Myers was 7 when a neighbor burst into his living room to announce what she'd heard on the radio. Stanley was committed to an asylum soon after the murders. Six decades later, one morning last June, Pat Myers hobbled into the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office and sank into a seat across from a detective in a crisp white shirt. The house was dark as McLeod approached, but as he got closer, he saw a light flickering through the window. Myers, 71, had pleaded for answers most of his life, sometimes dropping into the sheriff's office when the phone fell quiet. The same day, they were positively identified at a department store just a few miles away. And Pat promised her he would make sure to keep it alive, to fight for a resolution. The folks at the gas station told him the Walkers were dead, and they took him to the house where he fell apart. It was cold, but not expressly so, and he was headed to meet his friend and co-worker Cliff Walker to go hog hunting. 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. Now, Clark was telling Myers, as he had several times before, that his suspicions lay elsewhere. A Florida Department of Law Enforcement serology supervisor confirmed the news to McGath and apologized. "I've got mothers calling me who want to get their sons out of prison. 2 men found drugged after leaving NYC gay bars were killed, medical examiner says. That had never been clear, McGath replied. Emmett Monroe Spencer was a multi-murderer who was captured some time after the Walker massacre. Such killings the extermination of an entire family don't happen every day, but they're not so statistically rare as . Sarasota Police sent out county deputies to investigate. Worrying that the family had succumbed to a gas leak, he broke in . He said what was thought to be sperm was more likely Christine's blood or skin cells. It doesnt seem like thats what happened to me. 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. There was a store, a gas station, a firehouse, a bank, a post office and little all else. There is ample circumstantial evidence to suggest that Smith and Hickock may have been responsible for the Walker family murders. "Do you realize, in December, it's going to be 64 years?". The pair were among the many suspects given a polygraph which they both passed, being dismissed from the inquiry. Perhaps a secret lover had been spurned. 4 The Walker Family Murder. Now, Myers asked her, "What I don't get is, how did they get in the house with the dogs sitting there?" Cliff was 25. Some families, she knew, played their traumas over and over 50 or 60 years later. The case wasnt a priority, and it would be August of 2013 before the results came in. I am entirely self-funded and if you liked this article, please consider a donation via PayPal as a token of appreciation. Read on to learn about the Walker Family Murders, who were found brutally murdered in their home on December 20, 1959. Within hours, a crush of cars crawled down the shell road just to see where the family had lived. Hickock and Smith confessed to the murders of the Clutter family, for which they were hanged in April of 1965. Maggie and Paul Murdaugh. The bodies were exhumed on December 18, 2012, but it wasnt until August of 2013 that results were officially announced. She had never been able to fully put the case aside. With a little investigation, however, it was determined that so much information had been leaked to the media that any civilian could have that kind of knowledge of the crime. interactive scene of 1959 walker family murders Comments: accident in st charles il yesterday 0 what year was the class of 2033 born th human allergic reaction to skunk spray kawai digital piano 250 They likely had been comparing their suspects all these years to Christine herself. It was quiet, which was odd as the family was known to rise early. This was a very odd thing to do. Even the worst fears of his imagination couldnt have prepared him for the carnage that greeted him. Kansas authorities told Boyer they passed. 1959. Cliff wanted to teach him a lesson, but ended up only telling him to stay away. I can be contacted for projects through my website MichaelEastWriter.com where youll also find lots more content. After committing the "In Cold Blood" murder of Herbert Clutter, his wife and two children on Nov. 15, 1959, Smith and Hickock hit the road, hiding out from law enforcement in Mexico and Florida . Another is that it might have been someone she knew and voluntarily let in. However, for one Florida family, the Christmas season became a nightmare.. But the Walker murders had consumed detectives, then spit them out, for half a century. "I'm interested foremost in the living cases, where there is a danger to the public or when someone is wrongfully convicted or where a victim is wanting to find an answer," said Hampikian, the DNA