And so he appears very much alone. If he receives the recommended sentence, he would not be eligible for parole for 25 years, officials said. Amos Sands of West Donegal Township remembers the day 20 years ago today as well. I think it was just pure greed for money, Murphy said. I guess you'd call them bombs." Carol Lynn testified that she thought Scott's being there was a "silly request. Debra divorced Steven shortly after his August 22, 1985, arrest. 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. Its like the story that keeps on giving. As the lead investigator in the Collier County Sheriffs Department, Harold Young was one of the first people to answer the call about a bombing at Margaret Bensons home in a gated golf course community on the morning of July 9, 1985. An autopsy report obtained by the Naples Daily News indicates the cause of death was a stab to the right temple. That seemed more important to him than his family lying all over the golf course.. I knew she was scared of Scott, but that was a different situation. Except for that last-minute surprise appearance, Carol Lynn Benson Kendall had spent the day out of sight, with her lawyer and the lawyer for her mother's estate. In the second half of 2015, there were close to 200 inmate deaths in Florida's prisons. All but 30 remain open investigations. He and his wife had two children, Margaret and Janet, and when Margaret married she chose a quiet accountant from Baltimore named Edward Benson, with whom she had two children, Carol Lynn and Steven. . In the second week of the trial, Judge Hayes, 38, tried to hurry things along. Benson's 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. Carol Lynn Benson Kendall, 2719 Hollywood Blvd., Suite 164, Hollywood, disbarred effective immediately, following a September 22 court order. "), Near the end of his testimony, he said he had finally told Margaret Benson, "You have to stop being a bank for your children." She was afraid her brother would come after her and her children if he ever got free. It was her sister, Margaret, 63, and her nephew, Scott, 21, who had died in a horrific car explosion in Florida. Scott was an aspiring tennis professional, but apparently the aspirations were Margaret's rather than his. Click here to learn more about the role the Lancaster County Local Journalism Fund plays in Lancaster County and to make a tax-deductible donation. McDonnell did not call Steven Benson in his own defense. He wanted his own way and he was going to get it one way or another, he says. He was sobbing.. 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. Bennett heard about the money battles that were going in within the family, how Margaret Benson used money to control her children, how they fought among themselves and with her to gain access to the fortune, how Margaret Benson asked a secretary to inform and spy on Steven. 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. Real estate. Steven Benson is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 2, and prosecutors have asked for a life sentence. Murphy declined to say where she now is living and says she does not see her regularly. She thought he had been embezzling family funds and had called her attorney to check into it. He was always doing things but never getting anything accomplished, Sands recalls. She is shown here in a photo shoot at. Also on the public record is a 3-year-old paternity suit filed by Scott's former live-in girl. He didnt say anything after prison. His grandson never acknowledged him again, not even when he came to Florida for the trial. In July 1985, Margaret, 63, her 41-year-old daughter, Carolyn Benson Kendall, her 33-year-old son Steven Benson, and her 21-year-old adopted son, Scott Benson, all got into a vehicle to go check out a plot of land in the city, where Margaret was planning to build another home for the family. Indeed, Margaret Benson did change her will, but in a terribly ironic touch, the only change was to cut out Wayne Kerr as executor. The explosion was so loud that golfers ran off the course to see what had happened. Steven Benson is led into the Collier County jail complex on the day of his arrest in 1985. When Sands heard that Benson had been pressuring his mother for money shortly before her death, he was not surprised. His face got really red. We learned about the passing of Carol Lynn Benson Kendall on May 23, 2022. To Carol Lynn Benson Kendall, this question is, in a sense, peripheral. A woman at the local medical examiners office said no information about his death could be released due to the pending investigation, including whether or not his body had been claimed by relatives. When Benson refused to pay, Washington and another man, identified as Marvin Taylor, ambushed and shanked Benson. 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. 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. Many members of the family have disappeared from public view in the past 20 years. And there was lots of squabbling over who got what. To him, sadly, its not a shocker, the terrible things people do to each other, the terrible things they do for money. He was supposed to provide them the next day, the day the bomb went off.. ", As for the positioning of the vehicle's occupants, "I thought it was awfully strange that Scott was driving. He just kept a straight face.. Steven Benson was taken into police custody on August 22, 1985, after being accused of blowing up his family in a Chevy Suburban in the driveway of their Naples, Fla., home on July 9 of the same year. He said Steven was laughing. [13] He is a good son. Thats how Margaret died. I never saw him cry as much as he did with the Challenger. [4] Kendall survived but was badly burned; Margaret and Scott died instantly from the bomb blast. Also Read : . 