Little Slaughterhouse on the Prairie

At a remote little inn not far from the Kansas homestead of Laura Ingalls Wilder lived the Bender family. These pioneers welcomed unwary visitors with jackrabbit stew and a sledgehammer to the skull.

In time, their apple orchard gave up its secrets — a burial ground for their mutilated victims, each stripped of their possessions. The devilish enterprise on 'Hell's Half-Acre' earned the Bloody Benders an undying place in the annals of American infamy. But it was the mysterious fate of the eldest daughter, Kate, that made them the stuff of mythic prairie campfire tales.

Little Slaughterhouse on the Prairie is part of Bloodlands, a collection of short historical narratives from true-crime writer Harold Schechter.