No mental problems, he was just evil., The case garnered national attention, and four authors later wrote books about it. . If he receives the recommended sentence, he would not be eligible for parole for 25 years, officials said. Steven Wayne Benson[1] (July 26, 1951 July 3, 2015) was an American convicted double murderer of his mother, tobacco heiress Margaret Benson; and his brother (actually his nephew but later adopted), tennis player Scott Benson. Many members of the family have disappeared from public view in the past 20 years. Murphys nephew, Steven Benson, was the only one to escape the fiery blast that day. His second wife Debra was not in the courtroom, or even in Florida. He knew how to make tube bombs and fiddled with explosives. [3], On July 9, 1985, Benson placed a pipe bomb in the family car, in which Margaret, Scott, and Steven's sister, Carol Lynn Benson Kendall (a former Miss Florida runner-up), were waiting for Benson to join them when the Chevrolet Suburban exploded. It all came back to him.. Just follow the money, and you could see what he was doing.. Bensons own sister, Carol Lynn Kendall, then 40, who survived the blast but was severely burned, wanting to make sure her brother was sentenced to life in prison for the killings. It looks like we don't have any photos for Carol Lynn Benson Kendall yet. I think it was the dumbest murder I ever solved that had been planned. Despite claims by the defense that Scott was heavily involved in drug use and possibly even drug dealing (and that the bombing was therefore drug-related) there was little testimony that Scott was anything more than a regular user of nitrous oxide and an occasional user of marijuana and cocaine. He never looked at anybody, says Murphy, who sat right behind Benson during the trial. Something is wrong with Daddy. File photo. "Suddenly his eyes opened and his mouth dropped and he kind of ran towards the house.". It r The Money. Benson calmly talking on the phone about his burglar alarm companys profits when investigators arrived at the home where the shattered bodies of his mother, Margaret, 63, and his brother, Scott, 21, still lay outside on the driveway. Tragically, Hitchcock turned out to be right about his grandson. Benson died earlier this month in a Florida prison, where he was serving two life sentences for the crimes. A juror examines a photo of the Chevy Suburban that Steven Benson exploded with a pipe-bomb in front of his family's Naples, Fla., home, killing his mother and nephew and injuring of his sister. To Carol Lynn Benson Kendall, this question is, in a sense, peripheral. She is shown here in a photo shoot at. "I couldn't understand why he wasn't coming over to help me," she testified to a packed but dead silent courtroom. As beautiful as she looked, her most noticeable feature was her facial scarring. Prosecutors linked Benson to the bomb explosion by producing a receipt, with Bensons palm print, for the purchase of pieces of pipe and end caps. At the urging of Hitchcock, Sands tried to talk to Benson about religion, about accepting Jesus as his savior, but Benson did not want to talk about that. The thing that stuck out in my mind was, wow, how easy this is to see what the money did. On July 9, 1985 Benson placed a car bomb on the family car, in which Margaret, Scott, and Steven's sister, Carol Lynn Benson Kendall, (a former Miss Florida runner-up) were waiting for Steven to join them in the vehicle when the Suburban exploded. He had very few visitors. Benson has had his share of problems behind bars. Bensons wife never attended the trial. Also Read : . Nervously at first, but then more calmly, she testified in response to the prosecutor's questions. The jury convicted him of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and arson of a dwelling in the killing of his mother and nephew and injuring of his sister with car-bomb in front of their Naples, Fla., home. He thought he was better than everybody else.. Thats the way Steve was.. When the Challenger space shuttle exploded a year after the Florida murders, Hitchcock broke down, Murphy recalls. Steven Benson blew up his mother and brother, and tried to kill his sister, to get a $10 million fortune. Within this circle, there was lots of money. At first, Murphy thought her niece, Carol Lynn Kendall, 40, also had died, but she found out that she was badly burned but had survived. Dwight Brock was an assistant state attorney in Florida, specializing in white collar crime, when Steven Benson was arrested. ", As for the positioning of the vehicle's occupants, "I thought it was awfully strange that Scott was driving. Instead, he died in prison, leaving behind just $30.06 in his commissary fund. She, of course, was referring to Margaret. Is Carol Lynn Benson Kendall still alive? A month later, the Naples police arrested Steven Benson and charged him with two counts of homicide and one count of attempted murder. She is shown here in a 1975 photo, a decade before the murder. People had suspicions as to why, after having two children of her own, all of a sudden Mrs. Benson adopts a third.. Hes had no contact at all.. But a witness for the defense, Steven's secretary, testifed Steven never left the office during the times when the pipe and end caps were purchased. But by late 1984 and early 1985, they argue, she was coming to the conclusion that bankrolling Steven was something less than sound. But she didn't know its size, and she didn't know that Steven had made the down payment with a blank check she had signed and left