Richard Hickock

{{Infobox mass murderer

| birth_name = Richard Eugene Hickock

| image_name = Richard "Dick" Hickock.jpg

| image_size =

| image_caption = Kansas State Penitentiary - March, 1960

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1931|6|6}}

| birth_place = Kansas City, Kansas, U.S.

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1965|4|14|1931|6|6}}

| death_place = Kansas State Penitentiary, Lansing, Kansas, U.S.

| conviction_penalty = Death

| conviction_status = Executed

| occupation = Criminal, railroad worker, mechanic

| parents =

| children = 3

| spouse =

| conviction = First degree murder (4 counts)

| death_cause = Execution by hanging

| date = November 15, 1959

| locations = Holcomb, Kansas

| country = United States

| weapons = Shotgun
Knife

| targets = Clutter family

| motive = Robbery
Eliminating witnesses

| apprehended = December 30, 1959

| fatalities = 4 (didn’t directly kill any member of the family but assisted in the crime)

}}

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 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 burglary and multiple murders at the Clutter family farmhouse.

Early life

Richard Hickock was born on June 6, 1931,{{cite web |title=Richard Eugene Hickock Inmate Case File |url=https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/208963/page/2 |website=Kansas Memory |publisher=Kansas Historical Society |access-date=14 December 2019}} in Kansas City, Kansas 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."{{cite news |last1=Adam |first1=Suzanna |title=Left Behind: Man Lives Painful Life in Shadow of Brother's Crime |url=https://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/apr/04/left_behind_man/ |access-date=14 December 2019 |work=Lawrence Journal-World |agency=Ogden Newspapers |publisher=The Nutting Company |date=4 April 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191214015355/https://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/apr/04/left_behind_man/ |archive-date=14 December 2019}} 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.{{cite book |last1=Gale |first1=Thomson |title=Richard Eugene Hickock |url=http://www.bookrags.com/biography/richard-eugene-hickock-cri/#gsc.tab=0 |via=Bookrags |access-date=11 December 2019}} 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. 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, 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 he served his 1958 prison sentence, his second wife divorced him as well.{{cite book|author=Capote, Truman|title=In Cold Blood|location= New York|publisher= Random House|date= 1965}}

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 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.{{cite web |last1=Kuiper |first1=Kathleen |title=Truman Capote: Biography & Facts |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Truman-Capote |website=Encyclopædia Britannica |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. |access-date=14 December 2019 |date=26 September 2019}}

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 the house just after midnight on November 15, 1959, Hickock and Smith discovered that there was no such safe.{{cite book|author=Capote, Truman|title=In Cold Blood|location= New York|publisher= Random House|date= 1965}} The pair then murdered all four members of the family. According to Truman Capote's account of the Clutter murders, In Cold Blood, Hickock was prevented by Smith from raping 16-year-old Nancy Clutter during the incident.

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 defendants chose not to testify during their trial.

Hickock and Smith were 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 the author was researching In Cold Blood.

Execution

Hickock and Smith were executed by hanging at the Kansas State Penitentiary on April 14, 1965.{{Cite news |date=April 14, 1965 |title=Hickock, Smith Pay Extreme Penalty |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/3154185// |newspaper=Garden City Telegram |location=Garden City, KS |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=September 4, 2015 }} {{Open access}} 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."{{Cite news |title=Last Words Attack Capital Punishment |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/3154238// |newspaper=Garden City Telegram |location=Garden City, KS |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=September 4, 2015 }} {{Open access}} Smith, in contrast, attempted to speak beyond the room when he addressed the media representatives and declared: "capital punishment 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.{{Cite news |title=To Be Buried at Levenwarth |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/3154248// |newspaper=Garden City Telegram |agency=AP |location=Garden City, KS |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=September 4, 2015 }} {{Open access}} Hickock donated his eyes for corneal transplants, and they were used on two patients in Kansas City later that day.{{cite news |title=Hickock's Eyes To Two Persons |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/3154244// |newspaper=Garden City Telegram |agency=AP |location=Garden City, KS |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=September 4, 2015 }} {{Open access}}

On December 18, 2012, the killers' bodies were exhumed from Mount Muncie Cemetery, as authorities hoped to solve a 53-year-old cold case using DNA. Smith and Hickock had fled to Florida 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 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

not considered valid.{{cite web|last=Van Olson|first=Cora|title='In Cold Blood' Killers Suspected in Cold Case of Florida Family Massacre|url=http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/blog/2012/12/04/in-cold-blood-killers-suspected-in-cold-case-of-a-florida-family-massacre/index.html?link=obnetwork|website=Crime Library|access-date=May 5, 2013}} After the exhumation, officials in Kansas retrieved bone fragments from Smith and Hickock's corpses to compare their DNA to semen found in Christine Walker's pants.{{cite news|title='In Cold Blood' Killers Exhumed, Investigators Hope to Solve 53-Year-Old Cold Case|url=https://abcnews.go.com/US/cold-blood-killers-exhumed-investigators-hope-solve-53/story?id=18007706#.UNEjc-RQWe0|work=ABC News|access-date=December 19, 2012}}{{cite news|title='In Cold Blood' killers' bodies exhumed in second murder investigation|url=http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/19/16019409-in-cold-blood-killers-bodies-exhumed-in-second-murder-investigation?lite|access-date=May 5, 2013|work=NBC News|date=December 19, 2012|url-status = dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130530055744/http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/19/16019409-in-cold-blood-killers-bodies-exhumed-in-second-murder-investigation?lite|archive-date=May 30, 2013}}{{cite news|last=Sanderson|first=Bill|title='In Cold Blood' killers' bodies exhumed to check for link in 1959 Florida slaying|url=http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/in_cold_blood_echo_687gdcvxGZMSTIzKuLtRAK|access-date=May 5, 2013|newspaper=New York Post|date=December 20, 2012}}

In August 2013, the Sarasota County 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.{{cite news|last=Koehn|first=Donna|title=No DNA link between Walker murders, 'In Cold Blood' killers|url=http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20130813/ARTICLE/130819868|access-date=September 30, 2013|newspaper=Herald Tribune|date=August 13, 2013|archive-date=November 26, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151126101903/http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20130813/ARTICLE/130819868|url-status=dead}}

In 2017, The Wall Street Journal uncovered a handwritten manuscript that Hickock wrote while he waited for his execution on death row. The manuscript, reportedly titled The High Road to Hell, allegedly suggested a motive for the murders, which remains disputed. Before his execution, Hickock had insisted (and Smith concurred) that Smith committed all of the murders. 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 killed all the victims and Hickock committed no murders.{{cite news |last1=Helliker |first1=Kevin |title='In Cold Blood' Killer's Never-Published Memoir Raises Questions About His Motive |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lost-memoir-of-americas-most-infamous-murder-1489759410 |website=Wall Street Journal |date=March 17, 2017 |publisher=Dow Jones & Company, Inc. |access-date=11 December 2019}} In discussing his alleged motive, Hickock claimed that he had committed the killings in a murder-for-hire 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, but they returned and advised they had already commissioned Capote to write about the 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 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."