A HIGH PRICED CAN OF SOFT DRINK.

One day in October 1986 a 17-year-old high school student Alicia Elmore left her home to purchase a can of soft drink from a nearby service station. She was not to see her home again for many months. Alicia just disappeared off the street in Terra Haute (Indiana), whereabouts unknown. She had been abducted at the point of a gun by a man wearing a mask but, of course, nobody knew that at the time. The way she simply vanished without explanation puzzled everyone.

While family and friends searched for Alicia she was all the time not very far away. In fact, she was being held prisoner in a house on South 13th Street, South Terra Haute, the home of a 30-year-old man named Bill Benefiel. The building was but a few blocks from Alicia's home. 'Prisoner' is a word with multiple meanings. In this case it meant that Alicia had been stripped nude, chained down on a bed, and repeatedly raped, both anally and vaginally. For two of the months her captor had used a 'blindfold' of a particularly unpleasant kind - her eyelids were glued together.

Alicia was an unwilling sex-slave. It was later asserted by the prosecution at Bill Benefiel's trial that Alicia had been raped 64 times (after which, she said, she had stopped counting). As well as the superglue Benefiel had on many other occasions taped up her eyes and mouth. Sometimes toilet paper was stuffed into her mouth under the tape. She was cut with a knife and was beaten.

There were, as well, some strange features of this abduction. As in so many cases the man's wife was aware of the presence of the captive. She lived, as it happened, in a separate house to her husband. She had not participated in the abduction nor in the abuse of the girl but the day came when she decided she should inform police about her husband's 'guest'. The lady was prompted to take this action when she learnt that another young woman, Delores Wells, 18, had disappeared in Terra Haute - also snatched from the street. She did not know where Delores was but suspected her husband may have had something to do with it. She finally decided it was time to tell police about Alicia.

The police moved quickly and raided the house. When he realized police were knocking on his door Benefiel quickly forced Alicia into a cell-like space in the loft but she was located. They had a search warrant and, sure enough, in the upstairs room, they discovered the young girl. Although she had been given a certain degree of freedom, Alicia dared not try to escape her captor. From the start she had been treated brutally, threatened with punishment if she stepped out of line. She told police that after she was forced off the street she was initially bound and blindfolded and locked in the secret windowless tiny 'cell' in the attic.

CONFINED IN DARKNESS.
For four months she was kept confined in darkness in this space, often bound, only being allowed out to go to the bathroom and to be forced to have sex with her jailer, which occurred almost daily. She was threatened with torture and death if she tried to escape.

In time she was allowed out more and given work to do around the house. The wife, who lived in another house owned by the man, knew of the girl's existence and suspected the real truth but was not certain for some time. Even when left alone Alicia was too scared to try to venture outside the house to escape, thinking the man was watching the house and waiting to catch her and punish her. This is the story he had spun. She was terrified of Benefiel. Meanwhile the abuse continued, the sessions of sex sometimes lasting for hours at a stretch and resulting in much pain.

As October 1987 rolled around Bill Benefiel was on the prowl again, looking for another young woman to add to his harem. Delores Wells was snatched in the same area that had seen Alicia abducted. But Alicia had no idea Bill had snared another victim and for her part Dolores knew nothing of Alicia - at least initially. The new captive had been taken down to the cellar where she was abused sexually while Alicia, when not working around the house, was confined to her upper-storey cell.

Delores was not as lucky as Alicia and was soon murdered but not before she served her purpose - providing for her captor's sexual gratification. Delores suffered much abuse over a period of just a few days. Having first been bound and having her mouth taped, she was beaten with a length of electrical cord and was raped. One of her fingers was cut off. She, too, was kept chained and handcuffed naked on a bed. Eventually Delores was taken naked into the countryside and hung by her wrists from two trees while her tormentor dug her grave in front of her eyes. He had then attempted to asphyxiate her by forcing strong glue into her nostrils while her mouth was taped shut. This failing he had hit her over the head.

BURIED ALIVE.
According to the official autopsy she was not dead, only unconscious, when effectively buried alive by Benefiel. Police eventually discovered the body of Delores buried south-east of the town. She had survived as a prisoner of Bill Benefiel for just 12 days. An autopsy revealed injuries to her vagina and anus, and established asphyxia as the cause of death. An official report listed the cause of death as 'Asphyxia with superglue.'

Bill Benefiel was arrested and charged with the murder of Delores Wells and with the abduction and abuse of Alicia Elmore. He was eventually convicted of murder and of rape, 'criminal confinement' and 'deviant conduct' and given the death sentence.

The arrest of Benefiel prompted a review of past cases of young girls who had gone missing in the area. To the detectives there seemed to be something familiar about the details of the abduction and imprisonment of Delores and Alicia. In fact there were two such cases and the probability is that there had been other unreported ones before that time. In 1979 a young female was grabbed at gunpoint, marched into a shed, stripped of her clothing and raped. But the rapist had not finished. He next threatened her, tied her with strips of cloth, blindfolded her and gagged her, putting her naked and bound into the boot of his car. She was left locked in the boot all night.

Over the the next day and a half the man repeatedly raped her, all the while keeping her bound. In place of the cloth on her hands she was confined with handcuffs and her eyes were covered with putty and tape. Before each sexual assault he would beat her until she cried. He also assured her had had raped 20 or 30 women and claimed that two had ended 'in the river.'

SHAVEN HEADS.
On the second day the assailant drove the woman into the country, shaved her head and left her lying helplessly bound and naked on the ground, driving off. Fortunately the bonds were not tightly tied and she was soon free. She had, however, managed to get a glimpse of her abductor at one stage and had drawn a picture - of Benefiel. Unfortunately at the time this picture had not not lead to the man's apprehension.

The second case followed a similar pattern. The woman in question was abducted from her home and lodged in the secret compartment in Benefiel's house. She was bound, her eyes were taped, and she was raped repeatedly over a 24-hour period. Then she was taken into the country and tied naked to a tree - her head also being shaved. Both woman had been taken to the area where police searched for the missing teenager.

At his trial reference was made to abuse allegedly suffered by Benefiel in his early years. He was an adopted child and it was claimed he was sexually abused by his adoptive mother's boyfriend.

Benefiel was aged 48 at the time of his death - by chemical injection. The full details of some of the abuse suffered by the captive girls has never been revealed but when an appeal was made to the U.S. Court of Appeals the judges' 2004 opinion wrote that his crimes 'curl the stomach and numb the mind.' Just one example: he had made Alicia watch when he tormented Wells, handcuffing her to the bed and beating her. When he cut off her finger he told her she would 'bleed to death', dying slowly.

One person who had been waiting a long time for this event was the mother of Delores Wells, Margaret Hagan. She commented prior to the execution: 'He was there for her last breath and I want to be there for his. I want to be as close as I can and know for sure this monster is gone and he will never, ever again hurt anyone else ever again.' Her biggest disappointment was that she wouldn't witness the execution. 'I would like to see if he even has the slightest look of remorse. All he ever did was smirk and laugh at us,' she said. 'I'd like to see if maybe he's the least, little bit nervous. That maybe there's just a shadow of fear in his eyes when he knows it must be over like there must have been in my daughter's.'
 

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