Then, startinghome, he walked toward the trees, and under them, leaving behind him the bigsky, the whisper of wind voices in the wind-bent wheat.

Dewey had imagined that with the deaths of Smith and Hickock, he wouldexperience a sense of climax, release, of a design justly completed. Instead, hediscovered himself recalling an incident of almost a year ago, a casual encounterin Valley View Cemetery, which, in retrospect, had somehow for him more orless ended the Clutter case.

The sound, not unlike the rat-a-tat-tat of parade drums

? All the windows down! My new Chevy. Christ!”

“Richard Eugene Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, partners in crime, died onthe gallows at the state prison early today for one of the bloodiest murders inKansas criminal annals. Hickock, 33 years old, died first, at 12:41 A.M.; Smith,36, died at 1:19.

With these arguments, Jenkins and Bingham succeeded in carrying the case threetimes to the United States Supreme Court

ut then he was.

“Well, what’s there to say about capital punishment? I’m not against it. Revenge

thing in the world Perry wants to be—educated. And Perry couldn’t forgive him

Seemed like it never would. The fact is, his heart kept beating for nineteen

was off at an angle, but we could see its shadow. A shadow on the wall like the

ndrews’ lawyers fought to the finalmoment, but their client went to the gallows on Friday, November 30, 1962

the petitioners had received a constitutionally fair trial; the court thereupon

The hearing, which at one point was transferred to Lansing, where Judge Thiele

ickock continued writing letters protesting his conviction, and one of these at

“Four into fourteen,” Hickock curtly corrected him. “There are four killers uphere and one railroaded man. I’m no goddam killer. I never touched a hair on ahuman head.”

Ronnie York, blond and blue-eyed, had been born and raised in Florida, where

wo years passed.

fast, said, “I have something here. From your father. I thought you might want to

The bird isJesus

The fast lasted five days before the warden took it seriously

The elder Andrews was a prosperous farmer; he had not much money in the

In accordance with the sentence of the court, Smith and Hickock were scheduledto visit the warehouse six weeks hence: at one minute after midnight on Friday,May 13, 1960

In a south section of the prison compound there stands a curious little building: a

They both laughedloudly, and a cameraman photographed them. The picture appeared in a Kansaspaper above a caption entitled: “The Last La

“Perry Smith. My God. He’s had such a rotten life—”

Youhave heard the Bible quoted. But I can read, too.

evils of capital punishment

death

But it is Dr. Satten’s contention that only the first murder matterspsychologically, and that when Smith attacked Mr. Clutter he was under a mentaleclipse, deep inside a schizophrenic darkness, for it was not entirely a flesh-and-blood man he “suddenly discovered” himself destroying, but “a key figure insome past traumatic configuration”: his father? the orphanage nuns who hadderided and beaten him? the hated Army sergeant? the parole officer who hadordered him to “stay out of Kansas”? One of them, or all of them

Here, in excerpt, are a number of other observations contained in the study:

Perry Smith shows definite signs of severe mental illness.His childhood, related to me and verified by portions of the prison records, wasmarked by brutality and lack of concern on the part of both parents. He seems tohave grown up without direction, without love, and without ever havingabsorbed any fixed sense of moral values

“I think that within the usual definitions Mr. Hickock did know right from

Perry laughed. “She’s really a terrific cook, Mrs. Meier. You ought to taste her

any observers of the trial scene were baffled by the visitor from Boston,

The way I raised Dick.

This prediction proved correct, for not long afterward Wells collected both thereward and a parole. But his good fortune was short-lived. He was soon introuble again, and, over the years, has experienced many vicissitudes. At presenthe is a resident of the Mississippi State Prison in Parchman, Mississippi, wherehe is serving a thirty-year sentence for armed robbery

I just go by ‘Floyd,’ ” Wells repeated, rather hangdog.

Floyd Wells,

the state summoned its first witness

I think the main reason I went there was not torob them but to rape the girl.

Here Hickock revealed his pedophiliac tendencies, and after describing severalsample experiences, wrote:

He painted it all up and it looked like new. But I had a lot of toys when Iwas little, a lot for the financial condition that my folks were in. We were alwayswhat you would call semi-poor. Never down and out, but several times on theverge of it. My dad was a hard worker and did his best to provide for us. Mymother also was always a hard worker. H

Hickock did not write with his companion’s intensity

He signed his name, and added a postscript:

an education. This only added to the hatred and bitterness I held for others. I

drained from my heart like wasted water

After I finished crying, my anger mounted again, andduring the evening when the B.B. gun was behind the chair my brother wassitting in, I grabbed it & held it to my brother’s ear & hollered BANG!

Hickock worked with a pen and Smith with a pencil.

