Benders Books

Influenced by the ensuring years of sensational writings on the Benders, a motion picture was filmed in Girard, Ks in 1939. The early days of television saw several dramatizations about the ghastly murders of Southeast Kansas. Manly Wade Wellman wrote A Candle of the Wicked in 1960, and Robert H. Alderman published another best-selling novel, The Bloody Benders, in 1970. Both of these books can be reviewed at the Cherryvale Public Library.

After his 1970 visit to the Cherryvale Bender Museum, Samuel Goldwyn Jr. brought the film rights to Adleman’s book, for a haunted-house type film in a mid-western setting. He was attracted to the story by the character of killer Kate. The film was never produced.

In 1992, Fern Morrow Wood, a Cherryvale teacher, wrote The Benders, Keepers of the Devil's Inn. It is the first and only comprehensive story of the Bloody Benders; a terrible chapter in the annuals of crime on this lonely prairie Inn in the southeast Kansas. It covers the on-going investigation into the Bloody Benders. After sifting the reminiscences of long-forgotten neighbors, searching newspaper stories of the period from various libraries and historic institutions, obtaining newly discovered documents, her skeptical eye examines the conclusions of these results in her chronological narrative. This book is available for sale at the historic Leatherock Hotel Bed & Breakfast.

In 2003, author S. Philip wrote Cottonwood. It is a fictional town placed between two real towns, Cherryvale and Independence, with stolen histories and characters from the southeast Kansas area and the Bender murders. The plot sort of congeals around those things.

To Purchase Bender Books: The Benders, Keepers of the Devil's Inn Paperback, $8.00 each, ISBN 0-9606922-1-5, by placing orders to: Fern Morrow Wood, Route 2, Box 114, Cherryvale, KS 67335. Please add $2.00 to cover shipping and handling ($.50 for each additional book). In Kansas, please add 82 cents sales tax.

JUST PUBLISHED: Death For Dinner by Phyllis de la Garza, Hardbound, $32.25 each including S/H, ISBN 0-9631772-9-X. In Kansas, please add $1.17 sales tax. De la Garza reports the events of this 1871-73 bizarre story from primary sources, books, and articles. But she cannot tell the reader what happened to the evil Bender Family.