Such killings the extermination of an entire family don't happen every day, but they're not so statistically rare as . All Rights Reserved. In 1959, the Walker family was getting ready to spend their second Christmas together as a family of four. Now the killer turned to Debbie and shot her too. Cliff was 25. Capt. Cliff, who earned $55 a week managing a herd of deep red cows, wanted to trade in his wife's 1952 Plymouth. The detective persuaded officials to dig up the bodies last December in Kansas, where Smith and Hickock murdered the Clutter family in 1959 one month before the Walker slaying and were . Christines car wasnt parked in its usual spot, where it would have been most convenient to unload the groceries. Truman Capotes wildly popular book In Cold Blood was written about the crime, and is considered the first real true crime novel. Two suspects. Learn more about the murder scene by using the interactive graphic below. Arriving in Miami Beach, the pair was located just four hours away from the Walker family home and checked out of their motel the morning of the killings. Authorities acted on a lead that connected the 1959 murder of the Walker family with an earlierand much more famouscrime: the slaying of the Clutter family, the very case that inspired Truman Capote's groundbreaking book, In Cold Blood. The long-unsolved Walker murders bore surface similarities to the . Meanwhile, the head of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation told a reporter that, had he been facing a similar situation, "I'd have had an investigator down here weeks ago.". Indeed, the Walker family killings are given several pages in In Cold Blood, the author dismissing any connection. Im also active on Twitter. It seems likely that Debbie also somehow survived. Cliff wanted to teach him a lesson, but ended up only telling him to stay away. I also want to get Early Bird Books newsletter featuring book deals, recommendations, and giveaways. Myers wanted to feel relief. The discovery was interesting as it would be unlikely that a stranger to the area would know the shed. Many people assume that Christine was the main reason the killer was there in the first place. "However," the release said, "DNA testing seems unlikely to provide conclusive evidence one way or the other.". The only information we have about Christines romantic life comes from tabloids, so we should obviously take this with a grain of salt. Cliff didnt take the time he would ordinarily take to unload the cattle feed he had bought in town before going inside. They likely had been comparing their suspects all these years to Christine herself. However, the best suspect at the time was possibly Curtis McCall, a man described as a troublemaker with a history of violence. Courtesy of Las Vegas Review-Journal Archive. Christine drove home first that afternoon. To have a theory was one thing; to have proof was another. The Herald Tribune reports investigators are probing the possibility that the killers, who were the inspiration for Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood," brutally murdered the Walker family of Osprey, Fla. in 1959. He took off with Jimmie and Debbie in a jeep that could be used by any of the Palmer Ranch hands. The Christmas tragedy that fell on Osprey in 1959 was an unimaginable horror and one that by all rights deserved justice. Maggie Murdaugh Facebook. The National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the Department of Justice, has called on agencies to create teams dedicated to handling these seemingly unsolvable cases - more than 100,000 of them from the previous two decades alone. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. But science has ruled him out. The Walker investigation was yet another of America's quarter-million unsolved homicides - a mounting crisis in the minds of justice experts - and a case study into how thousands of hours, tens of thousands of dollars, exhumed bodies, DNA tests, fingerprints and bullets can fail to add up to answers. When Don discovered the bodies of the Walker family, he was heartbroken and terrified. 4 The Walker Family Murder. She sifted through thousands of pages, looking for the original DNA test of Christine's underwear that had detected a male suspect - a result detectives had leaned on for years. What started as a robbery ended in the violent deaths of the mother, father, and two teenaged children. Why not this family of four, too? The family was young and growing and look set to be pillars of the community for many years to come. While that book devoted several pages to the Walker case, it dismissed a possible connection to Hickock and Smith, asserting that the two men had an alibi for that day. The infamous killers hanged for the murders of a Kansas family may have also been responsible for the deaths of another family in Florida. They had decided to unearth Christine from her grave in the next month. . The surviving relatives of Bonnie Clutter who hated In Cold Blood because it portrayed her as emotionally impaired weren't necessarily just being defensive. | https://linktr.ee/MichaelEast. The crime, seemingly without motive, would later be chronicled in Truman Capote's seminal book, In Cold Blood. The Walkers and their two toddlers were murdered on December 19, 1959 in Osprey, Florida. Clark hoped to test the underwear stain containing the sperm cell. Officers found, beneath the car seat, a toddler shirt and a pink jacket that could have matched Christine's dress, as well as an Army gas can and burlap bags that could have come from Cliff's military-style Jeep. The Clutter case bore eerie similarities to the Walker case: both were quadruple homicides, with both parents and two children slaughtered (the Clutters other children escaped the violence because they were not home at the time). 