Wearing an open-necked shirt (borrowed from Mr. Meier) and bluejeans rolled up at the cuffs, he looked as lonely and inappropriate as a seagull ina wheat field.

Slightly more thanfive thousand people attended the Clutter auction

LoganGreen, who, certain that “temporary insanity” was the defense his antagonistswould attempt to sustain in the forthcoming trial, feared that the ultimateoutcome of the proposal would be, as he predicted in private conversation, theappearance on the witness stand of a “pack of head-healers” sympathetic to thedefendants (“Those fellows, they’re always crying over the killers. Never athought for the victims”

Throughout his life—as a child, poor and meanly treated, as a foot-loose youth,as an imprisoned man—the yellow bird, huge and parrot-faced, had soaredacross Perry’s dreams, an avenging angel who savaged his enemies or, as now,rescued him in moments of mortal danger

What about Hickock? All preparationsmust include him

Roland H.Tate, Judge of the 32nd Judicial District, the jurist who would preside at the trialof the State of Kansas versus Smith and Hickock

something that would fit with lethal niceness between the shoulder-blades ofUndersheriff Meier

And this is why I am writing you: because God madeyou as well as me and He loves you just as He loves me, and for the little weknow of God’s will what has happened to you could have happened to me. Yourfriend, Don Cullivan.

I remember you cutting a holein the floor-boards of your truck in order to let the heat from the engine comeinto the cab. The reason I remember this so well is the impression it made on mebecause “mutilation” of Army property was a crime for which you could getseverely punished.

Don Cullivan

Except for the squirrel, except for the Meiers and an occasional consultationwith his lawyer, Mr. Fleming, Perry was very much alone. He missed Dick.Many thoughts of Dick,

When informed of this, Smith smiledslightly and said, “I wish she’d been in that house that night. What a sweetscene!”

stooped and thinned-downby the cancer that would kill him a few months hence.

The results of the test, to the dismayof Osprey’s sheriff as well as Alvin Dewey, who does not believe in exceptionalcoincidences, were decisively negative. The murderer of the Walker familyremains unknown.

Monday 11 January. Have a lawyer. Mr. Fleming. Old man with red tie.

car, and siphoned some water out of the water tank and washed the blood off thegun barrel. Then I scraped a hole in the ground with Dick’s hunting knife, theone I used on Mr. Clutter, and buried in it the empty shells and all the leftovernylon cord and adhesive tape

But I wascurious. I asked Perry why he’d changed his mind. And he said, ‘Everything inmy statement is accurate except for two details. If you’ll let me correct thoseitems then I’ll sign it.’ Well, I could guess the items he meant. Because the onlyserious difference between his story and Hickock’s was that he denied havingexecuted the Clutters single-ha

Red, drew flowers, and the face of Jesus, and the faces and torsos of imaginary

well, he wasn’t the worst young man I ever saw. That night, afterI’d gone to bed, I said as much to my husband. But Wendle snorted. Wendle wasone of the first on the scene after the crime was discovered. He said he wishedI’d been out at the Clutter place when they found the bodies.

So I kindof had my heart in my mouth

stitutional dourness and cheerful domesticit

, it fell silent

The crowd started forming at four o’clock, the hour that the county attorney had

“Between forty and fifty dollars.”

But the confessions, thoughthey answered questions of how and why, failed to satisfy his sense ofmeaningful design.

I thought so right upto the moment I cut his throat

A very pretty girl, and not spoiled or anything. She told me quite alot about herself. About school, and how she was going to go to a university tostudy music and art. Horses. Said next to dancing what she liked best was togallop a horse, so I mentioned my mother had been a champion rodeo rider.

Well, I didn’t feel Iought to ask him to stretch out on the cold floor, so I dragged the mattress boxover, flattened it, and told him to lie down

And just then it was like I was outside myself.Watching myself in some nutty movie. It made me sick. I was just disgusted.Dick, and all his talk about a rich man’s safe, and here I am crawling on mybelly to steal a child’s silver dollar. One dollar. And I’m crawling on my belly toget it.

Sweetheart, these fellows don’t mean to hurt anybody. All they want is somemoney

But Dick was too ashamed to face it.

Duntz interrupts him to ask if Mr. and Mrs. Clutter could overhear theconversation.

against a window. A figure. Then it moved away.”

I wanted themoney as much as he did. I wanted to get it and go to Mexico

“That’s what I wanted to know. But he wasn’t sure. At least four. Probably six.

