The "Moneybags Benson: Revisited" Story

This photo of Carol was taken at the
Lancaster Country Club in 1974.

It was an ordinary day.  Checking out the headlines from the last few days that read: Money & Murder and A Life Behind Bars.  Both were written in the Lancaster Newspaper and both were written by a former student of mine, Cindy Stauffer.  It was on Sunday, August 2, 2011 that I first wrote about a female friend from church whose brother murdered her mother and brother and almost murdered her.  Carol Benson's family were members at St. James Episcopal Church in downtown Lancaster, PA and Carol was in my Sunday School class for a few years in the late 1950's and early 1960's.  She suddenly stopped coming to Sunday School, but we didn't think much about it at the time.  One of my best friends, Barry, who was in the Sunday School class also, told me that he knew her from school and that she had tons of money and was well liked in school.  All the guys thought she was really neat, and I must confess I thought so also.  Seems her family owned Lancaster Leaf Tobacco Company in Lancaster, PA at that time in history when smoking was at it's height in popularity.  Seems that Carol happened to disappear for a few months to go away to have a child which was adopted by her mother as her own.  So the family consisted of the mother, son Steven, daughter Carol and adopted son Scott.  Strange situation, to say the least.  

Carol's brother Steven who was charged with murder.

On July 9, 1985 two pipe bombs exploded in a Chevy Suburban in front of their home in Naples, Florida killing mother Margaret and son Scott.  Carol survived the explosion, but was severely burned.  On August 22, Steven, age 33 at the time, was arrested and charged with the murders of his mother, age 63, brother, age 21, and the attempted murder of his sister.  The evidence was pretty revealing, but it took just about a year to bring him to trial and convict him of his dastardly deeds on August 7, 1986.  His motive was to inherit the company fortune.  He received two consecutive life sentences and spent the last 30 years of his life in jail until his death July 3rd of this year.  

Jail cell similar to the one that housed Steven.

The trial attracted national media coverage and a series of TV specials and books.  Only O.J. Simpson's trial gained more publicity than the Benson trial.  Carol was one of the people who testified against her brother and was said to be responsible for getting his sentence to be consecutive rather than concurrent.  During the last 30 years Steven Benson was moved 11 times from prison to prison and saw his life of luxury go from owning just about everything to not even owning a bath towel.  He held various jobs in prison from working in the laundry to working in the prison library. In 1991 he was stabbed by another inmate, but the records of that incident have disappeared.  Records show that his wife and three children didn't visit him and during the final years of his life he had no visitors at all.  He went from living on a 17-acre horse farm in Lancaster to living in a prison cell in Florida.  

Photo of Steven from a few years ago.

He was reprimanded in prison many times for things such as having an unauthorized radio to taking ketchup and mayonnaise packets from the cafeteria to having too many shower shoes to standing on a chair to change a TV channel.  He devoted most of his prison life to filing grievances about his prison life such as how many minutes water came out of the shower head to the number of days salt and pepper were served to prisoners.  His last grievance was filed in April of this year and his response was received by him on May 6, exactly two months from his death at age 63, the same age that his mother was when she was killed.  His cause of death is unknown.    This classic case of greed and murder was played out in the newspapers and on TV all over the country.  Who would of thought that a story with the notoriety of this one would have began in Lancaster County, PA.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.