BY ANDY TAYLOR
chronicle@taylornews.org

A professional screenwriter and one of Hollywood’s most recognized web designers are collaborating on a project that retells the story of the murderous Bender family of Labette County.

Mark Patton, a Chanute native now living in Sedona, Ariz., and New York City-based web designer Daniel Karcher are combining their talents in hopes that a major studio will buy Patton’s script concerning the Bender family’s murderous deeds at their rural Cherryvale inn in the early 1870s.

Patton whose movie credits include “The Strand, “Venice” and “The Objective,” said he wrote the script to the Bender story about 10 years ago. The script remained largely untouched until he met web designer Daniel Karcher, who, Patton said, became intrigued with the Bender saga.

Karcher’s web works have been used for movies such as “The Blair Witch Project,” which is regarded one of Hollywood’s first success stories in which a website was used to promote and supplement a movie. Patton described the Karcher-made Bender movie website — www.bloodybenders.com — as a “conceptual pitch site” in hopes that studios will take note of the script . . . and the intriguing tale surrounding the family whose name became synonymous with murder on the untamed Kansas prairie.

The Bender family — which included Kate Bender and her half-witted brother John as well as two older people who were described as their German parents — owned a small inn northeast of Cherryvale in extreme northwestern Labette County in the early 1870s. At that time, a dusty trail connecting Independence with the Osage Mission near St. Paul was among the only roads in the region. Travelers would often stop at the inn for a night’s sleep and a meal.

However, the Bender family allegedly killed several of the travelers, robbed their dead bodies of money and other possessions, and buried the slain travelers in a nearby orchard.

Once, the family’s blood deeds were discovered by law enforcement, the family had fled the scene. However, the family’s whereabouts became a part of Western lore.

Did they fall victim to frontier justice, where vigilantes took law into their own hands? Did they make a big escape into the far reaches of the country, never to be heard from again? Or, did Ma and Kate Bender make a reappearance in Oswego in the 1880s, as some accounts allege, to stand trial for the murders?

“The Bender saga has many facets and faces,” said Patton. “Nobody is exactly sure what happened, but everybody has their own version. My goal as a writer is to research in-depth, know all that I can and write the best possible movie that has the best possible chance to get made.”

Patton said not everyone will agree with his choices for the Bender script, but he said he tried to be as true to delivering a screenplay “that has a chance to be a serious movie.”

“I tried to stay as close to the spirit of the story as possible,” said Patton. “Not all of the details are factual. But, that’s just simply because of cinematic need. For example, in the script, I put Cherryvale in Labette County. That’s to avoid confusion on the part of the cinema viewer. To explain that Cherryvale was actually in Montgomery County but that the murders took place nearby in Labette County — that can be a challenge for the movie goer to follow.”

Patton would not elaborate on what becomes of the Bender family in his script, but he did say the screenplay was written so that it brings together intrigue of the Bender family, the unnerving brutality inflicted on unsuspecting travelers, and the doggedness on the part of area residents to find the family after the murders were discovered.

“You have one shot to tell the story of the Benders,” said Patton. “And it’s my goal to tell it well.”