Hell's Half-Acre: The Untold Story of the Benders, a Serial Killer Family on the American Frontier

by Susan Jonusas

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781984879851
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/07/2023
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	49,327
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Susan Jonusas attended the University of St Andrews and holds a master’s in science, technology and medicine in history from Kings College London. During her master’s she focused on the intersection between crime and technology in the nineteenth century. She was a bookseller, but now spends her free time on the archery range. This is her first book.

Table of Contents

Introduction xi

Labette County, Kansas xix

Part I The Theater of a Nation's Struggle 1

Part II A Nursery of Moral Monstrosities 55

Part III A Revolting Spectacle of Crime Made Public 125

Part IV In Pursuit of Murderers 163

Part V Bender or Bust 225

Epilogue 281

Acknowledgments 285

Notes 287

Bibliography 327

Index 333

Editorial Reviews

"Spending hours combing archives for new clues is one thing; fashioning that work into a vivid narrative is quite another. Jonusas excels at both."—The New York Times Book Review's "The Best True Crime of 2022"

“Expertly told . . . [A] gripping true crime narrative."—Slate

"Rich in historical perspective and graced by novelistic touches, grips the reader from first to last. . . . Jonusas discovered several further leads in official archives and correspondence, enough to transform “Hell’s Half-Acre,” at the halfway point, from a gothic popular history into a Wild West chase full of extraordinary developments.”—Wall Street Journal

“Jonusas, who parsed archival records in order to craft this riveting reconstruction, is especially good at dismantling some of the most salacious rumors surrounding the Bender daughter, Kate.”—The New York Times

"An impressive and deeply unsettling account of the Benders . . . 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."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[Jonusas] ably captures the dangers involved in the westward trek that so many of the Benders’ victims did not live to see through . . . it’s a story that, grisly and unsolved, fascinates . . .”—Kirkus Reviews

“Dark and bloody, hard-nosed but lyrical, Hell’s Half-Acre is a true-crime mass-murder mystery from the Old West. Susan Jonusas has stripped down a notorious story, researched it to hell and back, and rebuilt in prose so immediate and immersive that it feels like she must have been there. Beware the Benders, but all hail Susan Jonusas. This is a stunning debut from a great and powerful new voice in narrative non-fiction.”—Dan Jones, New York Times bestselling author of The Templars and The Plantagenets

"Hell's Half-Acre is a mesmerizing combination of gory mass murder and frantic pursuit of diabolical perpetrators, presented in some of the best, most atmospheric context I have ever read in any narrative nonfiction about the American frontier. This saga of the 'Bloody Benders' will keep you reading - and flinching - until the last page is turned. Then you'll want to read it all over again."—Jeff Guinn, author of The Last Gunfight: The Real Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral-And How It Changed the American West

From the Publisher

★ 01/31/2022

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. Agent: Georgina Capel, Georgina Capel Assoc. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

01/01/2022

Jonusas, a former bookseller, recounts the story of the "bloody" Benders, a family who murdered at least 11 people in Kansas in the 1870s. The Bender family sold dry goods and provided lodging to travelers in their remote Kansas home. Occasionally, they murdered travelers and fenced their belongings. After the Benders killed William York, the brother of a prominent Kansas politician, they drew the attention of the authorities and fled. Although legend holds that the Benders vanished without a trace, Jonusas shows that the authorities tracked the family to the Texas frontier but were unable to gather the necessary force to capture them. As the years went by, many tips about the Benders' whereabouts emerged, one of which led to a prominent trial of two women claiming to be Ma and Kate Bender. Jonusas places the story of the Benders in the context of Kansas's turbulent history. Additionally, she discusses the sensationalist media coverage of the case as well as its impact in the present day. VERDICT A fascinating look at a case that still captures the imagination. Fans of historical true crime will be pleased.—Rebekah Kati

Library Journal

2021-12-21
A spirited, occasionally plodding account of a murderous Kansas clan.

It’s no In Cold Blood, but this history of a band of cutthroats proves that the epithet “Bloody Kansas” was not confined to the Civil War. Indeed, when searchers arrived at a cabin in the southeastern corner of Kansas in 1873, the veterans among them immediately recognized the smell of death. The place had been inhabited by a mysterious group of settlers who lured travelers indoors and then dispatched them, dumping their bodies nearby or in the cellar. “Their case,” writes Jonusas of the Bender gang, “is a stark reminder that buried beneath the myth of the outlaw are very real criminals whose violence left an indelible imprint on communities across the frontier.” That is certainly so, though the dramatic tensions in her story sometimes go slack when she cuts away for historical disquisitions. Nonetheless, she ably captures the dangers involved in the westward trek that so many of the Benders’ victims did not live to see through: “If travelers were lucky enough to escape death at the hands of the natural world,” she writes, “there were myriad bizarre accidents to fall foul of.” And then there were the Benders themselves, whose neighbors knew that terrible things happened whenever they were near but who nevertheless looked the other way as the list of victims mounted. One young woman, in particular, achieved a certain degree of untouchability: Even if “the more superstitious citizens of Labette whispered to one another that she was a witch,” the menfolk were taken with her. The narrative holds up until the author recounts how the Benders disappeared when the law began to close in; her extended theorizing about what happened to them goes too long. Still, it’s a story that, grisly and unsolved, fascinates on its own merits.

A smart though bumpy melding of frontier history and true crime.

Kirkus Reviews