Bill Benefiel
I know there is no way for me to know about every crime, no matter how horrible, that happens in my state but I am still very surprised when I hear of one particularly horrible for the first time after many years. When this crime occurred I was actually still in high school about two hours away and lets be fair, I was not as interested in true crimes at that time.
In the evening of October 10, 1986 seventeen year old Alicia Elmore went to a store a few block from her Terre Haute Indiana home to run an errand. On her way home a man, who was later determined to be Bill Benefiel, who was wearing a mask and carrying a gun confronted her. Alicia was pushed into a garage and forced to take all of her clothing off. Her head was covered and she was bound with her own clothing and electrical wire. Alicia was then put in Benefiel's van and he took her to a house that he owned. There he chained and handcuffed her to a bed. Over the next few months he continually raped Alicia and took pictures of her. Alicia would later say that she had counted the rapes and had lost count at sixty-four. She was gagged and Benefiel put glue on her eyes to keep them shut. At some point she attempted to escape and Benefiel cut her back, cut off a fingernail and part of her hair. He told Alicia that “they were for his scrapbook with samples from his other victims.” There were times where Benefiel would put his gun in her vagina and force her to have anal intercourse. She would often be gagged with toilet paper shoved in her mouth and tape placed on top of that.
Alicia would be given a baked potato and a glass of water every day. When Benefiel felt the need to look at Alicia's eyes he would put a mask back on and pry her eyes open and later glue them again. It was said that two months after her capture Alicia began “bleeding vaginally” and Benefiel decided to take her to a hospital that was some distance away and where the two would not be recognized. Benefiel stayed with Alicia the entire time and there was never an opportunity for her to explain to the doctors what was really going on.
When they returned from the hospital Benefiel took Alicia to another house he owned that was apparently across the street from the first one. It appears that Benefiel did not continue to glue Alicia's eyes and he did not wear a mask around her since she had seen him at the hospital. About a month and a half after getting to the new house Alicia heard noises that indicated there was someone besides her and Benefiel in the home. A short time later Alicia learned that was true.
Benefiel had kidnapped another woman, eighteen year old Delores Wells. Alicia saw Delores in another bedroom where her wrists and ankles were handcuffed to a bed and her eyes were taped shut. She was also gagged with the toilet paper and tape quite often. Benefiel forced Alicia to watch as he beat Delores with his fists and an electrical cord. A few days after this Alicia says that Benefiel left the house and when he returned he was dirty and had blisters on his hands. He told Alicia that he had been out digging a hole that was big enough for two people.
Twelve days after being kidnapped, Delores Wells was taken from the house on February 7, 1987 and never returned. Before leaving the house with Delores, Benefiel once again made Alicia watch as he placed superglue in Delores' nose and pinched it shut and then watched as he placed tape over Delores' mouth. When he returned after a few hours he told Alicia that he had tied Delores' arms and legs to separate trees in the woods and had wrapped duct tape around her head. He told her that when he thought Delores was dead he “popped” her neck “just to be sure” and then buried her in the hole he had previously dug.
A few days later the Vigo County police department got a tip that they should check out Bill Benefiel and his “House of Horror.” Benefiel was likely tipped off that they were coming because Alicia would later say that she could hear a police scanner that allegedly Benefiel used “to determine which houses he could burglarize.” When he knew the police were on the way he moved Alicia into a crawlspace into the attic of the home but when they arrived they already had a search warrant in hand and Alicia was found. It was said initially she claimed that she was there voluntarily but as soon as she was away from Benefiel she began telling her own horror story.
Benefiel was arrested and initially charged with things related to Alicia. A few days later they found Delores' body in an area that had recently been disturbed in the woods. Inside his homes and vehicle they had found his mask among other things. They even found some duct tape that had hairs stuck to it that was later said to be “similar” to Delores' eyelash, eyebrow and head hair. Delores' body was covered in bruises and injuries but her official cause of death was ruled to be asphyxiation.
