The Femme Fatale Farmer, "Jack the Stripper" and the Bloody Benders: 3 Cases Where Serial Killers Were Never Caught
Statisticians suggest that around 0.006% of serial killers successfully evade the law, often while racking up an astoundingly high body count. Here are 3 cases where serial killers were never caught, including...
- Belle Gunness the femme fatale farmer
- Jack the Stripper and the Hammersmith nude murders
- The Bloody Benders and the homestead of horrors
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| Travelers would often stop at homesteads as they crossed the Kansas prairie - and sometimes they would never leave... (DaniMyrick) |
Belle Gunness the Femme Fatale Farmer
Originally known as Brynhild Paulsdatter Strseth in her native Norway, Belle Gunness came to the USA in 1881 in search of a more affluent life. She married Mads Albert Sorenson in 1884, only for their shop and home to tragically burn down shortly afterwards - fortunately the properties were insured. As if that wasn't bad enough fortune, two children under her care died from inflamed large intestines - they also were insured. She would bury her husband a few years later after he tragically died on the very day his two life insurance policies overlapped.
Moving on, Belle married Peter Gunness... only for his daughter to die, followed by Peter himself. Belle would remain "unlucky" in love, reaching out to wealthy men in lonely hearts columns. These suitors would inexplicably vanish after traveling to the farm in LaPorte, Indiana that she had "acquired."
Eventually Belle Gunness suffered some misfortune of her own. Just as relatives of some of the deceased starting to grow suspicious of her, the farmhouse she lived in burned down. Investigators discovered four skeletons, three believed to be foster children and one (missing a skull) thought to be Belle herself. They also uncovered shallow graves scattered around the property, containing the poisoned and chopped-up remains of dozens of victims. With estimates of her kills ranging between 28 and 40, Gunness was billed in papers as "the La Porte Ghoul" and "the Indiana Ogress." People flocked from as far as Indianapolis and Chicago to see the "murder farm" and buy souvenirs - including pictures of the dismembered corpses.
The police arrested Ray Lamphere (a hired hand and sometimes lover of Belle) and charged him with arson and murder, with the charge of arson sticking. He died from tuberculosis in prison, but claiming on his deathbed that Gunness had staged the fire and that the headless body was yet another of her victims. A modern attempt to test the DNA of the the headless skeleton failed due to age, meaning we may never know if Gunness died in the flames.
Jack the Stripper and the Hammersmith Nude Murders
Jack the Ripper may be the best known serial killer of all time - but when the bodies of partially-clad prostitutes were found around the river Thames in the 1960s, the new killer was dubbed "Jack the Stripper."
The six confirmed killings occurred between 1964 and 1965 in Hammersmith, London, with a potential further two that didn't fit the modus operandi. The victims were usually strangled, partially or fully undressed and had all been sex workers - in fact, two of the victims were linked to the Profumo sex scandal that embroiled the British government.
There was one other strange factor - flecks of industrial paint were found on several of the victims. Paint on the last known victim was traced to a covered transformer nearby, leading police to believe that they had found where the killer had stored bodies. The announcement of this find seems to have panicked the murderer - no further bodies were found and the killer was never identified.
There were a wide number of suspects in this case. Security guard Mungo Ireland was one such individual - he worked near the source of the paint and committed suicide shortly after police announced they had traced it... though it seems that he may have been in Scotland at the time of one of the murders. Another man named Kenneth Archibald handed himself over to the police and confessed to killing one of the victims, but later recanted and was found not guilty by a jury.
Perhaps the most suspicious suspect was Harold Jones, a previously convicted murderer of two girls when he was fifteen. Jones escaped hanging by virtue of his age, eventually joining the army upon his release. Jones was later found to be living in Fulham (near the murder sites) under a false name. He was also working as a panel beater, meaning that he would potentially come into contact with flecks of industrial paint. Jones died of bone cancer in 1971 however, so there's no hope of a confession.
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| The "Hammersmith nude murders" were similar to those of Jack the Ripper... (bassoongb) |
The Bloody Benders and the Homestead of Horrors
Traveling through Kansas in the 1870s meant trekking through a massive expanse of prairie, broken up by occasional small farms. One of these homesteads belonged to the Bender family, an elderly German couple (John and Kate Sr.) and a younger man and woman (John and Kate Jr.) who appeared to be siblings. Their homestead seemed to offer safe shelter and food to weary travelers - nothing could have been further from the truth.
The Benders had a polished approach to their crimes. Travelers would be sat down at the table with their back to a curtain while Kate Jr. entertained them with her self-proclaimed spiritualist talents. With the mark distracted, another Bender would emerge from behind the curtain and bludgeon them with a hammer. The stunned victim would have their throat cut before being dropped through a trapdoor into a cellar to die.
The Benders seem to have murdered between eight and eleven people, but they bit off more than they could chew when they killed Dr. William York. His brother Colonel Alexander M. York. (also a member of the Kansas Senate) retraced the route taken by his kin, leading to the suspiciously deserted Bender homestead... and a poorly concealed burial.
Despite a $5,000 bounty, the Benders may never have been held to account for their crimes. Some people claimed that the Benders had been captured and executed by firing squad - but the lack of supporting evidence or official confirmation makes that doubtful. The fate of the Benders is and probably will remain a mystery.
There is one final twist to this tale. Around 1887, the Kelly family (consisting of an older couple called William and Kate along with their son Billy and daughter Kit) killed eleven people who stopped at their inn in Kansas. Their crimes were uncovered when a traveler discovered the inn deserted - a search revealed bodies killed with an axe blow to the head, along with a trapdoor beneath a seat that could drop victims into a cellar.
It is unknown if the Kelly family had links to the Benders, were copycat killers or if their methods were simply a coincidence. What we do know is that they didn't escape the posse that went after them. Kate died from a broken neck during the pursuit, while the others were caught and hanged.
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