Just sort of odd, very different.. he asked. In addition, the Benson Family murder case was the subject of The Serpent's Tooth, a 1987 book by Christopher Andersen. Scott was an aspiring tennis professional, but apparently the aspirations were Margaret's rather than his. Carol Lynn testified that he arrived unusually early and insisted on taking the Chevy Suburban, rather than his own car, and first going by himself for coffee and doughnuts. Steven was paid $244,974.39 so he could pay his legal fees. She cannot believe that two decades have passed since the day that two family members were killed and her familys life was changed forever. . She suffered first-degree burns on her face and hands in the explosion and is still undergoing extensive reconstructive surgery. Thats the whole thing: self, self, self and me, me, me and me. Steven Benson is led into the Collier County jail complex on the day of his arrest in 1985. In prison records, Benson listed the oldest of his three children, twins Victoria and Christopher, as his next of kin. 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. Its almost like its unbelievable, Murphy said today. We were trying to get some emotion out of him, he said. 10-Year Discipline History: . After nearly three decades behind bars, Benson died July 3 at 63, the same age his mother, Margaret Hitchcock Benson, was when she was killed by a pipe bomb he planted in her Chevrolet Suburban in the familys North Naples driveway in 1985. [4] Well, he thought he knew everything and he was brilliant in many ways, Sands says, but there was a lot of things that didnt make any sense.. He was calm as a cucumber, he said. 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. Scott had canisters of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, to which he was addicted, delivered to the house on a monthly basis, defense witnesses said. Not just Steven, but the whole family was just ugly. 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. In the Know: Is that Benson guy still in prison? He was just not your usual teenager. "I couldn't understand why he wasn't coming over to help me," she testified to a packed but dead silent courtroom. 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. Hitchcocks daughter, Margaret, it turned out, was not really the mother of Scott Benson. 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. Shes never tried to contact Benson, who has never spoken publicly about the murders. Brocks brother, Jerry, the lead prosecutor in the case, asked him to help with the financial issues in the case as it was going to trial. . Daddy. Even though her grandfather and her aunt opposed Steven's release on bail, she apparently still fights the conclusion that Steven did it. Steven Benson blew up his family in the driveway of their Florida home in July 1985. Thats the way Steve was.. Amos Sands of West Donegal Township remembers the day 20 years ago today as well. An investigator said later they probably didnt have a chance to move.. I knew it was no accident, said Young, now 75, of Naples. 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. No mental problems, he was just evil., The case garnered national attention, and four authors later wrote books about it. For years, she had paid for the lessons and the coaches and the trips, not to mention his 16 tennis racquets. She, of course, was referring to Margaret. I felt like I was being pressed back into the seat. I think it was just pure greed for money, Murphy said. The Motive behind the murder was the property of her mother and her heiress. It came to an average monthly payment of more than $10,000, or a grand total of "around a quarter of a million dollars.". He was supposed to provide them the next day, the day the bomb went off.. Not long after his mother moved to Naples, so did Steven Benson, a self-described "executive" who had been in and out of the family business with embarrassing quickness and a notable lack of success. Justice is justice," he said. Prosecutors argued his mother's funds were used as seed money -- or to bail out one or more of the companies in emergencies, of which there were many. The Herald also reported that it was common knowledge among certain of Steven's childhood friends that he liked to make bombs. 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. Then, as they got into the car, Caroline noticed Stephen asking them to get in. Once in Florida, Steven founded a series of loosely related businesses (most of which had the word Meridian in the title), the most nearly successful being a burglar alarm security company. Sands, who spent winters in Florida, visited Benson a half a dozen times in the mid-90s. 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. Benson was arrested and ultimately convicted of planting two pipe bombs in the family's SUV, then coaxing everyone into the vehicle before blowing it up. That she is now horribly scarred is obvious; large red subdermal slashes streak her face. Scrambling desperately, the injured Kendall pitched herself through the open door of the mangled van and onto the circular driveway in front of her mother's home. On Monday, the state produced a witness whose testimony left a strong impression on those spectators who had seen the trial from the beginning. I couldnt get through to him spiritually., Im no psychologist, Sands adds, but he lives in denial. According to prosecution evidence, there was even talk that Steven might be cut out of his mother's will. Benson was also charged with the attempted first-degree murder of his sister, Carol Lynn Benson Kendall. The explosion was so loud that golfers ran off the course to see what had happened. FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) _ The estate of murdered tobacco heiress Margaret Benson should be shared equally by the children of the son who killed her and by her daughter, a judge has ruled. 