expert. So, with that being said, I lean toward Stanley Mauck, the meter-reader. The house was dark as McLeod approached, but as he got closer, he saw a light flickering through the window. In early January, Myers called Clark and his boss six times with no reply. Out of bullets, he took her to the bathroom, where he had filled the tub. The discovery was interesting as it would be unlikely that a stranger to the area would know the shed. [5], Physical evidence left at the scene included a bloody cowboy boot, a cellophane strip from a Kool cigarette wrapper, and a fingerprint on the bathtub faucet handle. Over the next six weeks, Hickock and Smith traveled about 10,000 miles, from Kansas and California to Mexico and Florida. He stopped at a local gas station and inquired about the location of the Walker home, as if looking for Cliff. They were robbed of all the things we bring children into this world to experience, and thats devastating. The pair shot and killed Herbert Clutter, his wife Bonnie, and two of their children in . Alongside the items missing, there was also a significant amount of evidence left at the scene by the culprit. The doubt, the what-ifs, kept at him like a jackhammer. Sadly, it never came. The infamous killers hanged for the murders of a Kansas family may have also been responsible for the deaths of another family in Florida. 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 . McCall underwent three separate polygraph tests, and during each one, the suspect was so nervous that they all ended inconclusively. Perry Smith, left, and Richard Hickock were arrested in Las Vegas in connection with the November 15, 1959, murders of four members of the Clutter family in rural Kansas. Yes! The bartender never called again. They didnt find it; Herb, in reality, did all his business by check and there was no safe. Cliff and Don went hunting, while Christine and Dons wife Lucy stayed behind with the children. About a month before the Walker family slaying occurred, the Clutters were killed in their Holcomb, Kansas home by Perry Smith and Richard Dick Hickock. However, now Christine lay in a pool of blood at the entrance to the living room. Along with Richard Hickock, Smith took part in the burglary and multiple murder at the Clutter . In all, hundreds of suspects were interviewed and given polygraphs. Don McLeod got up at 5:30am on December 20th, 1959 in Osprey, Florida and headed over to his friend Cliff Walkers place so they could go out together to hunt wild hogs. Detectives had told the public to look out for suspects with cuts. But the results were too tangled to isolate any individuals. Capote personally thought it was unlikely that the two were responsible for the Walker murders. But they were on the run, skipping across the country after the murders as the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, or the KBI, had just started to decipher the crime scene. Baby Debbie, they found in the bathtub, facedown in 4 inches of water, also shot in the head. Somebody was inside but ignoring his calls. He'd had an alibi for most of the evening, she explained. This article was originally published in the Tampa Bay Times. Some fingerprints and shoe prints were found on the property, but even more contamination was revealed when one of the boot prints was proven to have come from a county-issued sheriffs deputy boot. There was a bloody and discarded cowboy boot, a cellophane strip from a cigarette wrapper, and a fingerprint on the bathtub faucet. Despite this, many still believe that Hickock and Smith are the most likely suspects in the slaying. Through the years there have been almost 600 suspects but to this date, the case remains unsolved. Deputies were already working hard in the Walker home when the sheriff arrived. The only information we have about Christines romantic life comes from tabloids, so we should obviously take this with a grain of salt. Cliff was ambushed and killed by gunshot. The year before, she had convinced a judge in Kansas to exhume the remains of Hickock and Smith to see if their DNA matched an unknown profile in Christine's underwear. He was photographed outside the house the day the bodies were discovered - with no marks on him, McGath commented. They are also the main suspects for the massacre of the Walker family in Florida a month after the Clutter murders. You can join my mailing list for the latest articles and also like my Facebook page. A blonde hair was found in Christines dress, and neither Smith nor Hickock were blonde. Yet, the test showed that he was highly likely lying when asked if hed withheld information. Myers wanted to feel that way too. One of Cliff's cousins also aroused suspicion after he grew hysterical outside the Walker gate upon learning of the deaths and fainted at the funeral. By 2020, the rate was 54% - meaning more cases grow cold. They were seen a dozen times