Perry Smith and Richard Hickock Mass Murder In Cold Blood Holcomb KS November and Osprey Fl December 1959

Perry Smith and Richard Hickock linked to mass murder in cold blood, the Clutter family in Holcomb KS on November 14th and the Walker family in Osprey Fl on December 19th 1959. All 8 victims were murdered in the same manner. Mad dog killers Perry Smith and Richard Hickock first met in the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing, Kansas. Smith was eventually paroled, and the pair later resumed their acquaintance upon Hickock's release in November 1959. Hickock allegedly wrote to Smith, imploring him to violate his parole by returning to Kansas to assist Hickock with a robbery he had been planning. Perry Smith met with Richard Dick Hickock, and almost immediately the two set to work carrying out Hickock's plan. 

Driving west to Holcomb KS, they entered the Clutter home through an unlocked door late in the evening of November 14, 1959, whereupon they murdered the four family members present: Herbert Clutter and his wife Bonnie, and their younger children, Nancy and Kenyon, they were all shot in the head. Clutter Family mass murder, Hickock later testified that he had gotten the idea to rob the Clutters after being told by former cellmate Floyd Wells, who had worked as a farmhand for the Clutters, that there was a safe in the family's house containing $10,000. When they invaded the house, however, they discovered that there was no such safe. Following the Kansas massacre, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock had stolen a Chevrolet Bel Air and drove it to Florida. On the morning of the Walker murders, the duo checked out of a Miami Beach motel. On Dec. 19 — the day of the killings — they shopped at Grant's Department Store on Tamiami Trail in Sarasota only several miles from the crime scene. They were in the area of the Walker Family mass murder, who were all shot in the head just like the Clutter family.

Mass murder killer Perry E. Smith was crack shot with a rifle. Perry Edward Smith (October 27, 1928 - April 14, 1965). At age 16, Perry Smith joined the United States Merchant Marine in 1942. Perry E. Smith joined the army in 1949 in Alaska, he served in the Korean War. “Headquarters, United States Army, Alaska. Pvt. Perry E. Smith, 23, first Army Korean combat veteran to return to the Anchorage, Alaska, area, is greeted by Captain Mason, Public Information Officer, upon arrival at Elmendorf Air Force Base. Smith served 15 months with the 24th Division as a combat engineer. His trip from Seattle to Anchorage was a gift from Pacific Northern Airlines. Perry Smith had lived for a time with his father in Trapper's Den a small town about 160 miles from Anchorage, Alaska. 

Pvt. Perry E. Smith was a hunter and trapper with his father John Tex Smith in Trapper's Den Palmer Alaska, where Perry learned to shoot. Pvt Perry E. Smith also spent 15 months in the Army during the Korean War, Perry was a marksman with a rifle (see news article above). His last fifteen months of service were spent at the Bay of Inchon during the Korean War, where he helped bridge the many rivers needed to ensure troop mobility leading up to the Battle of Inchon, where Smith was awarded the prestigious Bronze Star, the Army’s fourth highest military decoration for valor an honor given only for heroic or meritorious achievement and services in a combat zone. It appears that Perry Smith shot at least 6 of the 8 victims in the two families, shooting all of them in the head with one shot, using a shotgun in Kansas and then a 22 rifle in Florida. Perry Smith tells a former friend from his Army days that he is not sorry and feels no regret for his crimes. Dick Hickock was an ephebophile; according to Truman Capote in his account of the Clutter murders, In Cold Blood, having been prevented by his partner in crime, Perry Smith, from raping 16-year-old Nancy Clutter during the crime in the Clutter home, but Perry Smith appears to be the guy who raped Christine Walker in Osprey Fl.

Pvt Perry E. Smith and his father, John "Tex" Smith, attempted to build the Trapper’s Den Lodge in Palmer Alaska. All their physical and creative energy expended on a venture doomed to fail. Truman Capote wrote that Perry’s life was "an ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage and then another." The frustration and pain of this failure at Trapper's Den led to a terrible argument in which Perry tried to strangle his father and Tex, the Lone Wolf, pulled out a gun and tried to shoot him. The gun wasn’t loaded, but the intention was there. In a moment of mania Tex had tried to kill his own son, Perry.

On December 19th 959, unknown assailants entered the home of the Walker family and massacred Christine, 22; her husband Cliff, 25; and their children: three-year-old Jimmie and two-year-old Debbie. It remains one of the most haunting unsolved cases in Sarasota County Florida history. Over the past decade, though, the Walker family murders have taken on another chilling dimension, as the prime suspects are, at present, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. Less that one month earlier, Smith and Hickock slaughtered the four-member Clutter family in Kansas, creating the tragedy that was immortalized in author Truman Capote’s 1966 true-crime masterpiece In Cold Blood and its classic 1969and 2005 movie adaptations. 

At about 4 P.M. on December 19, 1959, Christine Walker, 24, came home to a house she thought was empty in Osprey Fl. It wasn’t. She was raped and shot to death. When Cliff arrived later with the kids, a gunshot cut him down immediately. The killer then also shot both Jimmie and Debbie. The little girl didn’t die immediately, though, so the perpetrator drowned her in the bathtub before leaving.

Nearly 50 years after the executions, the bodies of the killers Perry Smith and Dick Hickock were exhumed from Mount Muncie Cemetery in Lansing, as authorities hoped to solve a 53-year-old cold case using DNA. Smith and Hickock had originally been questioned about the December 19, 1959, shooting murder in Osprey, Florida of Cliff and Christine Walker and their two young children. Evidence indicated they had spent time just a few miles from the Walker crime scene after the Clutter murders. On December 19, 2012, officials in Kansas exhumed the bodies of Smith and Hickock and retrieved bone fragments to compare their DNA to semen found in the pants of Christine Walker.

Back in Jan 1960 at least 5 different people claimed they had spoken to or had interacted with mass murderers Perry Smith and Richard Hickock in the Sarasota - Osprey area prior to 12/20/1959 after seeing their photos in the Sarasota Herald Tribune as per the Sarasota County Sheriff Office. The Sheriff added that an 'expert marksman' shot each of the Walker family members with a 22 caliber rifle, one shot each, neatly through the head. Mass killer Perry E. Smith worked with his father a hunter/trapper in 'Trapper's Den' Palmer Alaska where they built a hunting lodge in the wilderness. Perry worked as a hunter trapper with his dad from about 1946 to 1949 when Perry Smith joined the Army in Alaska and served in combat during the Korean War. Perry returned to 'Trapper's Den' Palmer Alaska and to work with his father, John Tex Smith, in Oct. 1951 when he was discharged from the Army. Perry E. Smith learned to hunt and shot from his father, Tex, in Alaska. Perry E. Smith most likely was an 'expert marksman' with a rifle before he joined the Army in 1949, Perry was a skilled hunter. In August 2013, the Sarasota County Sheriff's office announced they were unable to find a match between the DNA of Smith or Hickock and the samples in the Walker family murder. Only partial DNA could be retrieved, possibly due to degradation 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). Investigators have stated that Smith and Hickock still remain the most viable suspects.


Bill Warner Private Investigator Sarasota 941-926-1926 - Cheaters and Child Custody Cases.