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. In Florida, several larger departments - including Tampa, Jacksonville and Miami-Dade - have such teams. Now . Whether they were already in the house or Christine let them in is unknown for sure, but it seems likely the reason the family car was in a different location is that somebody else had parked in the family spot. By 2020, the rate was 54% - meaning more cases grow cold. After lunch, they went to the McLeods. In December of 2012, the Sarasota County Sheriffs Department requested a court order to exhume the bodies of Hickock and Smith, in order to run DNA tests in an attempt to connect them to the Walker family murders. Hickock, a car mechanic and father from Kansas, had suffered a severe head injury in a car accident when he was 19. Want more true crime? The Wilbur Tooker theory also holds some merit, but theres just no real evidence for it. Freelance writer. 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). It is strange to think about this being almost a blessing, but it did keep him from seeing what happened to his wife and children. It was only days before Christmas, and the Walker family had already begun to put a few presents around the tree in anticipation of Christmas morning. Yet, the test showed that he was highly likely lying when asked if hed withheld information. This peeved Myers. The sheriff had Hickock and Smith's pictures published on the front page of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He said the agency remains committed, however long it takes. With the possible perpetrators in the Walker murders dead - the "In Cold Blood" killers were executed in 1965; Tooker suffered a heart attack while playing the violin in 1963 - there is scant possibility of an arrest. Tooker died in the mid-sixties, and I dont believe theyve tried to salvage DNA from his long-buried remains. In 2010, however, over 50 years after the crime, the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office took another crack at the Walker family murders case. Its frustrating to think that well never know the answer. In 1965, according to FBI statistics, agencies closed 90% of the year's homicides. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkZUtJDbwn8. Safe house. Smith stopped Hickock from raping a young woman in the Clutter attack. Christine had grown up in one of those households. Though he is thought to have committed several murders, he was only actually convicted of one. The bodies were exhumed on December 18, 2012, but it wasnt until August of 2013 that results were officially announced. Cliff and the kids followed a half hour later in his work Jeep. Local gossip was that McCall was engaged in an affair with Christine Walker, and he was known to own a .22-caliber gun. However, based on the personal items that were stolen, Katherine Ramsland, of the University of Pennsylvania, finds Smith and Hickock unlikely and instead suspects that the killer knew at least one member of the Walker family. Indeed, the Walker family killings are given several pages in In Cold Blood, the author dismissing any connection. Curtis had apparently been violent in the past. June 7, 2021: Margaret "Maggie" Murdaugh and Paul Murdaugh found dead at the family hunting lodge. Not to mention this type of slut-shaming and victim-blaming has prevented real justice in our system for generations. He stopped at a local gas station and inquired about the location of the Walker home, as if looking for Cliff. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. McGath understood why Myers needed this. "Do you realize, in December, it's going to be 64 years?". He used to live there. Her captain, she said, wanted a DNA connection. In every direction McGath turned, she was met with blunders and blurred results, common problems in cold cases. . Tire tracks from the mystery car were likely gone now that there was a police vehicle parked in its place. A chilling account of two murders with multiple victims. According to the sheriffs department, the Walkers had been considering buying a car of the exact make and model that Hickock and Smith had stolen. Myers had grown up around people devastated by the family's deaths, relatives who also made trips over the years to the sheriff's office, who visited Christine's and Cliff's graves and held them close. He and Kimberly McGath went back to 2007, when she expressed an interest in the languishing Walker file. Herbert and Bonnie, and their children, Nancy, 16, and Kenyon, 15, died from shotgun blasts to the head. With Hickock and Smith long dead and now reburied, though, its likely their connection to the Walker murders will remain strictly hypothetical. I didnt want to harm the man. It did not match the semen at the scene. However, in 2012, the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office once again began to . "I think we're closer now than we've ever been.". At the time of the murders, the Walkers had been thinking about buying a 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air, and this was the same car that Smith and Hickock had stolen back in Kansas, using it during their flight across the country. But depending on what time he went to dinner, its possible that he was unaccounted for during the time of the massacre. The 1959 murder of Herbert Clutter and his wife and kids in Holcomb, Kansas by Perry Smith and Richard Hickock was, by itself, rather unextraordinary. Some thought he was in love with Christine. He had initially believed the family had simply slept in, amused as his friend was also known to be a habitual early riser. Please enter valid email address to continue. On a couch in an adjoining room was 15-year-old Kenyon Neal Clutter, bound, gagged and shot in the head. Its hard to ignore the fact that he was connected to another mass murder and confessed to having homicidal thoughts. But the results were too tangled to isolate any individuals. Both had relatively minor items stolen. Lucy wasnt one to eavesdrop, so all she remembered from hearing one side of her friend's conversation was that at one point they were talking about exchanging their current car. Considering how far away the Walkers lived, and the fact that Christine stopped to put air in the tires, its likely she would have arrived home around 4. Authorities suspected the pair of murderingthe Walkers as well, but could never secure acharge after Hickock and Smith werecleared by the results of a polygraph test. The children also stayed behind to watch. The details of their travels came out after their eventual capture in Las Vegas on Dec. 30, 1959, during interviews with investigators and other law enforcement. The files tell