on the way. Cliff was ambushed and killed by gunshot. The surviving relatives of Bonnie Clutter who hated In Cold Blood because it portrayed her as emotionally impaired weren't necessarily just being defensive. Both killings involved a home invasion, and both involved the occupants being executed with a firearm. Christine was likely still struggling at this point as the first bullet barely grazed her. But I dont know. Only partial DNA had been retrieved, and any conclusions were therefore uncertain. On December 19th, 1959, an entire family was found brutally murdered in Florida. But depending on what time he went to dinner, its possible that he was unaccounted for during the time of the massacre. Jan 29, 2012. Neither of their children ever got an opportunity to go to school or play on a sports team, or kiss a person they loved. The family was young and growing and look set to be pillars of the community for many years to come. Its frustrating to think that well never know the answer. Christines car wasnt parked in its usual spot, where it would have been most convenient to unload the groceries. He realized something must be wrong in the house and took the decision to enter, cutting through the screen door. Life in Ina was simple. It was time to give Clark, the Sarasota detective, another nudge. ; Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0; additional terms may . She didn't want to cross a line. But science has ruled him out. Clark said he still hoped to get Christine's DNA, to clear up longstanding confusion. Months later in 2013, McGath was at her desk in Sarasota reading a report on the DNA from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. Sixty years ago, a prosperous farmer, his wife, and two of their children were murdered in their rural Kansas home in the middle of the night, by a pair of strangers. He said detectives have no physical evidence, so far, connecting Hickock and Smith to the Walker murders, no fingerprints. Police hope genealogy sites will help solve more cold cases, Colombia wants to deport "cocaine hippos" to stop them from multiplying, Alex Murdaugh found guilty of murders of wife and son, How a tragic boating crash is connected to the family of Alex Murdaugh, killers made infamous in Truman Capote's true crime classic "In Cold Blood. That motive has to be discounted in the Walker family case. As she organized boxes of witness statements, ballistics reports and crime scene photographs into an 8,000-page digital record, more clues - and gaps - emerged. But the next morning, they vanished. But she was inactivating the case until new testing or evidence could advance it. Brandon Clark done, since they'd met a year and a half earlier, to solve the murder of his sister? All were shot in the head. 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. Blood evidence suggests that he wasnt killed by the first bullet and that the assailant continued to shoot at him while he crawled over to be next to his fathers body. Im going to go over a few of the main suspects, then tell you a little bit about my own personal theory. Just days before Christmas 1959, the Walker family was murdered in their small Sarasota County home, a case that became one of Sarasota's most notorious unsolved crimes. Clark - with his "never-say-die" attitude, per one supervisor - had found a niche in such cases. The notorious "Bloody Benders" were a German immigrant family who owned both a general store and small inn in the early 1870s in Labette County . In 2012, the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office began investigating possible links between the Walker family murders and Perry Smith and Richard "Dick" Hickock, who had been convicted and executed for the 1959 murders of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas. The house located in Osprey Florida was rent free for the Walkers in exchange for the hard, honest work Cliff did on the large Palmer Ranch. I also want to get the Early Bird Books newsletter featuring great deals on ebooks. The town is small, comprising just a few thousand people, and residents enjoyed the relative peace that comes alongside that. Cliff and the kids followed a half hour later in his work Jeep. 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. On the Walkers' final day, they headed a dozen miles north for used car lots in bustling Sarasota. So unfortunately, we can't really tell anything from these DNA results. 