Three hundred miles away in a cell at Kansas State Prison, year-old Richard Hickock, who had been convicted of theft, had begun scheming to rob the family of their riches. His cellmate, Floyd Wells, had worked as a farmhand for the family and knew that the Clutters was rich. Enticed by the easy money, Hickock wrote a letter to his former bunkmate Perry Smith. The year-old had recently been released from prison after serving a sentence for escaping from another prison and stealing a car.
Hickock wanted Smith to help him with the robbery, and when he was released in early November , Hickock and Smith began to plan the theft. Perry Smith and Richard Hickock via crimearchives. Before their journey, the pair had collected the tools they needed for the robbery, including gloves, a flashlight, a knife and a shotgun. Only four members of the Clutter family were home that night.
The two eldest children, Beverly and Eveanna, were adults and had moved out of the family home. Eveanna was living in Illinois with her husband, and Beverly was studying nursing in Kansas City. After a recent bout of pain, Bonnie had moved from the bed she shared with Herb into her own room, where she could have a better night sleep.
Once the family was asleep, Smith and Hickock entered the property through an unlocked door. The robbers had been hugely misled about the supposed loot in the farmhouse. Herb famously always paid in cheque form rather than cash, and anyone in the town could have told them this information. Smith and Hickock bound the family in separate rooms throughout the house and searched for money and valuables.
Their hunt turned up very little cash and nothing of value, but instead of fleeing the scene, the thieves decided that they would kill the family to avoid further imprisonment. They began with Herb and cut his throat with the fishing knife they brought with them. They then shot Nancy and her mother Bonnie in the head. Kenyon was shot directly in the face. The Sheriff and officers from Garden City arrived around 10 am to investigate the gruesome scene inside the farmhouse.
Bonnie and Nancy were found in the rooms they had gone to sleep in that night, but Herb and his year-old son, Kenyon, were discovered in the basement. Kenyon had been tied to a sofa with a pillow under his head and shot. Herb had been tortured before he had eventually died from either his throat wound or the gunshot to his face. He had also been hanged from a pipe in the basement.
Soon, the house filled with more police, the Kansas City Bureau of Investigation, doctors, a minister, reporters and their photographers. Alvin Dewey from the KBI had become acquaintances with Herb over the years and began to assemble his task force to find the people who had murdered his friend.
A pair of Las Vegas police officers patrolling in a marked sedan noticed the Kansas license plate from the rear of the Chevrolet. The patrol officers had the mugshots of two men, Richard Eugene Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, wanted for questioning in the November 15 shotgun murders of two adults and two teenagers in Kansas. Police entered their names on an all-points bulletin.
Luckily, Hickock and Smith rolled into town and landed in the lap of law enforcement. They watched as the stocky man — Perry Smith, his legs permanently damaged from a years-old motorcycle accident — awkwardly descended the steps of the courthouse, cradling a cardboard box, and slipped into the car. The cops tailed the black and white Chevy as it sped west down Stewart to Main Street, turned left and, after several blocks, slowed opposite a two-story, arched Mission-style building, the Victory Hotel, on Main near Bridger Avenue.
Pigford and Macauley pulled ahead of the Chevy, stopped, drew their guns and arrested Hickock and Smith on alleged parole violations. That was just to hold them for what was coming next. The slayings had nothing to do with organized crime, but have a special significance for the Mob Museum, now housed in the former federal building.
Hickock confessed in a statement made to Kansas Bureau of Investigation agents at the Las Vegas police station, saying that Smith killed the four victims. The men first tied up the family members. This gave her the chance, in her horror, to get them to stop. Oh, please. The crime was a psychological accident, virtually an impersonal act; the victims might as well have been killed by lightning. Except for one thing: they had experienced prolonged terror, they had suffered.
The two men received death sentences in March and after unfruitful appeals, died after hanging from the gallows of the Kansas State Prison in Lansing in That gave Capote the ending he needed to complete his brilliant if flawed book on the Clutter murders, In Cold Blood.
Across six decades, the case still resonates online, and remains controversial, with unresolved concerns among reporters, writers and enthusiasts. May 5, Author Alex L Gentile. No Comments. Leave a Comment Cancel Reply. Related Articles. Audrey Hepburn: Fall in love with the old Hollywood star by watching these movies.
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