the story of a murder mystery that changed a community and continues today. There came a point that his older sister, Novella, couldn't handle going anymore. Scientists managed to capture partial DNA for both of the men, however. It seems almost sure that there was more than one attacker, with forensic evidence discovering a dark-colored hair in the bathroom and a long blonde hair inside Christine Walkers dress. Recently, she'd told Myers she'd found a picture of Hickock with two small marks on his chin. interactive scene of 1959 walker family murders. Myers wanted to feel that way too. So, if youre looking for a publication that will keep you up at night, True Crime Detective is the perfect choice! They were seen a dozen times on the way. But then in 1987, this settlement was rocked by a grisly murder that still remains unsolved today. However, while both Smith and Hickock would be dead and buried by the time Capote released his pioneering book, they were still very much at large on December 19, 1959. There was a problem. Christine left a few minutes before 3:30, but Cliff had some chores to finish with Don. Christine lay barefoot, bruised and bloody, her pink flowered dress pulled up, her slips and petticoats in a muddle. Some families, she knew, played their traumas over and over 50 or 60 years later. The case is unsolved as of February 2023. She read a report that the pair sold two dolls to a minister in Louisiana for $1.50 in gas money after they had left Florida. Authorities acted on a lead that connected the 1959 murder of the Walker family with an earlierand much more famouscrime: the slaying of the Clutter family, the very case thatinspired Truman Capotes groundbreaking book, In Cold Blood. ", But he never went to Kansas to interview Hickock and Smith. For example, in 1994, a woman called the Sarasota County Sheriffs Office and claimed to be a bartender in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. ", "Did 'In Cold Blood' killers murder Sarasota's Walker family in '59? The bullet only brushed against the side of her skull; she died of a gunshot wound to the chest, though it is unknown if the shot came during the original struggle or some time afterward. Days later, he received a return call. DNA has failed to connect two men featured in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood to the 1959 murders of a family of four in Osprey, but relatives still think all the evidence points to notorious killers. The duo entered the home through an unlocked back door and searched for the safe, the family remaining asleep. Entering, she wasnt attacked straight away and had enough time to store the groceries before she was ambushed by the assailant or assailants. Smith, a drifter from Nevada, had been placed in an orphanage at age 13 after his mother, an alcoholic, choked on her vomit. The doubt, the what-ifs, kept at him like a jackhammer. She said one of her regular customers had got drunk at the bar one night and began crying, saying that he had killed some people in Osprey, Florida, when he was a young man and mentioned the name Walker. She believed he did occasional work about town and was a gun enthusiast. But, as she would find time and again, neither Kansas nor the Las Vegas Police Department could locate any of that evidence for her. Hopes of solving 1959 quadruple murder cold case are dashed as police fail to connect 'In Cold Blood' killers with slain Florida family By Ap Reporter 05:43 14 Aug 2013, updated 09:22 14 Aug 2013 Maybe the killer was a relative who bore some grudge against the Walkers or simply wished to engage in his carnal fantasies. Herbert Clutter, 48, his wife, Bonnie, 45, their daughter, Nancy Mae, 16 and son Kenyon, 15, were bound hand and foot and gagged. He'd met Ella, now 68, on the school bus and proposed to her over the lunch table in high school. I can be contacted for projects through my website MichaelEastWriter.com where youll also find lots more content. They wondered if this could be some sort of revenge killing. Nov 14, 2022 at 9:00 am. The Bender Family. In a 2020 email, a spokesperson responded to a question about whether the agency was seeking boot testing this way: "We are not pursuing any of Det. This might have been how the two men gained access to the Walker home: on the pretense of selling their car. McGath's recommendations at this time.". Myers leaned forward and rested his arms, sun-splotched from decades overseeing orange groves, on the table. McGath stopped calling Myers. Police theorized that they had been grabbed and used to wipe the blood off the killer or killers. Florida analysts spent the equivalent of 44 full lab days that first year poring over evidence, making 2,920 fingerprint comparisons and conducting ballistics tests on more than 75 guns. Hickock soon concocted a plan to rob the familys safe and flee to Mexico, enlisting Smith, who had also once been his cellmate. The waitress reported all of this to the police, but didnt provide a name for the man. The morning of December 20, 1959, started out as a normal day for Daniel McLeod. Now Myers related to McGath what he'd heard from Clark: Though not a conclusive match, Tooker could not be discounted. The case wasnt a priority, and it would be August of 2013 before the results came in. However, now Christine lay in a pool of blood at the entrance to the living room. He ran from the house and jumped into the jeep, as his own truck had a trailer attached and he needed to get to a telephone as fast as possible. The following year, the mother of three would leave the agency to prioritize family. www.boxingaddictions.net > Blog > Uncategorized > interactive scene of 1959 walker family murders. The leads went nowhere, and the case was soon going cold until police believed they had a break in 1962 when serial killer Emmett Monroe Spencer claimed responsibility. Wilburs alibi doesnt start until after the murders. Whether the one-year-olds death came from the bullet wound or the water was never ascertained. Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkZUtJDbwn8. Police said 77-year-old Glen Samuel McCurley was in custody Tuesday in connection with the 1974 murder of Carla Jan Walker, who was 17-years-old when she was abducted, held captive and sexually .