2023 The Associated Press. (Wayback archive copy)", "Walker Slaying Confession Discredited by Sheriff", "The murderous journey from lies to prison and redemption", "Cold case: Stroudsburg bartender may hold key to unsolved Florida murders", "Walker investigation shows parts of 'In Cold Blood' don't add up (Wayback archive copy)", "DNA From 'In Cold Blood' Killers Could Solve 1959 Florida Cold Case", "No DNA link between Walker murders, 'In Cold Blood' killers", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Walker_family_murders&oldid=1138389492, December 1959 events in the United States, Unsolved mass murders in the United States, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 9 February 2023, at 12:07. Cliff and Jimmie were slumped in the corner, and upstairs, Debbie lay in a blood-filled bath. The first person worth talking about is Don McLeod, the man who found the bodies. She settled in and smiled. Just days before Christmas 1959, the Walker family was murdered in their small Sarasota County home, a case that became one of Sarasota's most notorious unsolved crimes. Curtis had apparently been violent in the past. He was referring to the Walkers' three hound dogs in the yard - just another stray detail he picked at, worried over. June 17, 2022 . The Walker family was laid to rest in Arcadia, Florida on December 22, 1959. Arriving at the house when Christine was alone, she wouldnt have suspected their real intention. In 2010, however, over 50 years after the crime, the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office took another crack at the Walker family murders case. They also stopped to put air in the tires, and probably arrived home at about 4:30. The mix-ups made McGath wonder about the evidence already tested. Maggie Murdaugh Facebook. Smith's tooth returned a female DNA profile - that of the examiner who analyzed the bones. Freelance writer. "The challenges of a case from that long ago you're bound by what was done in 1959," Giasone said. Unsolved murder of two parents and two children in Osprey, Florida, "Did 'In Cold Blood' murderers kill Florida family, too? Smith, a drifter from Nevada, had been placed in an orphanage at age 13 after his mother, an alcoholic, choked on her vomit. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat. Perry Smith. On December 20th, 1959 Don McLeod, a coworker and friend of Cliff Walker, arrived at the Walker home at sunrise to pick up Cliff for hog hunting trip they had planned. She also was there when he spoke with former Det. Some believed it was an act. The case is unsolved as of February 2023. "I put a lot of faith in that," said Ron Albritton, a retired Sarasota detective and distant cousin of Cliff's who oversaw the inquiry through the 1980s and 90s. Joe Giasone, a 30-year veteran of the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office, said the agency has 32 cold cases, ranging from the 1959 Walker murders up to a 2019 missing boater. Dead trails, missing bits - but also so many pieces of evidence that lined up. ", But he never went to Kansas to interview Hickock and Smith. Determined not to leave any witnesses, Smith cut Herb Clutters throat and then shot him. Tooker, a 65-year-old retired railroad telegrapher, had made advances on Christine, which she rebuffed. The next morning, McLeod dropped by to go hog hunting with Cliff. 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. This line of investigation stopped when police confirmed that he wasnt even in Florida on the day of the Walker murders. Afterward, he left the bodies in the house and left the scene. At the second, the killers took personal things related to Christine, namely her high school majorette uniform and marriage license. 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. So when he called one day in late August 2022, she responded. McLeod didnt know it at the time, but one-year-old Debbie was also dead in the bathroom. The Christmas tragedy that fell on Osprey in 1959 was an unimaginable horror and one that by all rights deserved justice. We saw the caution tape scene. He'd lied to Novella before she died in 2021. He had also been convicted of attempted rape. Ozie Youmans, who was married to Cliffs sister, made unwanted advances toward Christine on multiple occasions. . Hickock and Smith slaughtered the Clutter family on November 15, 1959 in Holcomb, Kansas, about 34 days before the Walker family homicide. The taking of these items from the crime scene is suggestive that the killing was directly targeting Christine and the family rather than the tragic results of a home invasion. Theyd only been married for five years. Richard Eugene "Dick" Hickock and Perry Edward Smith were a team of mass murderers, family annihilators, and robbers responsible for the massacre of the Clutter family after their attempted robbery went astray in 1959. Clark hoped to test the underwear stain containing the sperm cell. 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 On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Cold Blooded: The Clutter Family Murders: With Beth Tedrow, Larry Welch, Kevin Bascue, Gwyneth Frack. [Via: Wikipedia; NY Daily News; Tampa Bay Times;Daily Mail], Featured Photo of The Walkers: What Lies Beyond. