Original subtitles

Reporter: In Holcomb, Kansas, just west of Garden City,

this is the house in which the Herbert Clutter family lived

and the house in which they were murdered.

Edwards: This isn't something that happens to real people

in real life.

This can't be real.

Man #1: This case occurred on November the 15th, 1959,

when a father, a mother,

and their two teenage children were murdered,

bound and gagged and shot in the head with a shotgun.

Cullivan: He said, "As I pulled the trigger,

I could see his head split apart."

My God. How horrible.

**

**

Man #2: "I came out of prison embittered, ruthless,

and emotionally unstable.

A few months later, I committed the unforgivable."

Tedrow: It truly made a different community.

There was fear for the first time.

We didn't know who did it or why.

Everybody was on edge.

Man #3: The murders would have been

the only subject people were talking about.

This was national news.

Crable: You can't separate "In Cold Blood" and true crime.

There will never be another book like this one.

Walters: Everyone knows of the impact the book had

on journalism, on Kansas.

I wonder, what was the impact on you?

Clarke: Truman said the whole experience of "In Cold Blood"

scratched him down to the marrow of his bones.

Edwards: There was Capote in front of the house,

and it seemed like a real invasion.

He had no business there.

Quakenbush: Even today, two strangers coming into your house

at night and killing all the family members present

would still be shocking.

They took away from a community, a family. Why?

It couldn't have been just money. Really?

**

**

All right. My name is Anne Jones,

and this is my husband Bob Jones.

We've been married for 51 years and live in Garden City, Kansas.

And that's the end of that story.

[Laughs] You're a lot of help, Bob.

**

Well I grew up west of Holcomb.

Holcomb was unincorporated, and it was small.

And Main Street was a dirt street.

The front door of the post office never was locked.

You could get on your Stingray bicycle

and ride to the park or local zoo or anyplace you wanted.

We didn't fear anything.

I remember riding horses in the sand hills all by myself.

I thought nothing of it. I'd get on and go.

Penick: You would go to the grocery store

and you'd see people that you knew and you just --

you didn't really know a stranger.

It was a good place to live,

and the Clutters

were a vibrant family,

and they were

a prominent family.

**

Tedrow: Eveanna and Beverly, the two oldest girls

or surviving girls, were just real leaders, both of them.

Beverly was in nursing school,

and Eveanna was married and living in Nebraska.

Woman: When this tragedy happened,

Eveanna was 23 and Beverly was 21,

and that's so young to have to deal with all of this.

They felt like if we don't give any interviews,

then we're not going to sensationalize it even further

so it will just go away,

you know that whole story will just disappear.

But this story just doesn't ever want to go away

and so I think to correct some of these misconceptions

that people have had for a very, very long time,

I'm okay with that.

Who were these people and what have they passed onto us?

Who was Grandma?

Who was Grandpa?

Mr. Clutter. He's a great guy.

He was easily met.

When you walked into a room, he wanted to talk to you.

Edwards: Uncle Herbert was my mom's favorite brother.

One thing that I think of always is just that feeling of safety.

You know, being in Uncle Herbert's house

or in his company felt secure.

And you felt as though you were in good hands.

Herb was active in the Methodist Church,

and active in Garden City Co-op,

and he was a pretty large farmer.

**

Murrow: This is River Valley Farm,

owned by Herb Clutter.

He has slightly more than 640 acres.

**

**

**

This is Herb Clutter's combine.

It reaps, threshes, and pours a stream

of golden wheat out the spout.

Herb Clutter explains.

This is only a part of the machinery

needed to operate an ordinary sized farm.

And, in order to make these farms economical,

you certainly have to have a farm big enough

in order to use this machinery efficiently

and pay for the investment that you have.

Tedrow: He was very well thought of in agriculture.

The family made a big difference in Garden City

and were well respected.

And it was devastating the Sunday morning

when we heard the word that they had been killed.

**

[Rooster crowing]

[Birds chirping]

[Church bells tolling]

Welch: It was Sunday morning the 15th of November

and as I recall, two girlfriends of Nancy went to the Clutters.

Every Sunday morning, they go to church together.

Man: "Somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes after 9:00 a.m.,

we arrived there at the Clutter residence.

My daughter got out and rang the doorbell."

[Doorbell ringing]

Young woman: "I rang the bell several times and got no answer.

I went around to the back door and knocked.

We saw that the cars were in the garage

and everything looked normal."

**

Girl: "The Ewalts came to our house and wondered if we knew

where the Clutters were that morning,

and we didn't, so we called the Clutter house.

No one answered."

Man: "So she said, 'Well I'm sure if Nancy Clutter had gone

someplace, she would've called me first.

