The Herald Tribune reports investigators are probing the possibility that the killers, who were the inspiration for Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood," brutally murdered the Walker family of Osprey, Fla. in 1959. It did not match the semen at the scene. ", But he never went to Kansas to interview Hickock and Smith. Now, Myers asked her, "What I don't get is, how did they get in the house with the dogs sitting there?" "[12], In August 2013, the Sarasota County Sheriff's office announced they were unable to find a match between the DNA of either Perry Smith or Richard Hickock with the samples in the Walker family murder. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat. Perry Smith. In 2012, the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office began investigating possible links between the Walker family murders and Perry Smith and Richard "Dick" Hickock, who had been convicted and executed for the 1959 murders of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas. Smith stopped his friend from raping Nancy first but was likely responsible for pulling the trigger on all four killings. Christine had grown up in one of those households. Don met the deputies at a local grocery and led them to the horrifying scene. The conclusions drawn from the existing evidence are astonishing but probable . She had never been able to fully put the case aside. Love triangles can certainly make people do crazy things, but killing small children? Over the next six weeks, Hickock and Smith traveled about 10,000 miles, from Kansas and California to Mexico and Florida. After the murder, rumors flew around that Christine was having an affair with Curtis McCall. He realized something must be wrong in the house and took the decision to enter, cutting through the screen door. The house was dark as McLeod approached, but as he got closer, he saw a light flickering through the window. While the killers were still at large, legendary writer Truman Capote learned of the killings and decided to write about the slaughter, traveling to Kansas alongside childhood friend Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mocking Bird. The best piece of evidence they obtained was the semen sample left behind from Christines rape, though that kind of bodily fluid was of no use to police in 1959. Smith and Hickock took cash at the first crime scene and two easy to carry and simple to pawn items in a radio and binoculars. Out of bullets, he took her to the bathroom, where he had filled the tub. After killing four members of the Clutter family in Kansas, 34 days before the Walker murders, Smith and Hickock fled to Florida in a stolen car, and were spotted at least a dozen times between Tallahassee and Miami. Christine, 24, bubbly and spirited, hung back with McLeod's wife. Hickock and Smith slaughtered the Clutter family on November 15, 1959 in Holcomb, Kansas, about 34 days before the Walker family homicide. Or herself. These days McGath, 52, works with rescue horses and writes books. His femur turned up another unknown female profile. The bullet killed him instantly. "You get an arrest occasionally. Christmas is usually a time of good cheer, good food, and good times spent with family. Herbert and Bonnie, and their children, Nancy, 16, and Kenyon, 15, died from shotgun blasts to the head. However, while both Smith and Hickock would be dead and buried by the time Capote released his pioneering book, they were still very much at large on December 19, 1959. Read on to learn about the Walker Family Murders, who were found brutally murdered in their home on December 20, 1959. Shell casings were found at the site, but the murder weapon was never retrieved. Christine had a lot of admirers. [6] The case remains open. A day after they were sentenced to death, Hickock and Smith answered questions about the Florida murders while strapped to a mid-century lie detector test. This was such a young family. He still spoke with the previous detective, who remained convinced Capote's killers were responsible. Deputies were already working hard in the Walker home when the sheriff arrived. Blood evidence suggests that he wasnt killed by the first bullet and that the assailant continued to shoot at him while he crawled over to be next to his fathers body. Perry Edward Smith (October 27, 1928 - April 14, 1965) was one of two career criminals convicted of murdering the four members of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas, United States, on November 15, 1959, a crime that was made famous by Truman Capote in his 1966 non-fiction novel In Cold Blood. Determined not to leave any witnesses, Smith cut Herb Clutters throat and then shot him. For example, in 1994, a woman called the Sarasota County Sheriffs Office and claimed to be a bartender in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. The sheriff had Hickock and Smith's pictures published on the front page of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. One spring day in 2013, Myers sat alone inside his barbecue restaurant in Lake Placid, where a painting of cowboys wrangling a steer hung on the wall. Boyer's conviction about a local killer influenced the probe for decades. Her captain, she said, wanted a DNA connection. [5] The pair checked into a Miami Beach motel, about four hours from Osprey, and checked out on the