"In many ways, Frank's bust of John List really launched America's Most Wanted into a national force for catching fugitives," host John Walsh said in 2009. "Whenever I get the tough cases, I call Frank."
Mr. Bender was diagnosed that year with pleural mesothelioma, a cancer of the chest that he believed resulted from his exposure to asbestos in the engine room of a Navy ship. He was told he had only months to live.
"He had a whole extra year than anyone had anticipated. And he had a pretty good year," said his daughter Vanessa, who was in New York when her father died Thursday afternoon.
In recent weeks, with his days numbered, he was the subject of profiles in the New York Times and People magazine.
"He was thrilled," said Joan Crescenz, Mr. Bender's longtime business manager. "He felt really good about the Times article, and the People article took him over the top."
He initially ignored People's request for an interview, said his daughter Lisa Brawner. "He wasn't in it for the fame or fortune," she said. "He was in it to do good."
He had just finished one of his favorite meals, chicken and cranberry sauce, when Crescenz found him slumped at the kitchen table having a hard time breathing. He was dead a short time later.
"His life ended the way he wanted it to," Crescenz said. "He was at home."
His home was a former butcher shop on South Street that he converted into a studio. His last case and his final months were being documented by Karen Mintz, a New Jersey filmmaker. The forthcoming film is titled The Recomposer of the Decomposed, which is what he long called himself.
Mr. Bender was born in Philadelphia and grew up in North Philadelphia. He graduated from Thomas Edison High School in 1959 and then joined the Naval Reserves, said childhood friends Dennis Binsfeld and Rich Hettich. He always had an interest in art, they said.