Lets go out, maybe they're still sleeping.'"

**

Welch: They went off to the Clutter house,

rang the doorbell, nobody came to the door.

They opened the door, it was unlocked,

and they went in yelling,

"Nancy, Nancy, its time to go to church!"

[Bird crying]

Girl: "We could see that they hadn't been out,

because the kitchen was untouched,

there wasn't any dishes.

Nancy's purse was just laying next to the back door.

It was open."

Young woman: "I went through the kitchen,

then we got to the foot of the stairs.

I still received no answer, so we went upstairs.

Susan was a few steps ahead of me.

She looked in Nancy's room and screamed

and ran out of the house.

I didn't know why she screamed, so I went on into the room.

I saw Nancy in bed.

I thought she was just sleeping or something,

so I went over to shake her to try to wake her up.

Then, I saw blood all over the wall."

**

Man: "The first thing that entered my mind

was to get an ambulance.

I went in the back door and went to use the phone.

As I reached for it,

I noticed the receiver was off the hook.

Then, I noticed that the phone wires had been cut.

I immediately got in the car, went to a phone,

and called the police.

I told them that something was radically wrong

at the Clutter residence."

**

[Wind blowing]

Welch: The sheriff, Earl Robinson,

a dear friend of that family.

He knew the kids, he knew Mr. and Mrs. Clutter,

and he came out.

**

And now we're entering what would have been

the private property or the private lane of the Clutters,

basically the driveway to their residence.

The house is just right over here to the right.

Man: I received the call on the radio

that there had been a bad accident in Holcomb.

Mr. Ewalt led the way upstairs to Nancy's room,

and upon entering, we seen that something had happened.

And, Mr. Ewalt said,

"Well, we gotta be looking for the rest of them."

When you see four people that you know

so savagely murdered like that,

and he knew the family, that's gonna hurt even more.

Bascue: I can imagine it would've been some shock.

It's something that you're just not accustomed to,

but then to find four in one house from one family

had to be something that they probably never had seen

and that I had never heard of happening in this community

up until that time.

I'm not real keen on talking about it.

You didn't talk about it after it happened, did you?

No.

At home? No.

Nobody talked about it. Nobody.

My family never talked about it.

My mother never mentioned it.

It was too painful,

and I realized that there is a period of time

in which something is literally unspeakable.

It's unspeakable.

**

Was there any sign of a struggle in the house?

And have you called in any extra state help

to help you in this investigation?

**

Bascue: Sheriff Earl Robinson, I'm sure, when he responded

was overwhelmed by the crime scene and knew immediately

that it was well beyond what his department

was going to be able to work.

So it was very quickly turned over into the competent hands

of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation

and in particular, Alvin Dewey,

who assumed the lead agent status.

Welch: Al Dewey was an excellent investigator

and well respected by law enforcement.

Not a lot of smoke and mirrors around him,

and he arrived pretty quick.

He lived in Garden City.

And he went to the same church as the Clutters.

* God, our father

Paul: I remember that morning at the church,

and something seemed very wrong, people were very upset.

And what I learned is that the police

had come to get my dad.

**

I definitely remember thinking

something very bad has happened.

**

Al: The scene at the Clutter home

was not a pretty sight.

Mr. Clutter was found in the furnace room,

bound and gagged,

shot in the head with a 12-gauge shotgun,

and his throat cut.

Their only son, Kenyon, was in another room in the basement,

tied to the couch, bound and gagged,

and shot in the head with a shotgun.

In the upstairs, the mother, Bonnie Clutter,

was found in her room, bound and gagged,

and shot in the side of the head with a shotgun.

Nancy, the 16-year-old girl, was found in bed,

bound, and shot in the back of the head

with a 12-gauge shotgun.

**

Edwards: "One time when we were 10 or 11 kneeling by the bed

and trying to say our bedtime prayers,

we could not remember the lines we had memorized.

'Give us this day our daily bread

and forgive us our trespasses

as we forgive those who trespass against us.'

But we couldn't remember the order.

We couldn't remember how to get past the trespasses."

Al: Any family that was least likely to have been murdered

should have been the Clutter family.

Edwards: "If I should die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep,

but we kept missing a line.

It was something between sleeping and dying."

Al: They were a good Christian family,

very active in the church, the school.

Edwards: "And did you pray the Lord to keep your soul

when you were sleeping and take it if you died?

Or did he take it while you were sleeping

and keep it if you died."

Al: Because of the family reputation

and their standing in the community,

we were at a loss as to why these vicious,

brutal, and senseless murders had occurred.