morning of the Walker murders. [10], The Sheriff's Office admitted that Hickock and Smith had been considered suspects as far back as 1960. People gossiped about a fight Cliff had gotten into a few days before the murder. He said . She found it interesting that a car the Walkers were test-driving resembled the 1956 Chevy Bel Air the men had stolen in Kansas and driven to Florida. Though he is thought to have committed several murders, he was only actually convicted of one. The duo entered the home through an unlocked back door and searched for the safe, the family remaining asleep. Maggie Murdaugh Facebook. It generated pieces of two people's DNA, one male and one female. The mix-ups made McGath wonder about the evidence already tested. Two men hanged almost five decades ago for a murder that inspired one of the greatest true-crime novels of all time could soon be unmasked as the perpetrators of another . Dick Hickocks body was too degraded to get a sample, which is unfortunate, because if they were the perpetrators, it is most likely that he would have been the rapist. Even the worst fears of his imagination couldnt have prepared him for the carnage that greeted him. But science has ruled him out. But they were on the run, skipping across the country after the murders as the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, or the KBI, had just started to decipher the crime scene. Leonora LaPeter Anton went with Pat Myers to the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office to witness him talking to Det. At the second, the killers took personal things related to Christine, namely her high school majorette uniform and marriage license. Myers wondered how much longer he would be able to make the three-hour drive to Sarasota. The house located in Osprey Florida was rent free for the Walkers in exchange for the hard, honest work Cliff did on the large Palmer Ranch. Sarasota Police sent out county deputies to investigate. [2] Jimmie and Debbie were then murdered. Kansas authorities stated that they would process the DNA samples with active cases taking higher priority, and that results would take "weeks or months. Unfortunately, the results proved inconclusive. Working at the scene, police began to search the home for evidence and soon discovered that items were missing; some of them seem quite bizarre. No one had documented the wrapping paper, and the minister was long dead. He claimed that he only saw Christine rarely and the last time he had seen her, she had been with her husband. Just days before Christmas 1959, the Walker family was murdered in their small Sarasota County home, a case that became one of Sarasota's most notorious unsolved crimes. According to the sheriffs department, the Walkers had been considering buying a car of the exact make and model that Hickock and Smith had stolen. Clark said he still hoped to get Christine's DNA, to clear up longstanding confusion. "I think we're closer now than we've ever been.". With the DNA testing in shambles, McGath turned to boot prints. A chilling account of two murders with multiple victims. The Christmas tragedy that fell on Osprey in 1959 was an unimaginable horror and one that by all rights deserved justice. I also want to get the Early Bird Books newsletter featuring great deals on ebooks. Or maybe it was a home invasion that, for a second time, ended in slaughter. [7] Spencer's confession was "determined to be cleverly constructed from real murders written up in newspapers and true-crime novels that he liked to read. Cliff, 25, lived with his wife Christine, 24, and their two young children, Jimmie, 3, and Debbie 1. He used to live there. On December 19, 1959, the entire Walker family was brutally murdered in their home in Osprey, Florida. Join Mike and Gibby for this 'Best Of' episode as they discuss the facts of the murders and walk through the various suspects. The relief the 82-year-old felt had come through on the phone. Another three were seen drinking on the road to the Walkers' house. Im also active on Twitter. Myers felt like he was ricocheting between theories, like a pinball. Smith owned black engineer boots with a Cat's Paw rubber cushion sole, featuring circular pads, a little smaller than a quarter. The sheriff's office recently said it did not have any transcripts of those interviews. Arriving at the house when Christine was alone, she wouldnt have suspected their real intention. The family was young and growing and look set to be pillars of the community for many years to come. A couple and their four children were systematically hunted down as they vacationed in their cottage near Good Hart in the summer of 1968. For those few crime drama aficionados who aren't familiar with the case, in late November of 1959 two petty felons, Richard Eugene Hickock and Perry Smith, arrived at a house near Holcomb, Kansas. Safe house. They wondered if this could be some sort of revenge killing. Truman Capote devoted several pages of In Cold Blood to the murder of the Walkers, but ultimately, concluded that Hickock and Smith couldnt have been the killers, as they had alibis. What does society owe, say, the family of Cliff and Christine Walker? Elbert, on the other hand, would be on the police radar for some time. Only partial DNA had been retrieved, and any conclusions were therefore uncertain. And the DNA from Christine's underwear, the report concluded, wasn't theirs. December 20, 1959, was seemingly an ordinary morning in Osprey, Florida. A lieutenant told him that Clark had presented the plan to the sheriff. Three-year-old Jimmie entered the house at the same time as his father and was also shot. With a little investigation, however, it was determined that so much information had been leaked to the media that any civilian could have that kind of knowledge of the crime. