A quiet night in rural Bonaparte, Iowa, ended in a familicide on October 14, 2006. Seventeen-year-old Sheena Lee Bentler was found shot in her bed in the basement of the family home. Her parents, Michael Bentler, 53, and Sandra Bentler, 47, and her two younger sisters, 15-year-old Shelby and 14-year-old Shayne, were also found dead in the house; all five had been fatally shot with a .22 caliber rifle.

Police focused on 22-year-old Shawn Bentler, the victims’ son and brother. A 911 call placed by Shayne at 3:38 a.m. was central at trial: Shayne told the dispatcher that her brother was going to do something, the mother’s plea of Shawn, no! and a gunshot were audible, and Shayne screamed Shawn, no! before the line went dead. Shawn was arrested later that day in Quincy, Illinois.

In May 2007 a judge found Shawn Bentler guilty on five counts of first-degree murder; the following month the judge imposed five life sentences, with one sentence ordered consecutively to the others because of the merciless nature of Sandra Bentler’s killing. No other suspects were reported. Does anyone have memories of the Bentler family or information about their lives in Bonaparte that could shed light on what led to this tragedy?