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Richard Eugene Hickock (June 6, 1931 – April 14, 1965) was one of two ex-convicts convicted of murdering four members of the Clutter family in
Holcomb, Kansas Holcomb is a city in Finney County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 2,245. History Holcomb took its name from a local hog farmer. The city was a station and shipping point on the Atchison, Topeka ...
on November 15, 1959, a crime made famous by
Truman Capote Truman Garcia Capote ( ; born Truman Streckfus Persons; September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984) was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, ...
in his 1966
non-fiction novel The non-fiction novel is a literary genre which, broadly speaking, depicts real historical figures and actual events woven together with fictitious conversations and uses the storytelling techniques of fiction. The non-fiction novel is an otherw ...
''
In Cold Blood ''In Cold Blood'' is a non-fiction novel by American author Truman Capote, first published in 1966. It details the 1959 murders of four members of the Clutter family in the small farming community of Holcomb, Kansas. Capote learned of the qu ...
''. Along with
Perry Edward Smith 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 Truma ...
, Hickock took part in the burglary and multiple murder at the Clutter family farmhouse.


Early life

Richard Hickock was born on June 6, 1931 in
Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more th ...
,
Kansas Kansas () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its Capital city, capital is Topeka, Kansas, Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita, Kansas, Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebras ...
to farmworker parents, Walter Sr. and Eunice Hickock. He was one of several siblings, including a younger brother named Walter Jr. According to Walter Jr., their parents provided them with a good upbringing, but they were strict; he said of them, "I'm not sure if they were loving in the way you'd usually say a family is loving." In 1947, the Hickock family relocated to the small east Kansas town of Edgerton. Hickock was a popular student and an athlete at Olathe High School. After finishing high school, Hickock had wanted to attend college, but his family lacked the means to finance his post-secondary education. Hickock went to work as a mechanic instead. Head injuries from a serious automobile accident in 1950 left Hickock disfigured, rendering his face slightly lopsided and his eyes asymmetrical. According to his brother Walter, the accident "almost killed him," and it also changed him. After being released from the hospital, Hickock was left with hospital bills and mounting debts, leading him to start bad financial habits like writing bad checks and
gambling Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three ele ...
. He drifted through several manual labor jobs, working as a railroad worker, mechanic, and ambulance driver while simultaneously continuing to write bad checks and commit petty theft. Eventually, the crime caught up with him, and in March 1958, at the age of 26, Hickock received his first prison sentence. He was imprisoned in the Kansas State Penitentiary for stealing a rifle out of a local home. When Hickock was 19, he married for the first time. However, he became involved in an
extramarital affair An affair is a sexual relationship, romantic friendship, or passionate attachment in which at least one of its participants has a formal or informal commitment to a third person who may neither agree to such relationship nor even be aware of ...
, which eventually resulted in the conception of his first child. Hickock then decided to end his first marriage to marry his mistress, and they had two children together. While serving his 1958 prison sentence, his second wife divorced him as well. While serving his prison sentence, Hickock met fellow inmates Perry Smith and Floyd Wells, the latter of whom used to work for the Clutter family. Wells told Hickock about the affluence of the family's patriarch, Herbert Clutter, specifically telling Hickock that Clutter kept a safe in his house containing $10,000. Hickock and Smith devised a plan to rob and murder the Clutter family. Hickock was released from prison in August 1959, after serving seventeen months. Upon release from prison, he got a job at a body shop in
Olathe, Kansas Olathe ( ) is the county seat of Johnson County, Kansas, United States. It is the fourth-most populous city in both the Kansas City metropolitan area and the state of Kansas, with a 2020 population of 141,290. History 19th century Olathe wa ...
and tried to live an upright life; however, soon afterwards, he contacted Smith. Hickock and Smith met up in Olathe, where they collected supplies to aid in the commission of the crimes. They then went to Holcomb, where the Clutter family resided.


Clutter family murders

Hickock testified after the trial that he and Smith had gotten the idea to rob the Clutters after Hickock was told by Wells, their former cellmate, that there was a safe in the family's house containing $10,000. However, when they
invaded An invasion is a military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory owned by another such entity, generally with the objective of either: conquering; liberating or re-establishing con ...
the house just after midnight on November 15, 1959, Hickock and Smith discovered that there was no such safe. The pair then murdered all four members of the family. According to
Truman Capote Truman Garcia Capote ( ; born Truman Streckfus Persons; September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984) was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, ...
's account of the Clutter murders, ''
In Cold Blood ''In Cold Blood'' is a non-fiction novel by American author Truman Capote, first published in 1966. It details the 1959 murders of four members of the Clutter family in the small farming community of Holcomb, Kansas. Capote learned of the qu ...
'', Hickock was prevented by Smith from raping 16-year-old Nancy Clutter during the incident.
Alvin Dewey Alvin Adams Dewey (September 10, 1912 – November 6, 1987) was a special agent of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. Early life Dewey was born in Murdock, Kansas, on September 10, 1912, to Alvin Adams Dewey Sr (6 September 1879 – 26 January ...
, 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 defendants refused to testify during their trial. Hickock and Smith were arrested in
Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Veg ...
,
Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...
, 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 the author was researching ''In Cold Blood''.


Execution

Hickock and Smith were executed by
hanging Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging ...
at the Kansas State Penitentiary on April 14, 1965. When asked if he had any last words, Hickock declined, but he requested to address the KBI agents who had worked on his case and now were present as witnesses to his execution. Hickock told them he had "no hard feelings" towards them, shook each agent's hand, and simply said, "Goodbye." Smith, in contrast, attempted to speak beyond the room when he addressed the media representatives and declared: "
capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...
is legally and morally wrong." Hickock was executed first and was pronounced dead at 12:41 a.m; Smith followed shortly afterward and was pronounced dead at 1:19 a.m.