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement had lost an early semen sample from Christine's underwear. June 30, 2022 . The case is unsolved as of February 2023. The Clutter case bore eerie similarities to the Walker case: both were quadruple homicides, with both parents and two children slaughtered (the Clutters other children escaped the violence because they were not home at the time). The Walker family of Osprey, Florida, included father Cliff (25 years old), mother Christine (24 years old), a son named Jimmie (three years old), and a daughter named Debbie (two . Such killings the extermination of an entire family don't happen every day, but they're not so statistically rare as . McGath stopped calling Myers. There in tiny Osprey, on the southern tip of the vast Palmer Ranch, the family's nearest neighbor was half a mile away. Want more true crime? 2023 The Associated Press. Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. interactive scene of 1959 walker family murders. He'd had an alibi for most of the evening, she explained. Could the two men behind the infamous Clutter family murders have killed the Walkers as well? Baby Debbie, they found in the bathtub, facedown in 4 inches of water, also shot in the head. But the next morning, they vanished. When arrested in Las Vegas, McGath found, Smith was carrying a pocket knife similar to one missing from Cliff's pocket. The order of killings of the family members down to the way they were killed. Emmett Monroe Spencer was a multi-murderer who was captured some time after the Walker massacre. While a polygraph test appeared to clear them of the Walker murders, at least one expert has asserted that polygraph machines of the early 1960s were notoriously inaccurate. 15) Tony von Carruthers: In February of 1994, Tony shot his mother, her teenage associate, and his drug dealer in the Memphis area. Two suspects. Just days before Christmas 1959, the Walker family was murdered in their small Sarasota County home, a case that became one of Sarasota's most notorious unsolved crimes. Entering, she wasnt attacked straight away and had enough time to store the groceries before she was ambushed by the assailant or assailants. One of Cliff's cousins also aroused suspicion after he grew hysterical outside the Walker gate upon learning of the deaths and fainted at the funeral. "Do you realize, in December, it's going to be 64 years?". The Walkers were looking for a car. Experts blame the drop largely on slimmed-down police budgets and hundreds of unsolved serial killer cases. A similar circular print had been found in blood near Christine's body and at the Kansas scene. After running some errands that day, 24-year-old Christine Walker arrived home alone, at around 4:00 PM. Capote personally thought it was unlikely that the two were responsible for the Walker murders. Still, it's a shame that the DNA test was inconclusive, because "Smith and Hickock did it" wasn't a terrible theory. Could those dolls have been for Debbie? The detective persuaded officials to dig up the bodies last December in Kansas, where Smith and Hickock murdered the Clutter family in 1959 one month before the Walker slaying and were . Worrying that the family had succumbed to a gas leak, he broke in with his pocket knife. "The challenges of a case from that long ago you're bound by what was done in 1959," Giasone said. The agency issued a press release, noting Hickock and Smith were the most likely suspects. ", "Did 'In Cold Blood' killers murder Sarasota's Walker family in '59? Her voice even sounded different. COLD BLOODED: THE CLUTTER FAMILY MURDERS is a docuseries that focuses on the crime that shocked the nation - the 1959 brutal murder of four members of the Clutter family. But the police stopped investigating him after he passed a polygraph. We saw the caution tape scene. Writing on true crime, mysteries, politics, history, popular culture, and more. Admit killing one family but not the other. I dont know if these were only rumors or how thoroughly they were investigated. Each new detective who came along just couldn't get to the last piece of the puzzle. Clutter's throat was slashed. This was a very odd thing to do. He said detectives have no physical evidence, so far, connecting Hickock and Smith to the Walker murders, no fingerprints. And if he didn't push for this, who would? Joe Giasone, a 30-year veteran of the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office, said the agency has 32 cold cases, ranging from the 1959 Walker murders up to a 2019 missing boater. That motive has to be discounted in the Walker family case. The assailant covered little Debbies face with Jimmies hat and shot her in the head, failing to kill her. "Behind every good woman, there's a good man," he said, as he filled her cup. The public looked at Smith and Hickock as serious suspects for the Walker case, and their whereabouts at the time suggest that their involvement isnt impossible. It seems almost sure that there was more than one attacker, with forensic evidence discovering a dark-colored hair in the bathroom and a long blonde hair inside Christine Walkers dress. The murder is of particular note because it potentially involved the suspects of the murders that inspired the creative non-fiction novel In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. It was cold, but not expressly so, and he was headed to meet his friend and co-worker Cliff Walker to go hog hunting. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkZUtJDbwn8. Nov 14, 2022 at 9:00 am. "The morning of the murders all bus drivers were told to avoid that street due to the caution tape scene. She wasnt accosted immediately as she entered her home. Cliff wanted to teach him a lesson, but ended up only telling him to stay away. The culprits were eventually arrested six weeks after the killings in Las Vegas and ultimately executed by hanging on April 14, 1965. Christine asked Lucy if she could use their telephone. Police are said to have investigated Butchs father, but never even spoke to Butch. But I dont know. [13] Said relative was later proven innocent through DNA testing.[14]. 4 The Walker Family Murder. True Crime Detective covers some of the worlds most baffling murders. interactive scene of 1959 walker family murders Comments: accident in st charles il yesterday 0 what year was the class of 2033 born th human allergic reaction to skunk spray kawai digital piano 250 Despite these clues, and despite upward of 500 suspects over the years, the case could not be solved. Smith, a drifter from Nevada, had been placed in an orphanage at age 13 after his mother, an alcoholic, choked on her vomit. It was only days before Christmas, and the Walker family had already begun to put a few presents around the tree in anticipation of Christmas morning. Capote's book detailing the Kansas crime would come out in 1966. Murderpedia. June 17, 2022 . One by one, Kenyon, Nancy, and Bonnie were executed with a shotgun blast to the head. The morning of December 20, 1959, started out as a normal day for Daniel McLeod. Now, this case remains officially unsolved and will likely stay that way forever. There was a store, a gas station, a firehouse, a bank, a post office and little all else. "It's basically a great mess," McGath said. Clark hoped to test the underwear stain containing the sperm cell. She told him he had already spoken to the murderer, someone with a face scar who "wore glasses. https://t.co/zyzLrUZLRB. The name "Dardeen" resonates with the residents of Ina, Southern Illinois, who think back to a gruesome quadruple murder that took place in their sleepy hamlet in the late 1980s. "And that doesn't work," said Ryan Backmann, who started Project: Cold Case in Jacksonville in 2015 to document unsolved cases and support other families after his father's murder went unsolved. Initial suspects in the case included Daniel McLeod himself, a local by the name of Wilbur Tooker, and a cousin of Cliff by the name of Elbert Walker. All Rights Reserved. Cliff and another ranch hand, Don McLeod, headed off to hunt. A cemetery posted a personal ad for a goose whose mate died. how many kids does jason statham have . At some point the assailant moved her body to the living room and made attempts to clean up the scene. There is ample circumstantial evidence to suggest that Smith and Hickock may have been responsible for the Walker family murders. She also was there when he spoke with former Det. Smith stopped Hickock from raping a young woman in the Clutter attack. On December 20th, 1959 Don McLeod, a coworker and friend of Cliff Walker, arrived at the Walker home at sunrise to pick up Cliff for hog hunting trip they had planned. Working at the scene, police began to search the home for evidence and soon discovered that items were missing; some of them seem quite bizarre. . They listened as a fellow inmate bragged about a farmer who kept lots of cash in a safe. He and Kimberly McGath went back to 2007, when she expressed an interest in the languishing Walker file. The following year, the mother of three would leave the agency to prioritize family. Sixteen stents kept his heart pumping, another five expanded veins in his legs. This line of investigation stopped when police confirmed that he wasnt even in Florida on the day of the Walker murders. This story is based on more than 8,000 pages of records, most from the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office, but also the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and archives of the Sarasota Journal, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and the St. Petersburg Times. They were arrested in Las Vegas in late December after the inmate who had told them about the safe tipped off police. Only partial DNA could be retrieved, possibly due to degradations of the DNA samples over the decades or contamination in storage, making the outcome one of uncertainty (neither proving nor disproving the involvement of Smith and Hickock). So unfortunately, we can't really tell anything from these DNA results. Described as wild, he was violent and boisterous when drunk, many believing him to be mentally unwell. In February of 2018, DNA testing found that Smith did not