John Bender, a former Wall Street millionaire, was found shot dead in bed in his lavish Costa Rica jungle mansion in the early hours of January 8, 2010. His wife Ann, who weighed just 38kg at the time, was tried three times for his murder, acquitted twice, and the case remains unsolved.
The Jungle Paradise
John and Ann Bender built a four-story, 50,000-square-foot home in Boracayan, a nature reserve they established in a dense rainforest. The house had no walls, only screens to keep insects out and protect their pet sloth and bird. It also served as the headquarters for their 2,000-hectare reserve.
The couple moved to Costa Rica two years after their marriage. Initially, John's death was treated as suicide, but it soon became a murder investigation. Ann was convicted twice, but the verdicts were overturned on appeal. She faced a third trial, where she was acquitted due to lack of evidence, according to CBS.
Mental Health Struggles
Both John and Ann suffered from mental health issues. Ann's psychiatrist diagnosed them with folie à deux, a disorder where two people reinforce each other's mental illness. Ann also had Lyme disease, and John rejected modern treatment, instead injecting her with water from a local stream.
John had written emails about wanting to die in the weeks before his death, but he was shot in the back of the head while wearing earplugs. The couple's home, dubbed "The Benderdome" by locals, was lit by 500 Tiffany lamps Ann had collected.
The Trials and Aftermath
Ann's jewels, worth nearly £12 million, were missing after John's death. She was acquitted in her first trial, found guilty in the second, and acquitted again in the third. The prosecutor immediately filed for a fourth trial, but Ann fled the country with a new emergency passport slipped to her by an American embassy representative.
Carol Vaughn, who wrote Crazy Jungle Love about the case, said: "I can't honestly say what happened that night, and I've read everything that can be read about it. When I visited Ann in jail, I found a woman so not playing with a full deck of cards that I didn't even ask her, because I don't think she knows."
Becky Milligan, who investigated the case for the Hell and Heaven podcast, said: "There are so many details where you can say, 'Oh, this means that, and that means this,' but no, it doesn't. Maybe we will never know. Let's just tell the story and talk about the love, the tragedy and the paradise they tried to create. That is their legacy."
