is carol lynn benson kendall still aliveis carol lynn benson kendall still alive

I thought I was being electrocuted. Margaret and Scott died instantly, and Caroline was rushed to the hospital with severe burns. It r Inmates told investigators that Washington planned to extort $1,000 from Benson within days after arriving at Taylor Correctional Institution. He went through money like crazy, Sands says. In August 1986, Margaret Bensons son, Steven Wayne Benson, was convicted in the slaying of his mother and her adopted son, Scott R. Benson, 21. By the time Sands met Benson, the young man had graduated from college and was trying to find his way in the world, without much success. Born on Christmas Day 1963 in a Baltimore hospital to Carol Lynn Benson, then an unmarried teen-ager, he was adopted by Margaret and Edward Benson. BOSTON -- Tobacco heiress Carol Lynn Benson Kendall said Wednesday she has no intention of cutting her brother's children out of the family fortune despite his conviction of murdering her mother. . File photo. Steven Benson killed his mother and brother in an attempt to get his hands on the familys $10 million tobacco fortune. 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. Menu. [13] The Trustees have not presented reasonable grounds for attributing the settlors scheme to their section of the trustee exercised on November 27, 1985, following the death of Ms. Benson. emains listed on the DOC website as an open investigation led by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Bensons aunt, Murphy, recalls him as being different as well. Margaret Benson and her son, Scott (who was actually Kendalls son, later adopted by her mother) already were dead. When he went in, he was pudgy, even for 6 feet 2 inches tall, but by last month, the realities of prison fare had slimmed him down noticeably. He turned to the television cameras and delivered a stern warning to the "youth of Southwest florida" about the dangers of laughing gas. He knew how to make tube bombs and fiddled with explosives. Her father, she says, was broken up by the entire affair. [6][7] Over the course of his sentence, Benson was transferred to various prisons because of constant threats and abuse from other inmates. And finally, there was the issue of Steven's apparent history of playing with explosives. 'And it's something that although I know I have to live with it, it's going to be the most difficult thing that I've ever had to do in my life.'. Money was the downfall of the whole thing, says Sands, who visited Benson in prison up until about 10 years ago. Steven Benson denied all requests for media interviews. He was tall and thin and looked intellectual. I still get recognized, said Michael McDonnell, Bensons defense attorney, who at 74 still practices in Naples and Fort Myers. When Sands heard that Benson had been pressuring his mother for money shortly before her death, he was not surprised. The Prosecution. He complimented the jury for its "staying power," but that didn't stop him from holding court all day Saturday, too. The family and everybody just treated his grandmother as Scotts mother, the attorney said. . And then, at the last minute, he went back into the house, supposedly because he had forgotten a tape measure. A jury convicted Steven Benson of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and arson of a dwelling. He returned and got everyone into the Suburban and then went back into the house to retrieve a tape measure. Then you had Scott as an aspiring tennis player, but ordering nitrous oxide to be delivered to the house like some people get milk, he said, so he could carry on with his girlfriend, who was a stripper.. . Also Read:Mariannette Miller-Meeks : Role during Iowa elections. Steven Benson blew up his family in the driveway of their Florida home in July 1985. On the morning of the explosion, the entire family agreed to inspect the land at Stevens suggestion. Office: 954-789-0834. Dysfunction, said Patty Bennett, a juror on the case, trying to describe the Benson family. On Aug. 22, 1985, the State of Florida charged him with murder in the first degree of his 63-year-old mother, Margaret, and his adopted brother Scott. They have never learned to live, really.. After Benson was convicted, Hitchcock asked Sands to visit Benson in prison. . [12], Dominick Dunne's investigative crime show Dominick Dunne's Power, Privilege, and Justice devoted an hour for the case of Steven Benson. If they had objections they were to say, quietly, "May we approach the bench?" He called Hitchcock, his friend and employer, to express his condolences on the deaths of Hitchcocks daughter and grandson. I just cant imagine. 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. She suffered first-degree burns on her face and hands in the explosion and is still undergoing extensive reconstructive surgery. There were local TV stations every night that had local reporters critiquing what I was doing, McDonnell said. Copyright 2023 The Washington Times, LLC. [8], Benson died at Taylor Correctional Institution in Perry, Florida of a stab wound to the right side of the head with a homemade knife on July 3, 2015. Shes never tried to contact Benson, who has never spoken publicly about the murders. Then, as they got into the car, Caroline noticed Stephen asking them to get in. 10-Year Discipline History: . He was the last person to drive the SUV. He was just not your usual teenager. (One witness, Scott's psychiatrist, testified that the young man had a serious nitrous oxide habit, which had started when he'd go to the supermarket and sniff Reddi-Whip cans. . Error! Simpson trial, a gripping tale of a wealthy family torn apart by murder and avarice. Related story: Naples pipe bomb killer Steven Benson dies in prison. Investigators also found on Bensons pants a single particle of zinc, which they said fell off the pipe while he was making the bombs. Prosecutors argued that Margaret Benson was apparently beginning to face the growing evidence that Steven was spending beyond the limits of her frequent loans and the $3,000 a month she paid him as a "consultant" to the Meridian businesses. Nobody else had time to put a bomb in there, Young said. But that changed over the next three weeks, as witness after witness took the stand. Benson, then 33, was running out of it and wanted to inherit his mother's. It was very weird. 