Two men murder a father, mother, son, and daughter in cold blood.
In Cold Blood: Murders
In 1959, Dick Hickock, 28, was serving time in Leavenworth Prison for stealing a rifle out of someone’s home.
One day, his cellmate Floyd Wells told him he used to work on a wheat farm in Holcomb, Kansas, along with two dozen other farmhands. Wells told him the owner kept large sums of money to purchase supplies and make payroll for his farmhands. Wells said the owner regularly kept $10,000 in cash in a safe in his farmhouse.
Dick Hickock, a Kansas native, knew no one locked their doors in rural portions of Kansas. To him, stealing that $10,000 looked like a cinch.
Hickock was paroled from Leavenworth in August 1959 after serving seventeen months. He returned to Olathe, population 10,000, a suburb of Kansas City on the eastern border of the state. He moved in with his parents, got a job at a body shop, and tried to live the straight and narrow. But three months passed and he was barely getting by financially.
Visions of that easy $10,000 score inside a safe at an unprotected farmhouse started flashing into his brain.
So Hickock contacted Perry Smith, 31. Hickock and Smith had been cellmates for two weeks at Leavenworth and created a bond.
Smith, who was serving 5-10 years for burglary and a jailbreak, was paroled at the beginning of July, one month before Hickock.
Hickock filled in the details that Floyd Wells shared with him. Perry Smith was struggling to earn a living as well. So he and Hickock devised a plan to make a perfect score, walk away with $10,000 in cash, then flee to Mexico to set up new lives.
On November 14, 1959, a Saturday, Perry Smith arrived in Olathe by bus. Dick Hickock picked him up at the bus station, then they went shopping for rope and masking tape.
Dick Hickock “borrowed” a ’49 Chevy from a neighbor, then they rode for several hours to Garden City 400 miles to the west, near the western edge of Kansas.
When they arrived, they gassed up at a Phillips 66 to prepare for their getaway.
Just before midnight they drove to the River Valley Farm and parked in a secluded area within easy walking distance of the farmhouse. They saw no lights in the farmhouse, so they approached on foot armed with a Savage model 300 shotgun and a large knife.
Four members of the Clutter family – father, mother, son, and daughter – were inside the farmhouse.
They went to bed early because they’d be waking up early the next morning to attend church services. So all four were sound asleep.
Once inside the farmhouse, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith went up a dark stairway to the second floor and found the father, Herb Clutter, 48, sleeping alone in a spare bedroom. They woke him, then bound his hands behind his back with rope.
“Where’s the safe?” they asked him.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he answered. “There is no safe.”
Hickock and Smith didn’t want to believe him. They didn’t want to think they drove all this distance on a false alarm. But what they didn’t know was that Floyd Wells had been talking shit to Hickock. Herb Clutter paid everything by check and rarely had any cash on his person or inside the farmhouse, and there was no safe.
They gagged Herb Clutter with masking tape and led him down two flights of stairs into the basement. There, they fastened him to an overhead pipe with another length of rope.
Back upstairs, they located 15-year-old Kenyon, the son. They woke him, bound him and gagged him. Then they led him down into the basement and into the room next door to his father. They tied his feet together, then hogtied him to the sofa.
Back upstairs again, Hickock and Smith located 16-year old Nancy, the daughter. They woke her, bound her hands and feet, and tied her to the bed. But they didn’t gag her.
A little way down the hall in the master bedroom, they found Bonnie, 45, the mother. They woke her, bound her hands and feet, gagged her, and tied her to the bed.
With all four members of the Clutter family bound and gagged, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith ransacked the farmhouse looking for the safe, cash, and values. By the time they finished their treasure hunt, they netted a pair of Herb’s binoculars, Kenyon’s transistor radio, less than $50 in cash – and nothing else.
This pissed off Dick Hickock no end. He swore there would be hell to pay.
They went into the room where Herb Clutter was tied to an overhead pipe and cut him down. An old mattress was standing upright on its side against the wall. They flipped the mattress onto the floor and laid Herb Clutter on top of the mattress, face up.
Then Perry Smith took the knife and slashed Herb Clutter’s throat. But not deep enough to kill him. Smith then handed the knife to Dick Hickock, pushed him toward Clutter and told him to finish him off.
Hickock slashed Clutter’s throat so deep that blood started gushing and Herb Clutter’s throat started gurgling – but somehow he was still alive. So Perry Smith grabbed the shotgun, fired once and nearly blew the first victim’s head off.
They flipped Herb Clutter onto his stomach, then went next door.
Perry Smith aimed the shotgun at Kenyon Clutter’s face. He pulled the trigger once and the second victim died instantly.
Back upstairs, they entered the master bedroom. Perry Smith shot Bonnie Clutter in the head and the third victim died instantly.
Down the hall, Nancy heard all three shotgun blasts. When she heard the footsteps approaching her room, she started begging for mercy. Dick Hickock wanted to rape her before they killed her, but Perry Smith wouldn’t allow it.
Instead, Smith aimed the shotgun at Nancy Clutter’s face, pulled the trigger once and killed the fourth victim – all of them in cold blood.
Dick Hickock and Perry Smith then fled the scene in the “borrowed” Chevy. And that’s if for the In Cold Blood murders.
Tomorrow we’ll try to track down the killers.
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