The tip from a cellmate that sent two ex-cons to a Kansas farmhouse — but the safe was a lie
In 1959, a man in a prison cell told Richard Hickock about a safe.
The man said he had once worked for Herbert Clutter, a farmer in Holcomb, Kansas.
He said Clutter kept a safe in his home.
The safe did not exist.
The cellmate's exact words are not in the record.
No proof of the safe's existence is in the record either.
But the tip was enough.
It set two ex-convicts on a path to a farmhouse on the Kansas prairie.
They went for the safe.
They went for the money they believed was inside.
The house had no safe.
The house had no money.
What it had was a family of four, asleep upstairs.
THE NIGHT
The night was November 15, 1959.
Four members of the Clutter family were murdered at their farmhouse in Holcomb, Kansas, according to the case file.
The victims were Herbert Clutter, his wife Bonnie, and their teenage children Nancy and Kenyon.
They were bound and shot at close range with a shotgun.
The exact sequence of events inside the house is not detailed in the record.
What is established is the motive: robbery.
The killers believed there was a safe in the house.
There was no safe.
There was no money.
The family of four was asleep upstairs.
They were bound and shot anyway.
Herbert Clutter was a respected, prosperous farmer.
The Clutters had no apparent enemies.
Robbery was suspected, but little was taken.
Little was taken because there was nothing to take.
The killers came for a safe that did not exist.
They left four bodies behind.
The crime made no sense until the motive surfaced.
The motive was a lie told in a prison cell.
A former cellmate had once worked for Herbert Clutter.
He told Hickock that Clutter kept a safe in his home.
That tip was the plan.
That tip was the false belief.
The house had no safe.
The house had no money.
What it had was a family of four, asleep upstairs.
They were bound and shot at close range with a shotgun.
The exact sequence of events inside the house is not detailed in the record.
The victims were Herbert Clutter, his wife Bonnie, and their teenage children Nancy and Kenyon.
The night was November 15, 1959.
THE DISCOVERY
The morning of November 16, 1959, began with an absence.
The Clutter family did not appear at church.
They did not appear at a planned gathering.
Friends and neighbors came to the farmhouse to check.
They found the bodies inside.
The discovery did not stay local for long.
The crime shocked the nation.
The Clutters were a respected, prosperous farm family.
They had no apparent enemies.
Nothing in their lives explained what happened in that house.
Robbery was suspected.
Little was taken.
The killers had come for a safe that did not exist.
The lead investigator was a special agent with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
He arrived to find a scene that offered no clear motive.
The names of the friends and neighbors who found the bodies are not in the record.
That detail is missing from the case file.
What remains is the fact of the morning itself.
Four people were dead.
The community that found them had no answer.
The nation that read about them had no answer.
A respected family, a prosperous farm, a quiet town.
Then a house full of bound bodies.
Robbery was suspected.
Little was taken.
That would require evidence.
The record shows the safe was a lie told by a cellmate.
The record shows the killers believed it.
The record does not show why they stayed to kill four people.
The puzzle sat open over Holcomb.
It would stay open for weeks.
THE CONFESSION
The break came from inside the Kansas State Penitentiary.
A former cellmate of Richard Hickock, serving time there, told authorities that Hickock had talked about robbing the Clutter family.
The cellmate had once worked for Herbert Clutter.
He told Hickock about a safe in the farmhouse.
The safe did not exist.
But the tip was enough.
Hickock and Perry Smith were arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada, on December 30, 1959.
The arrest came after a tip from a former acquaintance of Smith's.
Both men confessed to the murders.
The exact content of those confessions is not quoted in the record.
What is in the record is the physical evidence.
A shotgun found in their possession.
Boots and other items traced to the crime scene.
The shotgun was a 12-gauge, the same type used in all four killings.
The confession came together with the gun and the boots.
That is what the record shows.
It does not show why they stayed to kill four people.
It does not show what they said when they talked.
It shows a safe that was a lie, and a robbery that took almost nothing.
.jpg?format=2500w)
The men were in custody.
The puzzle over Holcomb had a suspect at last.
But the record stops at the confession's edge.
AND THE STORY STILL ISN'T OVER
The trial opened in Finney County, Kansas, in March 1960.
The two men sat together in the courtroom, charged with four counts of first-degree murder.
The prosecution called the former cellmate who had passed along the tip about the safe.
He testified that he had once worked for Herbert Clutter and had told Hickock the house held a safe.
The safe did not exist.
The jury heard both men had confessed after their arrest in Las Vegas.
A shotgun found in their possession was tied to the crime scene.
The case went to the jury.
Both were found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder.
The jury recommended the death penalty.
The judge sentenced both men to death.
The convictions were upheld on appeal.
A series of legal appeals followed, including a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court.
The stay did not hold.
On April 14, 1965, both men were executed by hanging at the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing.
The case was closed.
The Clutter farmhouse was later demolished.
The ground where the safe was supposed to be held nothing but dirt.
The story did not end with the executions.
Truman Capote's 1966 book *In Cold Blood* made the case famous.
It was based on extensive interviews with the killers and investigators.
The exact details of those interviews are not in the record.
Capote's methods have been debated, but the record does not establish what was said in those rooms.
The book is a pioneering work of true crime.
It is also a story built on a lie that never existed.
The safe was the lie.
The robbery was the motive.
The four deaths were the fact.
Advertisement
You may also like
The 10 pm check that sent Kate McCann running from the tapas table
The tapas restaurant was a short walk from the apartment, and the check was the kind of errand that had become a holiday ritual.…
The 1965 confession that never reached a trial — and the one name police could not clear
He confessed in 1965. He was already in custody, held for other crimes, when he gave a detailed account of the Boston Strangler murders.…
The 35,000-word manifesto that unmasked a killer after 17 years
A 35,000-word document arrived at two newspapers in 1995. Its title was "Industrial Society and Its Future." The writer demanded that it be published.…
The therapy tapes that turned a mob-style hit into a family murder case
The den was a room for family, for television, for the quiet end of a weekday night. On August 20, 1989, José and Kitty…
A tip from a truck driver led police to a parked Chevrolet Caprice — what they found inside
A truck driver made a call on October 24, 2002. The tip led police to a rest stop on Interstate 70 near Myersville, Maryland.…
The cellphone pings that placed Adnan Syed near Leakin Park — and the defense that never called one key witness
The cellphone records put Adnan Syed near Leakin Park around the time of the burial, according to the prosecution's case. A ping, a tower,…