was past midnight when our informant left, but three more graves had been discovered, each supposed to contain a corpse, although they had not been opened. The

  WHOLE COUNTRY IS AROUSED.

  Couriers and telegrams have been sent in every direction with descriptions of the Benders, and it is not thought possible that they can escape. With the crowd at the grave was a man named Brockman who was supposed to know something about the murders. Furious men laid hold upon him at once, and strung him up to a beam in the house. His contortions were fearful. His eyes started from their sockets, and a livid hue came to his face that was appalling. Death was within reach of him when he was cut down.

  “CONFESS! CONFESS!”

  they yelled, but he said nothing. Again he was jerked from his feet, and again was the strong body convulsed with the death throes. Again resuscitated, he once more refused to open his mouth. He did not appear to understand what was wanted of him. The yelling crowd, the mutilated and butchered dead, the flickering and swirling torches spluttering in the night wind, the stern set faces of his executioners, all passed before him as a dreadful phantasmagoria which dazed him and struck him speechless. For the third time they swung him up, and then his

  HEART COULD NOT BE FELT TO BEAT,

  and there was no pulse at the wrists. “He is dead,” they said. But he was not dead. The night air revived him at last, and he was permitted to stagger away in the darkness as one who was drunken or deranged. Six butchered human beings were brought forth from their bloody graves, and three others are to be uncovered. It is thought that more graves will yet be discovered. One corpse was so horribly mutilated as to make the sex even a matter of doubt.

  THE LITTLE GIRL

  was probably eight years of age, and had long, sunny hair, and some traces of beauty on a countenance that was not yet entirely disfigured by d
ecay. One arm was broken, and the breast bone had been driven in. The right knee had been wrenched from its socket, and the leg doubled up under the body. Nothing like this sickening series of crimes has ever been recorded in the whole history of the country. It is supposed they have been following their

  HORRIBLE WORK FOR YEARS.

  Plunder is the expected cause. Dr. York, it is said, has a large sum of money on his person, and that he stopped at the house either to feed his horse or to get a drink of water. While halting for either he was dealt the blow which killed him in an instant.

  *****

  THE KANSAS HORROR

  Further Particulars of the Shocking Affair.

  The Kansas City Times gives the following additional particulars of the Kansas horror, furnished by its correspondent:

  Dr. York’s body being found, further search was made by thrusting a sharp pointed rod into the earth, which soon developed the fact that there were many more graves in this half acre of ground, and by nightfall eight bodies in all were exhumed, of which the following is a partial list, so far as they could be distinctly identified: W. F. McGronty, of the one hundred and twenty-third Illinois infantry, company D.—Brown; Henry McKenzie, of Hamilton county, Indiana, and a Mr. Lonchore and his little girl. The latter had recently buried his wife, and was about starting to Iowa.