behind for household expenses while she was on a cruise. Margaret Benson eventually loaned her son the money but he never did anything with the building, Sands says. Under Florida law, Steven Benson is precluded from receiving proceeds of the estate of the person he murdered, Hayes said. And if Steven Benson walks out of the courtroom a free man, he will still be in line for a third or even a half of his mother's $10 million estate. It seemed like a dumb thing." And he is an arbitrator within the family when things go wrong., Steven started to cry. That's a negative as far as the jury is concerned. Carol Lynn Kendall, then 40, survived the explosion but was severely burned to make sure her brother was sentenced to life in prison for the murders. It was her sister, Margaret, 63, and her nephew, Scott, 21, who had died in a horrific car explosion in Florida. Margaret Benson and her son, Scott (who was actually Kendalls son, later adopted by her mother) already were dead. Steven Benson, right, enters Lee County Court with his defense attorney Mike McDonnell as the jury selection portion of his murder trial Monday, July 14, 1986. Collier Judge Hugh Hayes presided over the trial. He is also charged with the attempted murder of his sister, Carol Lynn. However, according to a veteran Florida criminal attorney, "any time in a murder case when a defendant without a prior record fails to take the stand, it looks bad. A Florida jury found Benson guilty Aug. 7 of exploding two car bombs in the family's station wagon on July 9, 1985, outside their Naples, Fla., home. emains listed on the DOC website as an open investigation led by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. But everyone agreed that she had done so well, it might be unwise to risk a second appearance. Murphy does not know whether the couple, who had three children, later divorced. Not at her mother's house in Naples, for that has been sold, but behind several closed doors in the state's attorney's offices. 3600 New York Avenue NE, Washington, DC 20002, Biden migrant surge sets all-time record for most arrests at southern border, With its social media biz under siege, Facebook looks to build a new metaverse empire, Youngkin goes solo, McAuliffe leans on surrogates in home stretch of Va. governors race. But showing little emotion after that. A maid testified that he was "the apple of his mother's eye." Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. Jul 23, 2015. I guess people just exhibited good taste, he said. It also wanted to rehear some of what the government fingerprint expert had said about the palm prints. 20 years later, friends and family still try to make sense of Benson murders: 'It still seems unreal', By opting into newsletters you are agreeing to our. ", Should the court decide that the 3-year-old in question is indeed the daughter of the late Scott Benson, the child could inherit either (depending on what happens to the man who might be her Uncle Steven) one-third or one-half of Margaret Benson's $10 million estate, and establish her as a legitimate claimant to the estate of the 89-year-old Harry Hitchcock, who is said to be worth as much as $400 million. ", Once all was set, she testified, Steven handed Scott the keys, and then said he had forgotten something and headed back toward the house. . Benson said he first went to get coffee and doughnuts at a nearby store. The Herald also reported that it was common knowledge among certain of Steven's childhood friends that he liked to make bombs. Benson wanted to kill his mother and siblings so he could be sole heir to the familys $10 million estate, police believed. In the Know: Is that Benson guy still in prison? Naples Daily News 0:00 1:22 Steven Benson is led into the Collier County jail complex on the day of his arrest in 1985. 'It's hard for me to even put into words the devastation emotionally that this has caused me and my children,' Kendall told reporters at Logan International Airport after flying home from Florida. Last Known Contact Information. I thought I was being electrocuted. McDonnell argued that palm print identification is not reliable. Steven Benson, convicted in 1986 of murdering his mother and adopted brother, died in July at Taylor Correctional Institution in northern Florida. Lending her emotional support was her grandfather, Harry Hitchcock, who had made a dramatic appearance in the courtroom at 8:25 a.m. and stayed the entire day. "I don't really know how to comment on it. Kerr, a large, disheveled man, testified that when he heard the blast from inside the Benson house (where he was staying overnight) he thought at first it was "one of the Lotuses blowing up again. Hitchcock died in 1990, five years after the Florida killings. It just never stopped, Cirace said. Scott tried to start the vehicle, she testified, "and immediately after that I was surrounded by this orange thing.". . Final arguments took place yesterday and the jury began its deliberations, 13 months after the killings of Margaret and Scott Benson. PHOTOS: Looking back at the Benson murder trial, The Bensons: Lancaster family ripped apart by greed and murder 30 years ago, Danger and loneliness: Steven Benson's life in prison after he killed his family members, Notorious Lancaster County killer Steven Benson allegedly murdered in prison inmate's revenge scheme. At the trial, the man with whom he'd spent that evening testified that Steven had not set up the meeting until 6:30 that same night. That she is now horribly scarred is obvious; large red subdermal