Writer Nicholas Nicastro’s Hell’s Half-Acre
by Vicky Moon
Written by Middleburg author Nicholas Nicastro in the same murderous genre as Sweeney Todd and The Assassination of Jesse James comes an unforgettable and bone-chilling historical taleabout the horrors hidden in American history.
Hell’s Half-Acre is a novel described as a “thriller” by Nicastro, based on the true story of the Bloody Benders, the earliest and most remarkably bloodthirsty family of serial killers in American history.
Like Lizzie Borden and H.H. Holmes—the so-called “Beast of Chicago” featured in the best seller The Devil in the White City—the Benders loom large in the early history of American crime. Yet while they remain notorious in Kansas, their story is still largely unknown beyond the prairie state’s borders.
The Benders were German-speaking immigrants who ran a grocery and inn in a remote corner of southeast Kansas in the
early 1870s. Nicastro spent five yearsdoing research and writing his eighth book. The result is his narrative of simple solitary travelers along the Osage Trail enticed to stop at the Bender cabin by the family’s youngest member, the beautiful and enigmatic Kate.
A dinner was prepared by Almira, the non-English-speaking mother, while John Jr. saw to the visitor’s horses. At some point during the meal, while Kate distracted them by any means necessary, they were attacked with a hammer by John Sr., who bashed them in the head through the rude canvas partition that divided the cabin.
The victims were then finished off by knife—possibly by Kate —and dumped in a tomb-like basement chamber. Later, the bodies were dragged through a side door and buried in an apple orchard.
The Benders remain among the earliest known serial killers in American history, with Kate one of the very few young women associated with that crime in any period.
Though their guilt for at least twelve murders (and possibly as many as fifty) is beyond doubt, the fate of the Benders
themselves is a mystery.
Were they run down and executed by a posse of vengeful Kansans as they tried to flee to Indian-held territory in Oklahoma? Did they manage to escape, only to be arrested later for other crimes? Were they really related to each other, or were they just a gang of grifter opportunists posing as a family? Was their motive simple robbery? Or do the odd stories of devil-worship and necromancy hint at some other, even darker motive?
Using this true historical underpinning, Nicastro, who is married to Maryanne Newton (daughter of Linda Newton), weaves a vivid tale of the Benders’ misdeeds and misfortunes, set against the backdrop of the post-Civil War Midwest. On land already soaked with the blood of
Jayhawks and Bushwhackers fighting over the introduction of slavery, this sort of mayhem offered an entirely different brand of maniacal murder.
And so, the Benders lived quietly unnoticed for many years as, one by one, prairie travelers disappeared.
Born in Astoria, N.Y. in 1963, Nicastro recently held a talk and signing at Common Grounds in Middleburg.
“I sold more books than there were people in the room,” he said. He holds a B.A. in English from Cornell University, an M.F.A. in film-making from New York University, a Masters in archaeology and a doctorate in psychology from Cornell. He’s also worked as a film critic, a hospital orderly, a newspaper reporter, a library archivist, a college lecturer in anthropology and psychology, an animal behaviorist and an advertising salesman.
A full-time writer for the past 11 years, Nicastro recently signed a three-book deal with Harper Collins. His work includes short fiction, travel and science articles for The New York Times, The New York Observer, Film Comment and The International Herald Tribune. His most rewarding occupation, he said is as husband to Maryanne Newton and father to their teenage daughter, Nell Lindsay Nicastro.
Hell’s Half Acre is available at Second Chapter Books in Middleburg.