Richard Hickock

Richard Hickock

Kansas State Penitentiary - March, 1960
Born Richard Eugene Hickock
June 6, 1931
Kansas City, Kansas
Died April 14, 1965 (aged 33)
Lansing, Kansas
Occupation Criminal, railroad worker, mechanic
Criminal charge
 Murder
Criminal penalty
 Death by hanging
Criminal status Deceased

Richard Eugene "Dick" Hickock (June 6, 1931 – April 14, 1965) was one of two ex-convicts convicted of murdering four members of the Herbert Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas on November 15, 1959, a crime made famous by Truman Capote in his 1966 non-fiction novel In Cold Blood. Along with Perry Edward Smith, Hickock took part in the home invasion of the Clutter family farmhouse.

Early life

Richard Eugene Hickock was born in Kansas City, Kansas to farmworker parents, Walter Sr. and Eunice Hickock. He was a popular student with great intelligence and was an athlete at Olathe High School before head injuries from a serious automobile accident in 1950 left him disfigured, and resulted in his face being slightly lopsided and his eyes asymmetrical. Richard's criminal record consisted mainly of bad checks and petty theft.[1] Although he had wanted to attend college, his family lacked the means to provide this, so he went to work as a mechanic. He married, fathering three sons, then became involved in an extramarital affair, eventually ending his marriage to marry his mistress, which also ended in divorce. He turned to petty crimes, such as cheating and using fraudulent checks, to help make ends meet, and eventually landed in prison, where he met Smith and hatched his plan for robbery and murder.

He was also allegedly an ephebophile;[2] according to Truman Capote in his account of the Clutter murders, In Cold Blood, having been prevented by his partner in crime, Smith, from raping 16-year-old Nancy Clutter during the crime in the Clutter home.

Clutter murders

Hickock later testified that he and Smith had gotten the idea to rob the Clutters after Hickock was told, by former cellmate Floyd Wells, who had earlier worked as a farmhand for the Clutters, that there was a safe in the family's house containing $10,000. However, when they invaded the house just after midnight on November 15, 1959, they discovered that there was no such safe.[3] The pair then murdered all four members of the family. Alvin Dewey, chief investigator in the case, testified at the trial that Hickock insisted in his confession that Smith performed all the killings; Smith, however, first claimed Hickock killed the two women, but later claimed to have shot them himself. Both refused to testify during their trial.

Along with Smith, Hickock was arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada on December 30, 1959 for the Clutter family murders, for which they were both tried and found guilty. They both talked extensively to Capote when he was researching In Cold Blood.

Hickock and Smith were executed by hanging on April 14, 1965. Hickock was executed first and was pronounced dead at 12:41 am after hanging for nearly 20 minutes. Smith followed shortly after and was pronounced dead at 1:19 am. Warden Greg Seamon presided over the execution in Lansing.

Aftermath

The bodies of the killers were exhumed December 18, 2012 from Mount Muncie Cemetery in Lansing, as authorities hope to solve a 53-year-old cold case using DNA. The two were questioned about the December 19, 1959 shooting murder in Osprey, Florida of Cliff and Christine Walker and their two young children. Smith and Hickock had fled to Florida after the Clutter murders. A polygraph administered at the time of their arrest in the Clutter case cleared them of the murder, but by modern polygraph standards, their test results are no longer considered valid.[4] On December 19, 2012, officials in Kansas exhumed the bodies of Smith and Hickock and retrieved bone fragments in order to attempt to compare their DNA to semen found in the pants of Christine Walker.[5][6][7] In August 2013, the Sarasota County Sheriff's office announced they were unable to find a match between the DNA of Perry Smith or Richard Hickock with the samples in the Walker family murder. 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). Consequently, investigators have stated that Smith and Hickock still remain the most viable suspects.[8]

Film portrayals

Hickock was portrayed by Scott Wilson in the 1967 film adaptation of In Cold Blood, by Anthony Edwards in the 1996 TV miniseries adaptation, Mark Pellegrino in the 2005 film Capote, and by Lee Pace in the 2006 film Infamous.

See also

References

  1. ↑ http://search.proquest.com/criminaljusticeperiodicals/docview/213980552/27CF9680ED7C495BPQ/1?accountid=25388
  2. ↑ Doyle, Larry. "Bloodless" November 19, 1996
  3. ↑ Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood. New York: Random House, 1965.
  4. ↑ Van Olson, Cora. "‘In Cold Blood’ Killers Suspected in Cold Case of Florida Family Massacre". Crime Library. Retrieved 5 May 2013.
  5. ↑ "'In Cold Blood' Killers Exhumed, Investigators Hope to Solve 53-Year-Old Cold Case". ABC News. Retrieved 19 December 2012.
  6. ↑ "'In Cold Blood' killers' bodies exhumed in second murder investigation". NBC News. 19 December 2012. Retrieved 5 May 2013.
  7. ↑ Sanderson, Bill (December 20, 2012). "‘In Cold Blood’ killers' bodies exhumed to check for link in 1959 Florida slaying". New York Post. Retrieved 5 May 2013.
  8. ↑ Koehn, Donna (13 August 2013). "No DNA link between Walker murders, 'In Cold Blood' killers". Herald Tribune. Retrieved 30 September 2013.

External links