distract the guest while John Bender or his son came from behind the curtain and struck the guest on the right side of the skull with a hammer. One of the women would cut the victim's throat to ensure death, and the body was then dropped through the trap door. Once in the cellar, the body would be stripped and later buried somewhere on the property, often in the orchard. Although some of the victims were wealthy, others carried little of value on them, and it was surmised that the Benders had killed them simply for the sheer thrill. Testimony from people who had stayed at the Benders' inn and managed to escape before they could be killed appeared to support the presumed execution method of the Benders. William Pickering said that when he had refused to sit near the wagon cloth because of the stains on it, Kate Bender had threatened him with a knife, whereupon he fled the premises. A Catholic priest claimed to have seen one of the Bender men concealing a large hammer, at which point he became uncomfortable and quickly departed. Two men who had traveled to the inn to experience Kate Bender's psychic powers stayed for dinner, but had refused to sit at the table next to the cloth, instead preferring to eat their meal at the main shop counter. Kate then became abusive toward them, and shortly afterward the Bender men emerged from behind the cloth. At this point the customers felt uneasy and decided to leave, a move that almost certainly saved their lives. More than a dozen bullet holes were found in the roof and sides of the cabin. The media speculated that some of the victims had attempted to fight back after being hit with the hammer. Escape Detectives following wagon tracks discovered the Benders' wagon, abandoned with a starving team of horses with one of the mares lame, just outside the city limits of Thayer, north of the inn. It was confirmed that the family had bought tickets on the Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston Railroad for Humboldt. At Chanute, John Jr. and Kate left the train and caught the MK&T train south to the terminus in Red River County near Denison, Texas. From there, they traveled to an outlaw colony thought to be in the border region between Texas and New Mexico. They were not pursued, as lawmen following