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkZUtJDbwn8. Its hard to ignore the fact that he was connected to another mass murder and confessed to having homicidal thoughts. Scientists managed to capture partial DNA for both of the men, however. Near her lay the bodies of Cliff and their three-year-old son Jimmie. However, most unusually, the couples marriage license had been stolen, leading some to suspect that perhaps an old fame of Christines had come to carry out an act of terrible revenge on the young husband and wife. All rights reserved. First, he turned on "Gunsmoke" - their daily routine. Peering through the windows, there was a very dim light on inside. Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkZUtJDbwn8. But McGath's supervisors shut down her efforts to gather the men's boots from Kansas. When arrested in Las Vegas, McGath found, Smith was carrying a pocket knife similar to one missing from Cliff's pocket. The conclusions drawn from the existing evidence are astonishing but probable . (The Walkers and McLeods were both employed by the wealthy Palmer family, on whose ranch land they both lived.) The slaying of . 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. 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. He'd played his violin - badly, according to the conductor - at a concert in Bradenton. They had decided to unearth Christine from her grave in the next month. "However," the release said, "DNA testing seems unlikely to provide conclusive evidence one way or the other.". Whether the one-year-olds death came from the bullet wound or the water was never ascertained. Then she was taken to Jimmies bedroom and raped on the bed before being shot with a .22 firearm. 15) Tony von Carruthers: In February of 1994, Tony shot his mother, her teenage associate, and his drug dealer in the Memphis area. In 2010, however, over 50 years after the crime, the Sarasota County Sheriffs Office took another crack at the Walker family murders case. . In this photo taken Oct. 19, 2009, the former home of the Herbert Clutter family is seen in Holcomb, Kan. Fifty years ago, the home was the scene of the brutal murder of Clutter, his wife Bonnie . It did not match the semen at the scene. The bullet killed him instantly. Maybe the killer was a relative who bore some grudge against the Walkers or simply wished to engage in his carnal fantasies. They were in the area at the time and had already committed one atrocity. Don McLeod got up at 5:30am on December 20th, 1959 in Osprey, Florida and headed over to his friend Cliff Walker's place so they could go out together to hunt wild hogs. And though Clark was earnest, Myers feared the result would be no different. Author By Posted on June 8, 2022 Categories mark williams composer shooting in staten island. Despite what Capote asserted at the time, subsequent investigations have since revealed holes in Hickock and Smiths alibis, and some experts have asserted that polygraph tests of the era were notoriously unreliable. Brought in for questioning, McCall denied having any romantic interest in Christine and evasively said he had sold the weapon not long ago. The assailant covered little Debbies face with Jimmies hat and shot her in the head, failing to kill her. The Wilbur Tooker theory also holds some merit, but theres just no real evidence for it. He was shot from a considerable distance as he entered his home. The docuseries features people who knew her well and remember her as a great hostess and a lot of fun. I thought he was a very nice gentleman. Herbert Clutter, 48, his wife, Bonnie, 45, their daughter, Nancy Mae, 16 and son Kenyon, 15, were bound hand and foot and gagged. interactive scene of 1959 walker family murders. Police are said to have investigated Butchs father, but never even spoke to Butch. Myers asked, five rows of wrinkles amassing above his large blue eyes. Even after Christine married, authorities documented instances of half a dozen men propositioning her, patting her on the rear, grabbing her, trying to kiss her, especially when they had been drinking, which was often. They listened as a fellow inmate bragged about a farmer who kept lots of cash in a safe. 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.". They were shot one by one. When she was well, Ella had vocally supported his efforts to find answers. However, its possible that the police already had the killers in custody. 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. After killing the Clutter family, Hickock and Smith fled to Florida in a stolen car, where they bought items from a department store in Sarasota, just a few miles away from the Walker home, on the very day that the Walkers were killed. McLeod also fell under suspicion. "I always looked at the Walker case as 'Keep looking,' because it's not Hickock and Smith.". interactive scene of 1959 walker family murdersgriffin park demolishedgriffin park demolished 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.