Oldest daughter testifies at ex-Marine Bennett’s trial

Bill Gang

Thursday, Feb. 25, 1999 | 11:32 a.m.

As police closed in on Arthur Bennett in a small Southern Utah town, he used acid in a vain attempt to burn off his fingerprints, according to testimony his 17-year-old daughter gave at a Marine Corps hearing Wednesday.

At the time, in late 1997, Bennett was using the name of Joseph Benson, and Utah authorities were seeking him in connection with the sexual assault of three teenage girls including two of his daughters.

Bennett, 45, is alleged to have faked his death in a trailer explosion at Lake Mead in 1994, shortly before he was to face court-martial in Yuma, Ariz., on sexual misconduct charges involving young girls there and in Okinawa.

In fact, everyone believed the body burned beyond recognition in Bennett's trailer was him. The Marines gave him a military funeral and Clark County authorities wrote off the death as a suicide.

But Bennett wasn't dead, and now he is facing not only the sexual assault charges he sought to avoid in the Corps, but also murder and other charges in connection with the 1994 fire.

A trial on the murder and related charges is scheduled for June, and Bennett could face the death penalty if convicted.

The defendant's oldest daughter testified Wednesday that she and her two sisters cried for months after being told their father had died, despite evidence of sexual misconduct by Bennett involving his three daughters.

"He was the best father," she sobbed to Lt. Col. Kenneth Martin, who must decide after this week's Article 32 proceeding whether there is sufficient evidence to hold a full court-martial trial. The final witnesses were scheduled to tell their stories today and a decision is expected within a week.

The high school junior testified that about a year after the faked death, her mother, Bennett's first wife, told the girls she had a surprise for them.

The witness cried as she recalled going to a Las Vegas townhouse and seeing her father alive.

"I missed him so much," she said. "I couldn't believe he was back."

The thin teenager with long dark hair and large dark eyes said she eventually questioned her father about the trailer fire and the identity of the body, which lies in a grave at the Boulder City Veterans Cemetery under Bennett's name.

"He said it was one of his friends in the Marines who didn't have a family and gave up his life for him," the witness said. The body has never been positively identified.

She added that her father told her of feeling someone or something pull him away from the trailer to keep him from being engulfed in the fire.

Although Bennett had tried to remove his fingerprints as a last-ditch effort to preserve his secret, it didn't work.

Bennett, under the name of Benson, was being investigated in Hurricane, Utah, on child molestation charges. His dyed red hair and beard changed his appearance from the short-haired Marine he had been, but the fingerprints revealed his true identity.

Meanwhile, Bennett pleaded guilty to molestation charges in Utah involving two of his daughters and one of their friends and was sentenced to three to 45 years in prison.

The teenager was one of those victims and told how her father would visit her room nightly for two years and forced her to engage in sex acts.

One night, he sexually assaulted a teenage friend spending the night with the Bennett girls, and she went to authorities.

The daughter testified that she laid in the bed feigning sleep while the sexual assault on her friend was perpetrated, and she told police it had not occurred.

Bennett, according to the testimony, had warned that if he were arrested, the family would be broken up and the children would be sent to foster homes.

There also were veiled threats of death if Bennett's secret past and sordid activities were to be revealed, the teenager stated.

But she said she finally went to police after learning Bennett had begun having sexual encounters with another of his daughters, who was two years younger than the witness.

Tears welled in her eyes as she told the judge, "I didn't want him to go to jail. I just wanted him to stop."

Throughout her testimony, Bennett stared at the desk in front of him or looked straight ahead, seldom glancing at his oldest daughter.