**

[Birds chirping]

**

Edwards: My cousin Nancy was born a month before I was.

Though we were the same age,

we just sort of grew up the same time in sort of the same ways,

except her life was very different than mine.

Anyway, these are some letters.

This is 1958, so this is a year and a half before they died.

"Dear Diana, how is everybody there?

Mother has the flu, but the rest of us are okay.

You're planning on coming up this summer, aren't you?

Do you like Tommy? How many more do you like?"

[Chuckles] God.

"Gone to any parties lately?" she says.

"Boy, I have. We had three Friday.

I had one that night after the ball game until 12:00.

The whole high school was here."

That last summer she had just redecorated the basement,

so they did have a lot of parties at their house.

She was responsible like all of the family members

in terms of doing things in the community

and going to church and, you know, she was a good student.

But Nancy had a mind of her own, that was for sure.

"I told Bob Friday night

that I wouldn't go with anyone else anymore

so I guess we're halfway going steady.

Mother doesn't know it.

The things he says to me, well..."

[Chuckles]

"Love, Nancy."

She was boy crazy, you know?

But she really liked Bobby Rupp.

Rupp: We were in the same class,

so we knew each other from 1st grade on.

She was just a very friendly, outgoing person.

Plus, to me, she was very pretty.

[Laughs]

I did go to the Clutter home and spent the evening.

I left shortly after 10:00.

We were planning on going to a midnight movie

on Saturday night,

and Herb suggested that we go on Friday night.

Had we not gone on Friday night and gone on Saturday night,

how much different things might have been.

**

Do you have any leads at the present time

on who might have committed this quadruple murder?

Bascue: Alvin Dewey, who was a local agent,

became the lead agent in the case,

and assisted by other KBI agents.

Welch: Al Dewey, Harold Nye,

Roy Church, and Clarence Duntz,

those four in particular carried most of the load,

and they were extremely experienced.

Al: We took photographs of every room in the house...

...and, of course, of the victims.

We searched for latent fingerprints.

And there was a footprint that was made on the floor

in the basement by an individual

who had stepped in some blood of Mr. Clutter.

The laboratory could tell us the name of the half sole

on this boot, which was a cat paw half sole.

**

**

Edwards: "On Sunday afternoon, my parents were still

out fishing in their boat.

A few minutes after I got home,

a 12-year-old neighbor brought a note to the door.

'This came while you were gone,

and they left it with us to give to you.'

The message was from the police.

'Clutter family murdered in Holcomb.'

That is all it said, no details --

just a number to call for the local police.

I was scared.

It felt like there was no ground under me.

Nothing solid, nothing familiar.

Finally, shaking so much I could barely talk,

or dial the telephone,

I called the number on that message.

The message was real.

The police did not have any details either,

just that four members of the Herb Clutter family

in Holcomb, Kansas,

had been found dead that morning in their home.

Uncle Herbert was my mom's favorite brother,

the one who hadn't teased her when she was a little girl,

the one who was her protector.

How could I tell my mother

that her brother and most of his family were dead?

Who could have any reason to kill them?"

**

Al: We find that murder

is usually committed for a definite cause.

That is during a robbery, a raid, or because of a grudge.

The only thing missing from the Clutter home

was a little portable radio and a pair of binoculars.

Thomas: When you look at that type of a crime scene

with four people killed and you see minute items taken,

that's usually an afterthought.

There was a different motive that brought them to that house

than a transistor radio and a pair of binoculars.

There was a supposition early on that it must've been

somebody local or somebody who knew the Clutters,

because there was a certain brutality to the murders,

as if there was some personal vendetta.

We didn't know who did it or why,

whether it was local or just...

so, you know, everybody was...

Everybody was on edge.

My father worked at a hardware store in Garden City.

By noon on Monday after the murders,

his hardware store and probably every other hardware store

in town had sold out of locks.

There was an atmosphere of fear.

People were scared.

Maybe it was somebody that they saw

when they were walking down the street,

or at school, or at any business.

The Clutter case happened when one in three homicides

were committed by someone, you know, associated

or a family member.

So, of course, they had their general pool

of suspects emanating from the family out to the associates,

out to the neighborhood.

Al: On the afternoon prior to the murder,

Mr. Clutter took out $40,000 worth of life insurance,

double indemnity, and as a result,

his two remaining daughters are $40,000 richer today

than they would have been.

But in our investigation,

we found that this insurance deal

had been in the brewing, so to speak, for several months.

That theory was quickly eliminated.

Edwards: Bobby Rupp was under investigation.

Informants said that Mr. Clutter had not approved of him.

Al: We had to take into consideration

the position of Nancy Clutter's body.