To Dewey’s surprise, the prisoner gasps. He twists around in his seat until he can

Dewey isdriving the lead car, Perry Smith sits beside him,

enerally, townspeople in thecommunity of two hundred and seventy expressed relief

The

Hickock said, “Perry Smith killed the Clutters.” He lifted his head, and slowly

FloydWells, his old friend and former cellmate. While serving the last weeks of hissentence, Dick had plotted to knife Floyd

he would have been seventeen.” Perry, sleepless in the dawn hours, wondered

Duntz said, “You were killing the Clutter family.”

prisoner’s ear.“Perry Smith has no sister living in Fort Scott,” he said. “He never has had. Andon Saturday afternoons the Fort Scott post office happens to be closed.” Then hesaid, “Think it over, Dick. That’s all for now. We’ll talk to you later.”

weeks. He talked for an hour and twenty-five minutes—from two-fifty to four-

Before his twenty-first birthday Hickock had worked as a railway trackman, an

ises.’ He was calm as could be.

Perry, as the patrol car drew alongside, nodded.

And there was but one way to do it: Say nothing—just go

the Nevada desert into Las Vegas, the long ride came to an end. But not before

ElectionNight, when practically every vote had been counted and it was plain as plainhe’d won, he said—I could have strangled him—said over and over, ‘Well, wewon’t know till the last return.

He shook hands with Dick and with Perry, wished them a HappyNew Year, and waved them away into the dark.

Texas

he cider-tart odor of spoiling apples. Apple trees and pear trees, peach and

Then, after about a month, the friendship waned

“no respect forpeople who can’t control themselves sexually,” especially when the lack ofcontrol involved what he called “pervertiness”—“bothering kids,” “queer stuff,”rape

felt as he did about her, for his sexual interest in female children was a failing of

Now

Envy was constantly with him; theEnemy was anyone who was someone he wanted to be or who had anything hewanted to have

Miami

“That’s what I want for Christmas. All I want. To wrap this up. Wrap it up and

When he awoke,

Feet first, they crashed through the Trail Room’s plate-glasswindow

Hickock and Smith! But the moment of recognition was mutual.

Dick was a “blowhard”; his toughness, as Perry hadcome to know, existed solely in situations where he unarguably had the upperhand

Here they were, back in Kansas City

But we’re pretty sure this is it. We all think so. If we didn’t, wewouldn’t have set up a seventeen-state alarm, from Arkansas to Oregon.

a black-and-white two-door 1956 Chevrolet. The key was in theignition.

The past several hours, however, hadfound them afoot.

Mrs. Johnson was looking at a picture of him in which he was dressed as a

Falling, she struck a theater marquee, bounced off it, and rolledunder the wheels of a taxi. Above, in the vacated room, police found her shoes, amoneyless purse, an empty whiskey bottle

terrifying contest in which horsewhips and scalding water

Throughout the interview she remainedcomposed and most gracious. A person of exceptional character”)

“But I’m afraid ofhim. I always have been. He can seem so warmhearted and sympathetic. Gentle.He cries so easily. Sometimes music sets him off, and when he was a little boyhe used to cry because he thought a sunset was beautiful. Or the moon. Oh, hecan fool you. He can make you feel so sorry for him—

Mrs. Johnson was not distressed—and definitely not surprised—to learn that the

impression of the owner and his lonely, mean life

Las Vegas was the first ofthree places that his employers wished him to visit. Each had been chosenbecause of its connection with the history of Perry Smith. The two others wereReno, where it was thought that Smith’s father lived, and San Francisco, thehome of Smith’s sister, who shall here be known as Mrs. Frederic Johnson.

But just as Perry raised his hand, and the rock was on the verge of descent,something extraordinary occurred—what Perry later called “a goddam miracle.”The miracle was the sudden appearance of a third hitchhiker, a Negro soldier, forwhom the charitable salesman stopped

It was a .12-gauge Savage shotgun, Model 300; a delicately etched scene ofpheasants in flight ornamented the handle.

Mr. Hickock ruminated. Then he said, “He seemed the same as ever. Soon as he

The visitor, K.B.I. Agent Harold Nye, busied himself scribbling in a shorthand

in a car smash-up. After that, he wasn’t the same boy. Gambling, writing bad

The whole world was against Dick Hickock—that’s how hefigured

The person to whom Warden Hand telephoned was Logan Sanford.

But he knew. Presently, tortured by a need to “tell somebody,” he confided inanother prisoner. “A particular friend. A Catholic. Kind of very religious.

After that, Dick never stoppedasking me about the family

“He was the first fellow I celle

Wells was stunned. As he was eventually to describe his reaction, he “didn’thardly believe it.” Yet he had good reason to, for not only had he known themurdered family, he knew very well who had murdered them.

The young man’s name was Floyd Wells

At a party. All I could see was Nancy’s red velvet. And Nancyin it. Dancing

his harmonica (his since yesterday, when he stole it from aBarstow variety store

farewell volley: “If you ever run for sheriff again, just forget my vote. ’Cause

I’m haunted by them. I guess I always will be. Until I know what happened.”