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. She had retained Boston attorney E. Richard Cirace to advise her and represent her interests. It was obvious he was spending his mothers money on himself and his family, Brock said. 10-Year Discipline History: . "How long does it take to say a guy was stabbed in the temple?" (AP Photo) (Photo: Anonymous). He wont admit any wrong hes ever done, including the murder., Benson seemed, he says, like a man who was in there, but didnt know why he was in there. Benson has had his share of problems behind bars. 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. 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. Lets go with disastrous hate. -- Scott Benson's natural mother and Margaret Benson's daughter -- got along better with her mother. It was just a tragic story. Quinn, left-center, was watching the production with friend Kathleen Garvey, left, and daughter Debbie Quinn, right, as the crew worked on a production for Court TV about the 1985 murders of tobacco heiress Margaret Benson and her son Scott. Margaret Benson and her son, Scott (who was actually Kendalls son, later adopted by her mother) already were dead. Young, the investigator, said hes seen more horrendous cases than the Benson case, ones where people killed their children by drowning them in their mothers blood. . He will be eligible for parole when he is 85. After the shaking incident, Margaret had her secretary compile a list of everything she'd bought for Scott in the last two years. Benson's death was reported soon after it happened on July 3. Attorney (s) appearing for the Case 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. He complimented the jury for its "staying power," but that didn't stop him from holding court all day Saturday, too. Here, prosecuting attorney Jerry Brock addresses members of the media outside the Florida courtroom where the case took place. Copyright 2023 The Washington Times, LLC ", The jowly and bespectacled witness testified that Steven's company books were a mess, with checkbook entries missing and no balance carried forward. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. He was born in 1951 in Baltimore. But the jury only wanted to have portions of Carol Lynn Benson Kendall's testimony read back. The three children were to divide the estate equally. He stared at her and walked away, said Kendall, who is now 70 and living somewhere in Florida. He had been driving it all that time, he said. District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District. Nobody else had time to put a bomb in there, Young said. Steven Benson and his wife, Debra, leave funeral services for his mother and brother, Margaret and Scott Benson, at St. James Episcopal Church in Lancaster in 1985. She is shown here in a photo shoot at Lancaster Country Club in 1974, more than a decade before the incident. It all came back to 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. Related story: Naples pipe bomb killer Steven Benson dies in prison. She was crying. Benson died earlier this month in a Florida prison, where he was serving two life sentences for the crimes. Stating that he could not give money to one of the children and not the other, Judge Hayes then awarded $244,000 to Carol Lynn Kendall, who also had legal bills. Cirace said the rumors were never confirmed until Steven Bensons lawyers questioned Mrs. Kendall about it, to test her credibility. How people were crooked. TV show Monday features Benson family murders, one of Naples' notorious crimes, Lighthouse Project - History: Murderers, moonshiners, swindlers lead rogues gallery of SW Florida crooks, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. It was then that she had her personal secretary run a tab of what her children owed her. Margaret Benson and her adopted son, Scott, were killed in the 1985 blast at their Naples home. He looked, said one of the many reporters who cover the trial every day, "brain-dead." Young also remembers the day they arrested Benson: Aug. 22, 1985. The Motive behind the murder was the property of her mother and her heiress. The problems, Sands says, were all Benson wanted to talk about during the visits. Instead, he died in prison, leaving behind just $30.06 in his commissary fund. Hed always been sort of strange, she says. . Support local journalism. Margaret, Scott, and Stevens sister, Carol Lynn Benson Kendall, were waiting for Benson to join them in the family car on July 9, 1985, when the Chevrolet Suburban exploded. Dad was very religious, she said. My mother and I were very, very close and we didn't have anybody else except each other because Scott went his own way, and Steven . 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. The Herald also reported that it was common knowledge among certain of Steven's childhood friends that he liked to make bombs. 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