Episode 163: The Kelly Clan – Oklahoma’s "Bloody Benders"?

Think the "Bloody Benders" of Kansas were the only family of frontier serial killers? Think again. In this episode, Jess takes Tiff on a dark journey into the lawless "No Man’s Land" of the Oklahoma Panhandle to uncover the legend of The Kelly Clan.

In the late 1880s, the Kelly family—William, Kate, Bill, and Kit—allegedly operated a deadly tavern near Oak City, where travelers stopped for a meal but often left in a cellar. With a mechanical trapdoor, a blood-stained axe, and 11 suspected victims, the Kellys’ story reads like a mirror image of the notorious Benders. But here’s the twist: while the Benders famously vanished into thin air, the Kellys met a much more violent end at the hands of a 20-man vigilante posse.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The Trapdoor Tavern: How the Kellys used "bait" and a spring-loaded floor to rob and murder wealthy travelers.

• The Discovery: The "foul stench" that led investigators to a gruesome find of 11 bodies, including a Chicago salesman and a Texas merchant.

• Vigilante Justice: The high-speed chase into the Texas Panhandle that ended in a confession, a broken neck, and a triple hanging.

• The Jurisdiction Vacuum: Why nobody was ever charged for the execution of the Kelly family in the Wild West's most lawless strip of land.

• Fact or Frontier Fiction?: We break down the "Copycat Conspiracy." Are the Kellys and the Benders the same people? Or was the entire Kelly Clan a 19th-century newspaper hoax designed to give the public the "closure" they never got with the Benders?

Whether they were real-life monsters or a sensationalized tall tale, the story of the Kelly Clan is a "kooky" and curious piece of Oklahoma lore you won’t want to miss.

Sources:

• MurderByGaslight

• Mirror   

• Wikipedia

• LOC.gov