Murder in North Naples

Margaret Hitchcock Benson was the heiress of the Lancaster Leaf Tobacco Co. Her father, Harry Hitchcock, had founded the company in 1941. Harry had come from nothing and built the company from the ground up. Lancaster Leaf Tobacco became one of the largest dealers of tobacco in the world.

Harry was a religious and modest man, he knew the value of money, as he had once had non. However, his family were quite different. His daughter Margaret Hitchcock married Benny Benson. Benny was a driven businessman and workaholic who after they married, joined her fathers business.

Margaret and Benny spent lavishly, they owned holiday homes and spent excessively. The pair had two children, Carol-Lynn and Steven. However, they were strict parents, with Benny often absent from the home due to work commitments.

Carol-Lynn was blonde, popular and beautiful. She competed in beauty pageants, with a relative degree of success. Steven was seven years her junior. Unlike Carol-Lynn, Steven was quiet and introverted, and was often in the shadow of his older sister. Steven was thirteen when his sister went away to college. Always in her shadow, it was now time for Steven to shine, being the only child in the house. However, this was not for long, as Margaret announced that she was adopting a baby boy. The rumour around town was that the baby, called Scott, was in fact Carol-Lynn’s illegitimate child.

Margaret and Benny gave all their attention to Scott, leaving Steven in the shadow once again. Steven constantly tried to impress his parents, but always seemed to fail. He dropped out of college three times and borrowed countless sums of money from his parents to start businesses, with each one failing. Benny was disappointed in his son, Steven was nothing like his father, and Benny’s disappointment had an effect on Steven.

Steven married, but after just six years, the couple divorced. Steven re-married and his father gave him a job in the family business in the hope that it would encourage Steven to one day take over the business. He was not interested, wanting a business of his own. Margaret and Benny retired to North Naples in Florida, but in 1980, Benny Benson died of lung cancer leaving ten million dollars to Margaret.

After Benny died, Margaret was spending the money like it was going out of fashion. Benny had always controlled the family and the money, and Margaret had no idea how to manage either. All three children were living off their mother’s fortune. Not one of the three had ever had a job, apart from Steven who had tried to work for his father, as well as in his own business, but Steven always wanted to start from the top, not the bottom.

After sitting down with an accountant, Margaret learnt that she had spent 1.5 million dollars in just one year. The accountant advised her to cut down on her spending, or she would end up bankrupt. Out of the three children, Steven was draining the most Margaret’s money.

As well as Steven constantly asking his mother for money, Scott was becoming difficult for Margaret to handle. He had become an out of control teenager. He drove around in a Lotus, and was into drugs, partying and girls, and had been in trouble with the police on several occasions. Margaret even had him sectioned at one point due to his violent behaviour.

Steven’s latest business, a security company, was in financial difficulty. Steven asked his mother to leave him several blank cheques whilst she went on vacation, in order to pay his staff. Steven used one of the cheques to put a down payment on a house for himself. When Margaret found out, she immediately returned home to confront her son. Although Steven had constantly been given money from his parents, he owned nothing, everything was in Margaret’s name.

In August 1985, Carol-Lynn was visiting her mother from Boston. On August 21st, Steven called and suggested that he meet the family the next day so that they could all go and look at a property that Margaret was purchasing. On August 22, Steven arrived at his mother’s home in his white company van. He entered the house and said that he was going to pop out and buy doughnuts and that he would not be long. Instead of taking his van, he took his mother’s Chevrolet Suburban wagon. Steven returned an hour later, and told Margaret, Carol-Lynn and Scott to get into the car.

Just as Steven was just about to get into the car, he claimed that he had forgotten something and needed to go back into the house. As Steven entered the house, the car exploded. When police arrived on the scene, Steven was very calm considering the circumstances and refused to cooperate with the police.

Carol-Lynn was the only survivor, suffering from third degree burns on thirty percent of her body, including on her face and neck. She told police that she remembered hearing a click and then a ball of flames engulfed the car. She remembered seeing Steven standing and looking as she rolled around on the lawn trying to put out the flames that engulfed her body. Carol-Lynn could not understand why her brother was not helping her. Steven then went into the house when there was a second explosion. After that, Carol-Lynn blacked out.

When police investigated, they found that the pipes used in the bomb were purchased at a shop close to Steven's office. A shop assistant even remembered Steven buying the pipes. A hand print was also taken from the receipt, which matched Steven’s.

The trial took place in 1986, and was quite the show, with Steven pleading not-guilty. The courtroom was packed, and the trial was televised. It was a high-profile case and everyone took an interest. Carol-Lynn, who was out of the hospital and able to testify, told the court that Steven had insisted that his mother sit in the front seat, even though she would always sit in the back and that he told her son, Scott, to drive, whereas Steven would always drive.

The court also heard that as well as the millions of dollars that Steven had borrowed from his mother, he had also being embezzling money and had stolen an additional $2 million from Margaret, who had planned to disinherit Steven. Carol-Lynn told the court that her mother feared that Steven may kill her for her decision.

After 11 hours, Steven Wayne Benson was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Half the jury wanted the death penalty.

Steven was also now excluded from his mother's will under the Florida Slayers Act, which stipulates that anyone convicted of murder of a descendent, is not entitled to any benefits. Carol-Lynn inherited her mother’s fortune and would later have the act extended to ensure that none of Steven’s children would receive any money.

Steven’s grandfather, Harry, the man who had created the family's wealth, died three years after the trial. He thought that his money had corrupted the children. Harry donated the bulk of his fortune to charities, giving only a small amount to his family.

To this day, no-one knows what Steven’s motive was. Some say that it was money, others say that Steven just wanted to be rid of his controlling mother. Steven never spoke about the murders, taking his reason to the grave. Steven died in Prison in 2015 after a fellow inmate stabbed him in the head.