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raccoon

(31,131 posts)
Thu Dec 20, 2012, 05:44 PM Dec 2012

Now we'll know for sure if Hickock and Smith killed the Walker family.

Kansas exhumes bodies of 'In Cold Blood' killers

By By JOHN HANNA | Associated Press – Tue, Dec 18, 2012

LANSING, Kan. (AP) — The bodies of the two men executed for the 1959 murders of a Kansas family that became infamous in Truman Capote's true-crime book "In Cold Blood" were exhumed Tuesday in an effort to solve slayings of a Florida family killed weeks later.

Kyle Smith, deputy director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, said bone fragments were collected from the skeletal remains of Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, who were hanged for the murders of Herb and Bonnie Clutter and their children in Holcomb, Kan., on Nov. 15, 1959.

The fragments were collected at the request of a Sarasota County Sheriff's detective, who has been trying to determine whether Hickock and Perry Smith were responsible for the deaths of Cliff and Christine Walker and their two young children on Dec. 19, 1959, in their home in Osprey, about four hours northwest of Miami near Sarasota. Smith and Hickock fled to Florida after the Clutter murders.

Hickock and Perry Smith have been considered suspects in the Walker slayings since 1960, and Kyle Smith said Florida officials have expressed an interest several times over the decades in renewing the investigation. DNA testing now has advanced enough that older material can be analyzed more effectively, he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/kansas-exhumes-bodies-cold-blood-killers-184049666.html

(Update to thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1201182)

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Now we'll know for sure if Hickock and Smith killed the Walker family. (Original Post) raccoon Dec 2012 OP
I read about that. Should be interesting!... Little Star Dec 2012 #1
Anybody know when we could reasonably expect the results of the DNA testing? nt raccoon Dec 2012 #2
Update: so far the tests are inconclusive. See thread raccoon May 2013 #3
No results Scairp May 2013 #4

Little Star

(17,055 posts)
1. I read about that. Should be interesting!...
Thu Dec 20, 2012, 08:36 PM
Dec 2012

I hope they were really guilty. But I'm not one who supports the death penalty much.

Scairp

(2,749 posts)
4. No results
Wed May 29, 2013, 11:32 PM
May 2013

My bet is they will never get any. It's been too long and at that time no one ever dreamed you could identify one single human for certain from fluids. It would have sounded like science fiction to suggest such a thing and say we should preserve any biological fluids so in 50 years LE can find out who committed these crimes.

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