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. His grandson never acknowledged him again, not even when he came to Florida for the trial. I knew she was scared of Scott, but that was a different situation. Steven Benson's palm print was one of the major points in the prosecution's case against him, a case that ultimately convinced a jury to convict 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. The family and everybody just treated his grandmother as Scotts mother, the attorney said. Collier Circuit Judge Hugh D. Hayes issued the ruling Monday. He is also charged with the attempted murder of his sister, Carol Lynn. Maybe it was the money, the power and the greed, they say. After Harry Hitchcock had health problems in the late 1950s, Edward ran the company for him. Through taxes, disbursements and attorneys fees, the estate has dwindled from $10 million to about $1.2 million, said Carl Westman, the estates attorney. If they had objections they were to say, quietly, "May we approach the bench?" Our prayers and thoughts are with the family and loved ones of Carol. To that end, he held court one day from 8:30 in the morning, his usual opening time, to 10 that night. I mean, I was scared of Scott . 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. Steven Benson is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 2, and prosecutors have asked for a life sentence. People had suspicions as to why, after having two children of her own, all of a sudden Mrs. Benson adopts a third.. Hollywood's Carol Lynn Benson Kendall (University of Richmond School of Law, admitted to the Florida Bar 2002) got disbarred, the final step after her suspension in February and a. Collier Judge Hugh Hayes presided over the trial. September 1, 1989. The bills were sent to and paid for by Margaret. I have a strong feeling Steven Benson also knew, Cirace said. The Lancaster Township woman was playing golf on a July day at the Lancaster Country Club when she was asked to come in off the course. 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.. She had retained Boston attorney E. Richard Cirace to advise her and represent her interests. Joyce Quinn, Margaret Benson's quiet and polite young secretary who'd lasted but three months in the job before realizing there had to be saner employment, testified that Margaret "paid for everything for Scott" -- his cars (among them two Lotuses, a sports car that costs $45,000 to $50,000) his van, his Cigarette speedboat, his apartment and furniture, repairs, his tennis lessons, his clothes and his gas credit cards. FDLE spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said the agency had no updated information as of Friday afternoon. It just never stopped, Cirace said. malevolent." A jury convicted Steven Benson of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and arson of a dwelling. The Miami Herald gave the following account of a groundskeeper who worked on Margaret Benson's Pennsylvania estate: He recalled that one day in 1982 he looked down from his ladder to see Steven carrying three copper tubes with wires protruding from them. Reached Friday about her brothers death, she said, I really have no comment.. Bensons grandfather, the family patriarch and the Lancaster Leaf Tobacco magnate, the late Harry Hitchcock, was a congenial-looking, white-haired Christian businessman known for his tulip gardens in School Lane Hills. 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." The next day, Wayne Kerr, at whose wedding Steven Benson had been the best man, took the stand. Steven Bensons children - Elizabeth Benson, 5; Christopher Logan Benson, 5; and Natalie Nichole Benson, 4 - are entitled to inherit from their grandmothers estate, the judge said. 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. I guess he didnt want him to go to hell.. ), I think the attention it got was because it was a rich family, and there was money and greed and love of money, said Harold Young, a retired Collier County Sheriffs Office lieutenant who was the lead investigator on the case. The siblings did not return phone messages Friday. David Ahntholz/Staff (Photo: David Ahntholz .da-), Ajuror compares a police artist's sketch of the man who bought pipe at Hughes Supply to a mug shot of Steven Benson. Benson wasnt much more popular in the penitentiary: At one point, he was stabbed by another prisoner and had to be transferred to a different facility for his own safety. Murphys father, Harry Hitchcock, was fine. It also wanted to rehear some of what the government fingerprint expert had said about the palm prints. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. Murphy does not know whether the couple, who had three children, later divorced. 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