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. Margarets blood was still all over the side of his van. The Steven Benson case drew national media coverage in 1986. The Lancaster tobacco heir was convicted after a monthlong trial that was carried on Florida television, drew national headlines and spurred books and intense media coverage both here and in Florida. Bar Number: 555258. 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 was talking to one of his associates - the phrase How much did we take in yesterday? sticks in my head. Carol Lynn Kendall unsuccessfully ran for a Naples City Council seat while living in Port . Under the law, jurors are not supposed to take this into consideration. It was the O.J. Margaret's son, Steven Benson, was convicted of placing two pipe bombs inside the family's Suburban, which killed his mother and brother, and seriously injured his sister, Carol Benson Kendall. Benson crying on the first day of his trial. 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. He said he had a judicial conference he wanted very much to attend, so he had determined to finish the trial in three weeks. Its still fresh in my memory, he said. 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. Bensons aunt, for one, is glad her nephew is behind bars for likely the rest of his life. Maybe it was the money, the power and the greed, they say. She said she will never forget that moment. 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.. While she was being helped by the golfer, Carol Lynn Benson Kendall's brother Steven stood and watched the carnage. Steven Bensons trial is scheduled to begin in Naples, Fla., on Nov. 13. Patty Bennett was a nervous mother of two boys sitting in a jury box when the defense gave its opening statement about Steven Benson. The motive was money. A jury convicted him of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and arson of a dwelling in 1986, and he spent the rest of his life in jail. It wasn't the prison pallor that surprised people who had known him; it was the grim and almost affectless bearing. Lets go with disastrous hate. It just never stopped, Cirace said. He grabbed her and shook her, and told her that it might be her house but it was his dog, and if he but gave the command Buck would "rip you to pieces." 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. 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. Bennett heard how the bombs were assembled, with nails and tacks put inside them so they would do the most damage. Another facet of the prosecutor's argument was that Steven had been very specific about where each one of the family's members was to sit in the wagon -- and then, just before the first blast, he said he had forgotten a tape measure and headed back to the house. Its almost like its unbelievable, Murphy said today. Florida authorities have charged Steven Benson, Mrs. Kendall's 34-year-old natural brother, with setting the blast outside . He smiles with his attorneys on occasion when the jury is out, but the men he seems most comfortable with, the men he sometimes even kids with, are the huge-armed deputy sheriffs, his jailers. The judge did another unusual thing. Just follow the money, and you could see what he was doing.. He just looked at me. His second wife Debra was not in the courtroom, or even in Florida. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Benson died earlier this month in a Florida prison, where he was serving two life sentences for the crimes. Debunking the Myth: Is Maduro a Dictator? Eventually the second will was ruled valid, but before that happened, Steve Benson was arrested. But in reality she had been alone with her thoughts -- the memory of that "malevolent orange thing," and her recollection of the day she took the stand and referred, for the first time in public, and in front of all those strangers, to the late Scott Benson as "my son.". Margaret Benson eventually loaned her son the money but he never did anything with the building, Sands says. Steven Wayne Benson was an American double murderer of his mother, tobacco heiress Margaret Benson, and his brother, tennis player Scott Benson. Apparently, the idea was to cut down on speeches to the jury, and to speed things along. Prosecutors said it showed that while Carol Lynn owed her mother $118,560.33, Steven's IOU was $268,163.89. It was full of surprises. Movies. A maid testified that he was "the apple of his mother's eye." Doing, McDonnell said national media coverage in 1986 express his condolences on the website! Finally, there was the last person to drive the SUV was the last person to drive SUV... Dies in prison natural brother, with setting the blast outside nobody else had to... Out of it and wanted to inherit his mother 's eye. the morning of the explosion, idea. 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