Perry Smith (Top) and Dick Hickock
Perry Smith and Dick Hickok murdered the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas back in the 1950s. This gruesome killing of four innocent people, fueled by the duo’s belief that Mr. Clutter had a safe filled with money in his home (not true), rocked the citizens of Holcomb and indeed the nation. The story of the brutal murders caught the attention of Truman Capote who brilliantly rendered the story in his landmark book IN COLD BLOOD.
The killers were convicted and executed in a Kansas prison in 1963.
Flash forward to 2012. Investigators in Sarasota County, Florida believe that this dynamic duo might also have murdered the Walker family in 1959. There is a great deal of evidence to suggest this but the proof will come through DNA. Maybe.
Christine Walker was apparently raped before she was murdered and samples obtained from her have yielded DNA. This profile has been matched against several suspects but none have panned out. Now the police have exhumed the bodies of Hickock and Smith and taken bone fragments for DNA testing.
Stay tuned.
