A sinking feeling hit York, but neither he nor anyone else could make an immediate identification-dirt and dried blood obscured the face, and the body was too decomposed to be moved. There were gasps the killer had knocked the poor fellow unconscious and then cut his throat. One of the diggers rotated the corpse’s mutilated head slightly to the side, exposing a deep gash across the neck. The men could clearly see that someone had bashed in the skull. They continued digging, more carefully now, until a body lay exposed. Before long their tools made contact with something hard-not a rock or a root, but something that didn’t belong there. Some began to dig feverishly, their shovels and spades clanging against one another. “I see graves!” The other men quickly converged on the hollow.

“Boys!” he yelled as his gaze settled on a rectangular depression in the earth among the immature fruit trees. With hand to forehead, Ed York shaded his eyes, scanning the Benders’ orchard. While some of these Kansans feared the worst, none was prepared for what they were about to discover. It was a harvest-an unusual harvest, not one of good spirit in which neighbors converge under the common weal to reap the bountiful rewards of a successful growing season. George Mortimer, harnessed to his harrow and horse, plowed furrows through the soft earth as others worked their spades and shovels. In the spring of 1873 a community of southeastern Kansans descended on the Bender homestead with all the tools necessary for planting.

The odd Kansas foursome ran an inn that proved deadly to travelers for years before suspicious neighbors did some digging in the family’s apple orchard and learned the gruesome facts 'The Bloody Benders': America's First Serial-Killer Family Close

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