slashes streak her face. A jury convicted Steven Benson of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and arson of a dwelling. He said, Thats how Margaret died. I think it was just pure greed for money, Murphy said. . [6][7] Over the course of his sentence, Benson was transferred to various prisons because of constant threats and abuse from other inmates. McDonnell did not call Steven Benson in his own defense. Then the witness surprised the judge by asking if he could make a "statement." Once, Benson wanted his mother to loan him the down payment for a factory building in Lancaster. Its still fresh in my memory, he said. Toxicology tests showed no drugs in Benson's system, the report states. How people were crooked. She wanted an accounting and, if it had to be, a confrontation with Steven. Beyond that, Young had little to say. The judge did another unusual thing. That trip, which should have taken about 10 minutes, took more than an hour, according to Carol Lynn's testimony, and 20 to 30 minutes according to Steven's statements to investigators. Carol Lynn Kendall, sister of Steven Benson, survived the car bomb that killed her son, Scott Benson, and mother, Margaret Benson, on July 9, 1985. Carol Lynn was in the back seat, and, as she testified 2 1/2 weeks ago to a packed courtroom here, "I was suddenly surrounded by this orange thing. He had cautioned his new employes, according to testimony, not to let anyone in the offices of the Naples-based companies know the name of the company or what they did. ", After almost four hours of final argument, and another hour of his carefully read instructions, Judge Hayes gave the case to the jury at 2:06 yesterday afternoon. Shocked by the attack, she says that since then, her siblings have been completely uninterested in her physical and emotional well-being. My relationship with Tracy was always a very turbulent one. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. Albert Gleason, a federal explosives expert, testifies about the pipe-bomb Steven Benson used to kill his family members on July 9, 1985, in front of their Naples, Fla., home. Florida authorities have charged Steven Benson, Mrs. Kendalls 34-year-old natural brother, with setting the blast outside the familys Naples, Fla., home because he believed he was about to be cut out of his mothers will. Mrs. Kendalls attorney, E. Richard Cirace of Boston, confirmed the report. Margaret and Scott died instantly, and Caroline was rushed to the hospital with severe burns. I heard a lot of cursing and swearing.. Bennett heard Kendall, who was disfigured in the bombing, testify that after the first blast blew her out of the car, she was still conscious, and she yelled to her brother to help her. Carol Lynn Benson Kendall was a former Miss Florida runner-up and was survived in a murder attempt by her brother Steven Wayne Benson in 1985. He complimented the jury for its "staying power," but that didn't stop him from holding court all day Saturday, too. Defense lawyer Mike McDonnell, who represented Benson along with attorney Jerry Berry, said it was one of the first trials to have televised gavel-to-gavel coverage.. Its been decades since his trial attracted attention, though TV specials still pop up on cable channels from time to time. By July 8, the day before the bombing, Margaret had learned of Steven's new house in Fort Myers, according to testimony. [13] The next day, Wayne Kerr, at whose wedding Steven Benson had been the best man, took the stand. ), After a brief rebuttal by the prosecution, Judge Hayes let the jury go. Benson, who was serving two consecutive life sentences, had last been housed at the Taylor Correctional Institution, a prison about an hour southeast of Tallahassee. In July 1985, 63-year-old Margaret, her 41-year-old daughter Caroline Benson Kendall, her 33-year-old son Stephen Benson, and her 21-year-old adopted son Scott Benson got into the car to drive away to check a piece of land in the city where Margaret planned to build another house for the family. Yesterday, a jury began deliberations on those charges after weeks of riveting testimony involving enormous amounts of money and a tangled family web. Her daughter, Kendall, was. All but 30 remain open investigations. They were obliterated when a pipe bomb the size of a football planted between the two front seats exploded. His grandson never acknowledged him again, not even when he came to Florida for the trial. Thats how Margaret died. I never saw him cry as much as he did with the Challenger. Steven Benson blew up his family in the driveway of their Florida home in July 1985. Naples killer Steven Benson who sought $10 million family fortune dies in jail with $30 to his name, Naples pipe bomb killer Steven Benson dies in prison. Margarets blood was still all over the side of his van. I hope he does, she said. Benson died earlier this month in a Florida prison, where he was serving two life sentences for the crimes. I know it happened to me and my family, she says, but it seems so surreal.. He cried so much, she says. Carol Kendall currently lives in Hollywood, FL; in the past Carol has also lived in Norfolk VA. Other names that Carol uses includes Carol Lyn Falkiner, Carol Lynn Benson, Carol Lynn Benson-kendall, Carol Lynn Falkiner and Carol Lynn Kendall. ", Edward Benson died in 1980 at the age of 60, and his widow moved to Naples, Fla., a Gulf Coast enclave whose Chamber of Commerce boasts more millionaires per capita than any other U.S. city. 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