Letter Leads To Discovery Of Body Of Sarah Bender

BREMERTON - The body of a Kitsap County woman missing since early November has been located after sheriff's deputies found a letter from her husband confessing to her killing.

The body of Sarah Bender, 48, was found yesterday wrapped in sleeping bags and dumped at the end of a logging road about five miles from Quilcene on Hood Canal, Kitsap County Undersheriff Chuck Wheeler said today.

She had been missing since Nov. 6, when she failed to report to work. The Benders lived at Suquamish, about eight miles north of Bremerton.

Wheeler said the break in the case was the discovery of a letter written by her husband, Rudolph Bender, 54, who committed suicide in Oregon last month. The letter was found yesterday in the false bottom of Bender's suitcase by a technician who was about to destroy the evidence.

One of the letters was to Bender's lawyer, one to the sheriff's office and one to the Hemlock Society, Wheeler said.

In the letter to the sheriff's office, Bender described shooting his wife and disposing of the body. Bender wrote that his wife was in pain from medical problems, they were both in trouble with the Internal Revenue Service and they were unhappy at the way they raised their daughter. He wrote that they agreed to kill themselves.

But Wheeler said evidence indicates Sarah Bender was not a willing victim.

Rudolph Bender's body was found Jan. 8 in a trailer in Lincoln County, Ore., near Siletz. He had shot himself in the head.

An extensive search was launched for both of the Benders after officials investigating her disappearance found blood in their home near Suquamish. Bender became a suspect after the blood was identified as his wife's.