Hell's Half-Acre
The Untold Story of the Benders, a Serial Killer Family on the American Frontier
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3.9 • 54 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
One of NPR's "Books We Love"
New York Times Book Review's "The Best True Crime of 2022"
"Rich in historical perspective and graced by novelistic touches, grips the reader from first to last.”—Wall Street Journal
A suspense filled tale of murder on the American frontier—shedding new light on a family of serial killers in Kansas, whose horrifying crimes gripped the attention of a nation still reeling from war.
In 1873 the people of Labette County, Kansas made a grisly discovery. Buried by a trailside cabin beneath an orchard of young apple trees were the remains of countless bodies. Below the cabin itself was a cellar stained with blood. The Benders, the family of four who once resided on the property were nowhere to be found. The discovery sent the local community and national newspapers into a frenzy that continued for decades, sparking an epic manhunt for the Benders.
The idea that a family of seemingly respectable homesteaders—one among the thousands relocating farther west in search of land and opportunity after the Civil War—were capable of operating "a human slaughter pen" appalled and fascinated the nation. But who the Benders really were, why they committed such a vicious killing spree and whether justice ever caught up to them is a mystery that remains unsolved to this day. Set against the backdrop of postbellum America, Hell’s Half-Acre explores the environment capable of allowing such horrors to take place. Drawing on extensive original archival material, Susan Jonusas introduces us to a fascinating cast of characters, many of whom have been previously missing from the story. Among them are the families of the victims, the hapless detectives who lost the trail, and the fugitives that helped the murderers escape.
Hell’s Half-Acre is a journey into the turbulent heart of nineteenth century America, a place where modernity stalks across the landscape, violently displacing existing populations and building new ones. It is a world where folklore can quickly become fact and an entire family of criminals can slip through a community’s fingers, only to reappear in the most unexpected of places.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, historian Jonusas debuts with an impressive and deeply unsettling account of the Benders, a family of German immigrants who killed at least 10 people after they settled in Kansas's Labette County in 1870. The Benders used their cabin as a general store and as lodging for travelers. After some of their guests went missing, the Benders eventually came under suspicion, and they abandoned their home in 1873 as the net was closing in. When their cellar was excavated, human remains were found in a gruesome crime scene that a reporter dubbed "hell's half-acre." Investigators later figured out the killers' m.o.: after a lodger was fed and felt relaxed, one of the Benders stunned the victim with a hammer before smashing in their head and slitting their throat. The killers, whose motives were never learned, escaped justice, as they were never found after fleeing the county, and Jonusas lays out evidence for alternate theories of their fate, which included a successful escape into Arizona or Colorado, and the family being killed by the Texas Rangers. Radiant prose ("Creeks, dancing and clear, divide vast expanses of prairieland rolling toward the sky") enhances the page-turning narrative. The combination of true crime and a vivid depiction of frontier life earn this a spot on the shelf next to David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon.