provide the semen at the Walker crime scene. It was quiet, which was odd as the family was known to rise early. Some families, she knew, played their traumas over and over 50 or 60 years later. She earned praise for securing confessions and for her enthusiasm and empathy. Still, eight years off the job, she felt a certain duty to him. interactive scene of 1959 walker family murders. Evidence is the exact same in both cases. (Wayback archive copy)", "Walker Slaying Confession Discredited by Sheriff", "The murderous journey from lies to prison and redemption", "Cold case: Stroudsburg bartender may hold key to unsolved Florida murders", "Walker investigation shows parts of 'In Cold Blood' don't add up (Wayback archive copy)", "DNA From 'In Cold Blood' Killers Could Solve 1959 Florida Cold Case", "No DNA link between Walker murders, 'In Cold Blood' killers", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Walker_family_murders&oldid=1138389492, December 1959 events in the United States, Unsolved mass murders in the United States, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 9 February 2023, at 12:07. The Clutter family, along with their assailants, have become infamous over the years. . An agency spokesperson declined to comment. "It was them, the 'In Cold Blood' killers," he'd said. But evidence suggests that it wasnt too long before the attack began. He told the Sarasota Journal at least four people said they had seen the men, including a saleswoman at W.T. "However," the release said, "DNA testing seems unlikely to provide conclusive evidence one way or the other.". In the end, though, the couple drove back, pausing at the ranch barn to pick up cattle feed. He'd been able to make this trip only because his wife of 51 years, whom he cared for at home in Lake Placid, was in rehab after a fall. Tooker died in the mid-sixties, and I dont believe theyve tried to salvage DNA from his long-buried remains. He kept making unwanted advances, and eventually Christine told her husband about her fear. Stanley was committed to an asylum soon after the murders. On a couch in an adjoining room was 15-year-old Kenyon Neal Clutter, bound, gagged and shot in the head. They'd found blood spattering the heels of Christine's suede pumps, surmising she'd used them as weapons. A neighbor had observed him in the area the afternoon of the murders. It is therefore believed that Smith and Hickock may have gained entry to the Walker home on the pretense of selling their car. The next morning, McLeod dropped by to go hog hunting with Cliff. McLeod passed a polygraph and was quickly eliminated in any case. Along with Richard Hickock, Smith took part in the burglary and multiple murder at the Clutter . . Myers was 7 when a neighbor burst into his living room to announce what she'd heard on the radio. By continuing to browse, you accept the use of cookies and other technologies. Somehow, they still made the smart decision to store the sample, in hopes of greater technology coming along. Parking his truck outside the Walker family home on the 100,000 acres Palmer Ranch, McLeod will have noticed the darkness emanating from the house. As she organized boxes of witness statements, ballistics reports and crime scene photographs into an 8,000-page digital record, more clues - and gaps - emerged. The doubt, the what-ifs, kept at him like a jackhammer. But McGath's supervisors shut down her efforts to gather the men's boots from Kansas. Junk science was enough to clear Youmans in the eyes of authorities. They had decided to unearth Christine from her grave in the next month. www.dailymail.co.uk. Gossip created a lot of fruitless investigations. Sarasota forensic supervisor Michael Gorn told McGath that footwear impressions could be as reliable as fingerprints. [11] Hickock's and Smith's bodies were exhumed and DNA extracted. Hickock and Smith confessed to the murders of the Clutter family, for which they were hanged in April of 1965. She had time to hang up her purse and start putting the groceries away. Clark - with his "never-say-die" attitude, per one supervisor - had found a niche in such cases. Hickock, a car mechanic and father from Kansas, had suffered a severe head injury in a car accident when he was 19. After killing the Clutter family, Hickock and Smith fled to Florida in a stolen car, where they bought items from a department store in Sarasota, just a few miles away from the Walker home, on the very day that the Walkers were killed. Jimmie was shot, and Debbie was shot in addition to being drowned in the bathtub. The year before, she had convinced a judge in Kansas to exhume the remains of Hickock and Smith to see if their DNA matched an unknown profile in Christine's underwear. Six decades later, one morning last June, Pat Myers hobbled into the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office and sank into a seat across from a detective in a crisp white shirt. The crime, seemingly without motive, would later be chronicled in Truman Capote's seminal book, In Cold Blood. The bartender never called again. The docuseries features people who knew her well and remember her as a great hostess and a lot of fun. To be sure, Clark had told Myers, scientists would have to pinpoint Christine's DNA and remove it from the mixture. However, its possible that the police already had the killers in custody.