FINISH

He “loathed” Barbara,

I’m sorry to let you have it so strong but I feel I must speak my piece

In all truthfulness & with love for you Perry, for you are my only livingbrother and the uncle of my children, I cannot say or feel your attitude towardsour father or your imprisonment JUST or h

Dearest Bro. Perry,

When Dad realized that—saw it wasn’t any use, all we’d done was wasteourselves and all our money—he began to take it out on me. Boss me around. Bespiteful.

My bike went into a skid.

loveand hate running evenly at first, the latter ultimately pulling ahead

CHILDHOOD

real friends” (except the gray-haired, gray-eyed, and “brilliant”Willie-Jay

He didn’t makea move. Stood quiet. Kind of blinking. They took the gun away, and startedasking questions.

gone.Gone

Paul Helm

a grayZenith portable radio

The Cowbo

A lunch counter, a few tables, an alcove harboring a hot grill and an icebox and aradio—that’s all there is to Hartman’s Café.

The last of the out-of-town newsmen, convinced that the case was never going to be solved, leftGarden City

dog

But if the man was dead today it was none ofPerry’s doing; he’d never raised a hand against him

Actually, I had no real ideato do it till I did it. I hit him across the face. Broke his glasses. I kept right on.Afterward, I didn’t feel a thing. I left him there, and never heard a word about it.Maybe nobody ever found him. Just buzzards.”

Know what I think?

“But a nigger,” said Perry. “That’s different.”

Perry’s

And Dick meant what he said.He thought himself as balanced, as sane as anyone—maybe a bit smarter thanthe average fellow, that’s

The ca

His only peace of mind will be whenhe goes to God for forgiveness. Let us not stand in the way but instead giveprayers that he may find his peace.

CLUTTER—ENGLISH VOW

gray Zenith portable radio

He started to reply, but the telephone stopped him.

Mrs. Dewey as an office secretary,and they divided between them the household chores, taking turns at the stoveand the sink

The rings

Cookie

Youknow the Eden Roc?” Dick said to the salesman.

The four coffins, which quite filled the small, flo

so it was a shock when hefound out maybe life isn’t one long basketball game.

but the parrot remained, a hovering avenger.

gumdrops—seemed to interrupt. Perry, on the other hand, was without appetite;

One—narrow-faced, and with a blue cat tattooed on his right hand

well, it’slike being told there is no God. It makes life seem pointless. I don’t think peopleare so much frightened as they are deeply depressed.”

“Yes. All right, Alvin,” but he noticed in her tone an uncharacteristicanxiety

Of all the people in all the world, theClutters were the least likely to be murdered.

After the news conference, Dewey retired to his office, a room that the sheriff

The case, then commandingheadlines as far east as Chicago, as far west as Denver, had indeed lured toGarden City a considerable press corps.

I’m going to know whathappened in that house: the why and the who.

pumpkin-season temperature, the day’s arid glitter

The two persons who benefited by this honorable attitude—Eveanna Jarchowand her sister Beverly, sole heirs to their father’s estate

Mrs. Bob Johnson, the wife of the New York Life Insurance agent, is an

Time I heard it, when everybody was pouringin here talking all kinds of wild-eyed stuff, my first thought was Bonnie.

The grim information, announced from church pulpits, distributed overtelephone wires, publicized by Garden City’s radio station

“I’m not surprised,” Mrs. Clare said. “When you think how Herb Clutter spenthis whole life in a hurry, rushing in here to get his mail with never a minute tosay good-morning-and-thank-you-dog, rushing around like a chicken with itshead off—joining clubs, running everything, getting jobs maybe other peoplewanted. And now look—it’s all caught up with him. Well, he won’t be rushingany more

And seeing thedog—somehow that made me feel again. I’d been too dazed, too numb, to feelthe full viciousness of it. The suffering. The horror. They were dead. A wholefamily. Gentle, kindly people, people I knew—murdered. You had to believe it,because it was really true.”

Because his throathad been cut, too.

And her lying there, scared out of her wits.Well, she was wearing some jewelry, two rings—which is one of the reasonswhy I’ve always discounted robbery as a motiv

Her hands were tied behind her, and her ankles were roped together withthe kind of cord you see on Venetian blinds.

Larry Hendricks, a teacher of English, aged twenty-seven

The curtains hadn’t been drawn, and the room was fullof sunlight. I don’t remember screaming. Nancy Ewalt says I did—screamed andscreamed. I only remember Nancy’s Teddy bear staring at me. And Nancy. Andrunning

“But that’s impossible. Can you imagine Mr. Clutter missing church? Just tosleep?”

They left the highway, sped through a deserted Holcomb, andcrossed the Santa Fe tracks