Aftermath

Hickock and Smith were both buried in nearby Mount Muncie Cemetery in
Lansing, Kansas Lansing is a city in Leavenworth County, Kansas, United States. It is situated along the west side of the Missouri River and Kansas-Missouri state border. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 11,239. It is the second most po ...
. Hickock donated his eyes for corneal transplants, and they were used on two patients in Kansas City later that day. On December 18, 2012, the killers' bodies were exhumed from Mount Muncie Cemetery, as authorities hoped to solve a 53-year-old
cold case A cold case is a crime, or a suspected crime, that has not yet been fully resolved and is not the subject of a current criminal investigation, but for which new information could emerge from new witness testimony, re-examined archives, new or r ...
using DNA. Smith and Hickock had fled to
Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and ...
after the Clutter murders, and the two had been questioned about the December 19, 1959 shooting murder of Cliff and Christine Walker and their two young children. A
polygraph A polygraph, often incorrectly referred to as a lie detector test, is a device or procedure that measures and records several physiological indicators such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while a person is asked ...
administered at the time of their arrest in the Clutter case cleared them of the Walker family murders, but by modern polygraph standards, their test results are no longer considered valid. After the exhumation, officials in Kansas retrieved bone fragments from Smith and Hickock's corpses in order to attempt to compare their DNA to
semen Semen, also known as seminal fluid, is an organic bodily fluid created to contain spermatozoa. It is secreted by the gonads (sexual glands) and other sexual organs of male or hermaphroditic animals and can fertilize the female ovum. Sem ...
found in Christine Walker's pants. In August 2013, the
Sarasota County Sarasota County is a county located in Southwest Florida. At the 2020 US census, the population was 434,006. Its county seat is Sarasota and its largest city is North Port. Sarasota County is part of the North Port–Sarasota–Bradenton, FL ...
sheriff's office announced they were unable to find a match between the DNA of either Smith or 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. In 2017, ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' uncovered a handwritten manuscript that Hickock wrote during the time that he awaited his execution on
death row Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution ...
. The manuscript, reportedly titled ''The High Road to Hell,'' allegedly shone a light on the motive behind the murders, which to this day is in dispute. Before his execution, Hickock had insisted (and Smith concurred) that Smith committed all of the murders himself. However, Hickock's manuscript describes how he shined a flashlight on each of the four Clutters' heads while Smith fired; Hickock's only regret, according to the manuscript, was that Smith did all of the killing and Hickock personally committed no murders. In discussing his alleged motive, Hickock claimed that he had committed the killings in a
murder-for-hire Contract killing is a form of murder or assassination in which one party hires another party to kill a targeted person or persons. It involves an illegal agreement which includes some form of payment, monetary or otherwise. Either party may be ...
plot in exchange for $5,000 from a man only named Roberts, writing, "I was going to kill a person. Maybe more than one. Could I do it? Maybe I'll back out. But I can't back out, I've taken the money. I've spent some of it. Besides, I thought, I know too much." Throughout 1961, Hickock sent the manuscript to reporter Mack Nations, who had promised to convert it into a book-length manuscript. After completing the project, Nations sent the converted manuscript to the publishing company
Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
, but they sent it back and let Nations know that they had already commissioned Capote to write about the Clutter murders. Writer Kevin Helliker of the ''Journal'' speculated that Hickock may have been pathologically lying or engaging in fantasy in his manuscript, arguing that had Hickock's story been true, he and Smith likely would have used the information to try to negotiate their way out of their death sentences by pinning the crime on Roberts, and he and Smith would not have struggled to make ends meet after the crime if they had been paid for it. Michael Stone, a
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
psychiatrist who specialized in studying Smith and Hickock, read the manuscript at the request of the ''Journal'' and said on the record, "I don't believe for a minute that they got paid to do it."


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; by
Mark Pellegrino Mark Ross Pellegrino (born April 9, 1965) is an American actor of film and television. He is best known for his work as Lucifer in ''Supernatural'', Paul Bennett in ''Dexter'', Jacob in ''Lost'', James Bishop in '' Being Human'', Clayton Haas i ...
in the 2005 film '' Capote''; and by
Lee Pace Lee Grinner Pace (born March 25, 1979) is an American actor. He is known for starring as Thranduil the Elvenking in ''The Hobbit'' trilogy and as Joe MacMillan in the AMC period drama television series '' Halt and Catch Fire''. He has also a ...
in the 2006 film '' Infamous''.


See also

* George York and James Latham *
Capital punishment in Kansas Capital punishment is currently a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Kansas, although it has not been used since 1965. History From 1853 to 1965, 76 executions were carried out under Kansas' jurisdiction. All but one, the first, were by hangin ...
*
List of people executed in Kansas This is a list of people executed in Kansas. No one has been executed by the state of Kansas since 1965, although capital punishment is legal there. Historically, 58 people have been executed in the area now occupied by the state. Many of these ...


References


External links

*
Richard Hickcock's inmate photograph and file
at kansasmemory.org {{DEFAULTSORT:Hickock, Richard 1931 births 1965 deaths People from Kansas City, Kansas American people convicted of murder American mass murderers People executed for murder 20th-century executions by Kansas People executed by Kansas by hanging American murderers of children Executed mass murderers Executed people from Kansas People convicted of murder by Kansas Criminals from Kansas 20th-century executions of American people Criminal duos