Bomb Blast Also Killed Brother, Injured Sister : Son Charged With Murdering Tobacco Heiress

NAPLES, Fla. — The son of a millionaire tobacco heiress was arrested today in a car bombing that killed his mother and brother and wounded a sister in the driveway of the family home.

Steven Benson, 33, was arrested in Fort Myers, Fla., where he lives, and taken to Naples to be charged with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder, agents of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said.

Tobacco heiress Margaret Benson, 63, and her son, Scott, 21, were killed in the July 9 explosion. A sister, Carol Benson Kendall, 40, was injured in the blast.

Authorities said Margaret Benson left a $10-million estate.

She was the wife of Edward Benson, the late chairman of the board of the Lancaster Leaf Tobacco Co. of Pennsylvania. Her husband died in 1980, shortly before she moved to Florida.

The Boston Herald reported today that police found Benson’s fingerprint on a receipt for a foot-long section of galvanized steel pipe, the kind used to make the bomb. The Herald attributed the information to an unidentified source close to the investigation.

Unusually Small Amount

The purchase from Hughes Building Supply in Naples stood out in the clerk’s mind because he said it was an unusually small amount of pipe to buy, the paper reported.

The receipt for the pipe was signed with an illegible scrawl. But The Herald’s source said investigators have identified a fingerprint on the receipt as that of Steven Benson.

Police served a search warrant on Benson last week for a sample of his fingerprints, according to the source.

Margaret and Scott Benson were sitting in a Chevrolet Suburban in the Quail Creek subdivision when the vehicle exploded. Investigators said the bomb went off when Scott Benson turned the ignition key.

They said Kendall survived because she had opened the door but had not yet entered the car when the bomb went off. They said Steven Benson was in the house at the time of the explosion.

On Wednesday, Circuit Judge Hugh Hayes revoked a will that attorney Wayne P. Kerr wrote for Margaret Benson in 1983, naming him as executor. The ruling made valid a second will drafted this year by Naples attorney Guion T. DeLoach at Margaret Benson’s request, authorities said. The second will named Steven and Carol Benson as co-executors.