Lost in the Desert

Loretta Bowersock was a 69-year-old Tempe, Arizona woman who helped her daughter Terri build a successful consignment furniture business. For almost two decades she shared her home with Taw Benderly, a man who presented himself as a devoted partner and an ambitious entrepreneur.

On December 14, 2004, Benderly told police that Loretta had disappeared while shopping at Park Place Mall in Tucson and that he had looked for her for hours. Detectives were skeptical. They found a pickaxe and a shovel among his belongings, and her purse and identification later turned up hidden at the couple’s home. Just over a week after Loretta vanished, Benderly hanged himself in the garage without confessing.

Investigators had already found that Benderly was stealing from her for years, taking out large loans in her name, skimming from the business, and letting the mortgage go unpaid until the house neared foreclosure. Her whereabouts remained unknown for more than a year. On January 10, 2006, hikers found her remains in a shallow grave in the desert near Casa Grande, a plastic bag still over her head. The medical examiner determined that she had died of asphyxiation. Because Benderly was dead, no one was ever charged.