A time to remember

By MATT MILNER Courier staff writer

October 12, 2007 10:17 pm

— BONAPARTE — Sunday is an anniversary no one wanted to observe.
It has been a difficult year for Bonaparte and the surrounding area. On Oct. 14, 2006, Michael and Sandra Bentler were murdered in their rural Bonaparte home, along with their three daughters, Sheena, Shelby and Shayné. A judge later found their son, Shawn, guilty of the killings.
The family’s home is for sale, but the consensus in Bonaparte is that no one who lives in the area will buy it. There are too many memories. Everyone, it seems, knew the Bentlers in some fashion. They may not have been close friends, but they knew the family in the way small-town residents know everyone on sight.
The memories come back at odd times, like a recent hayride. The route went along a gravel road by the river, past the steep driveway that leads to the family home. Talk turned to last year’s events.
“It’s been tough,” said Vivian Green, who works in the town’s small grocery store. “It’s been rough. I can’t explain it.”
Cathy Ruth agrees with others who say life goes on, that the town is moving on. But it’s not easy.
“I think they’re really missed in the community. I think the community is still reeling,” she said. “People didn’t know what to say, so there were lots of hugs.”
The adult residents of Bonaparte talk about seeing Mike and Sandra out in the community. They were well known and well liked. Joyce Marrandino said they seemed to be everywhere.
“Sandy was always at the games with the kids. She took them everywhere,” Joyce said. “Anything that needed done, Mike Bentler would pitch in and help.”
People in Bonaparte don’t talk about Shawn much. It’s too hard to reconcile the killings with the little boy they saw at Mike Bentler’s lumberyard.
The deaths hit Harmony School District hard. It’s where the girls went to school. Tim Peterson, Harmony’s superintendent, is taking a wait-and-see approach to the anniversary. Some students are still getting grief counseling, he said, but the pain has diminished for most students.
“We really haven’t had too many signs of anything that has given us cause for concern,” he said.
Peterson plans to have counselors ready should students need them. He’s not sure if being out of school on the anniversary helps or hurts. Students flocked to the school in Farmington last year to be with friends, but no one really knows what will happen this year.
Friends found their own ways to remember the girls over the past 12 months. Web pages on Facebook and MySpace commemorate the Bentler sisters. Postings on the pages are deeply touching. Many of the messages on Shayné’s page are from May 26, what would have been her 15th birthday. Sheena’s page includes a memory from a girl who had to help with Sheena’s dress at the junior prom. The pair used paper towels as an improvised solution when the dress proved uncomfortable.
The photos are revealing. Most show what you might expect from three teenage girls. They’re being teens, hamming it up before the camera for family and friends. Still more show hunting trips or the girls on horseback.
Others will remember in their own ways. The family attended St. Boniface Catholic Church in Farmington. Fr. Apo Mpanda, the parish priest, indicated the congregation will remember the family, but asked for privacy.
“What we do will be private,” he said. “We don’t talk to the media.”
Bonaparte’s cemetery, where the family is buried, is near the town’s entrance. Pieces of a broken geode sparkle on each grave. Bracelets made of leather from yellow softballs are on the girls’ graves. A Willow Tree figurine of a couple in an embrace is on Mike and Sandra Bentler’s tombstone. Small wind chimes jingle in the breeze.
A few feet from the graves is a bench. The grass in front of the bench is sparse, scuffed up by the feet of visitors who just want to sit and be close to their friends.
The Bentler and Mendez families attended every day of Shawn’s trial. They turned up at Harmony’s games to cheer the teams the girls played for. People in the community remember. It helped everyone.
Family members say they’re not ready to say much. There are ongoing legal battles over Mike Bentler’s business and whether Shawn’s daughters can inherit anything. They say there’s too much bitterness, the wounds are too raw. For them, it’s not over yet.
For the town, life persists. No one has forgotten, but lives aren’t on hold the way they were last year, said Cindy Meade.
“It was a horrible tragedy, but life has to go on,” she said.
Matt Milner can be reached at (641) 683-5359 or via e-mail at mwmilner@mchsi.com