In 1988 Benefiel went on trial. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. The trial lasted three weeks. The defense argued that he was mentally ill but to be fair I am uncertain about any specifics they may have argued. As we know a defendant has the right to testify in their own defense, or not. It is more unusual for a defendant to testify than to not but what happened in this trial is something I had never heard in all the cases I have researched.
Benefiel did begin testifying at his trial. It was said that he testified for about forty-five minutes on the stand and that testimony surrounded his childhood although I found no specifics. The court then recessed and upon starting up again Benefiel refused to take the stand again. This meant that his attorney's were able to get information in about his childhood but that the prosecutors were never able to cross-examine him. Eventually Benefiel was convicted of murder, criminal confinement, rape, and criminal deviant conduct. On November 3, 1988 Benefiel was sentenced to death.
This case did not just teach me about the crime that was committed, it also taught me I was unaware of an Indiana law when it comes to executions. Apparently there is a law that victim families are not allowed to witness an execution. Well, I suppose that is not completely true, let me explain. The condemned is allowed to “invite” up to ten people to their execution. I suppose if they choose to invite family members of their victims they may be able to witness the execution but what are the odds of that happening? It was said that Benefiel invited one person to witness his execution but the identity of that person was never revealed. Outside the prison were the families of Delores Wells and Alicia Elmore. It was said that Alicia herself chose not to attend. I must say that I disagree with this law. Benefiel watched someone's loved one take their last breath on earth, why was her family, especially her parents who brought her into this world, not allowed to see him take his last breath? In my opinion this law should be changed.
Earlier this evening, I was telling my niece about an incident, one that happened to me on a summer evening over fifty years ago. When I'd finished she said, "Oh, that was probably Bill Benefeil." She told me about the murder he was convicted of, and the woman who survived his tortures. I looked them up and found this blog post.
ReplyDeleteOne night I went to what was then the Fine Arts Building on campus to work on a class project, after which I walked home. The FA bldg was on Chestnut Street, practically a direct east/west route to and from home, one that I'd walked frequently over the years with no problem. I'd walked from there and nearly made it to the intersection of Chestnut and 13th Streets when I was grabbed from behind and pushed up against the concrete block porch of a duplex house.
It was a boy, about 12 or 13 years old, but very strong and, as I told the cops later, one who knew what he was doing. I'd heard his footfalls just before he grabbed me and had turned around just in time to see him pull his shirt over his head so I wouldn't see his face. He assaulted me, molested me. I managed to get one hand free and punched him in the head as hard as I could muster, over and over. I didn't scream, just put all the energy I had into fighting him off, because in that short bit of time, no one came out of that house, no one came out of the bar across the street, and not a car passed on the street. And then he ran away. I watched him go back the direction he'd come from.
I turned back towards home, walking on Chestnut Street another block or two, stopping at a friend's home to call the police. When they came, I felt I was able to give them a clear description of my assailant, as well as the location I thought he'd come from. I told them them I'd passed a big, white duplex house a couple blocks before 13th street, where I'd seen a boy in a plaid shirt on the porch with a toddler and an older woman, who may have been his grandmother.
When I told them this, I remember the two cops looked at each other as if they knew exactly who I was describing. They told me that, due to the (then) recent "probable cause" rulings, they couldn't just take my word for it, that they practically had to have seen the boy attacking me to have caught him. But. I swear they knew him.
And my niece knew the girl who Benefiel murdered. She told me Delores had lived on Chestnut Street. When I looked up the story, the man in the picture could have been an older version of the boy who attacked me - same coloring, same build, just grown older. And the boy who attacked me was, already, no novice at that game. He absolutely had done it before, so I wonder how many girls he attacked then killed before someone told the police about the "House of Horror". And when he he learn to kill?
Of course, I have no proof this was the case. It's just that what I'd thought of as an isolated incident suddenly had some context. Also, my isolated incident may just possibly be another link in another sordid tale.