She had been shot in the back of the head

while the other three members of the family

had been looking at the individual

that pulled the trigger of that shotgun.

We had to think about the boyfriend --

someone that could shoot the other members of the family

looking them in the face, but, uh, couldn't do it to Nancy.

**

**

**

**

**

**

He was first questioned, and then later given the chance

to take a polygraph, which he passed.

But because of that questioning, uh,

people automatically came to a conclusion

that he must have been the one who did it.

Kids at school treated him differently so much so

that he eventually ended up transferring

from Holcomb High School to Garden City High School

just to get away from it.

**

They were receiving lots and lots of tips

that they were following up on,

and the majority of those

were friends or acquaintances

or even business dealings with Mr. Clutter from this area.

**

**

**

**

**

You know, from a law enforcement perspective,

once you get beyond 72 hours, it goes advantage criminal.

The ball was shifting to their favor

because they've had more time to put distance

between them and the event,

to get rid of any evidence

that could tie them to the case.

So, those first 72 hours is your best time

of finding those connections,

and in this case, you know, the 72 hours had passed

and still, you know, there's no real suspect.

**

Reporter: The agriculture department today

released its official estimates of this year's winter --

Man: "I just finished washing when I heard a newscast start."

But once again, the weather could ruin the whole picture.

Man: "Nothing was mentioned about any killing,

and I wondered if I had only dreamed about the Clutters.

Maybe I hadn't been involved in killing anyone at all.

I thought about the blood on the floor of my car.

If I had only dreamed about the Clutters,

there definitely wouldn't be any blood in my car.

**

There really is nothing to killing a person.

It happens every day.

All my life I've been told I'd never amount to anything.

Well, after the Clutter deal,

nobody will be able to say Dick Hickock never did

anything worthwhile.

I'll wait till they catch me, if they do."

[Birds chirping]

**

Edwards: "To the funeral in Garden City,

I wore the brown suit and the dress shoes

that we had gotten for the Homecoming game --

my first suit, and my first pair

of spiked heels with pointed toes.

Getting out of the car at the church,

I wasn't sure I could walk without falling or tripping.

**

Inside, the afternoon light was flowing through

the big stained glass windows of the First Methodist Church.

Four black, closed caskets were lined up,

single file behind the altar rail.

'We're grown up now, Nancy,' I said silently.

'We can't get any more grown up than this.'"

Tedrow: There were over a thousand people at the funeral,

and the choir sang.

I just remember the sunlight

coming through the stained glass.

**

**

**

**

**

Edwards: "Vigilant policemen sat and stood among us,

as did plainclothes detectives

from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

Herbert's surviving daughters, my cousins Beverly and Eveanna,

were supported on either side by the men who loved them.

It didn't make any difference now

that they had always been so good,

that they had always gone to church,

and our family almost never went.

We were all together now,

except I could walk out into the pale November sunshine again,

and they couldn't.

They were better than I was, and they were dead.

And I was still alive."

**

Welch: There was a close relationship

between Al Dewey and the sheriff

and the local media.

There was a reward.

The amount was $1,000,

and it was offered not by law enforcement,

but by The Hutchinson News,

a newspaper in Hutchinson, Kansas.

Man: Calls and bits of information poured in.

Some were promising, some were farfetched,

and others bordered on gossip.

Woman #1: His partner Charles Taylor just has the worst temper.

Man #1: Clutter had a feud with Pete Preston.

Man #2: Phil Plumb says Clutter

was not as virtuous as people thought.

Man #3: Someone stole a pick-up down here in Enid.

Woman #2: A hand who knows how to tie...

Man #4: ...Had his foot cut off

in an accident at the Clutter farm.

Woman #3: ...Is a very mean individual.

Woman #4: ...Said Clutter poisoned his dog.

Man #5: ...Is a mental case who had a dislike for Clutter.

Man #6: And Clutter fired him.

Woman #5: Said he was going to get even.

Man: In all, 250 people wrote or called with tips.

One after another just fizzled.

All the leads, all the potential leads, just did not pan out.

Thomas: At the end of those, basically, six days,

they didn't have a suspect coming to the top,

so they weren't finding evidence of people with revenge motives

that I am aware of.

**

Edwards: "After the funeral,

some of those practical Methodist aunts

decided that we should go to the house and sort belongings

so that the girls, Beverly and Eveanna,

wouldn't have to do it.

I think the police should have kept us out of there.

**

I sat there and noticed in whatever room

they were working in.

'Elaine, what should we do with this clock?'

'Can Beverly use this in her new house?'

How could any of them care what happened to those things?

I felt that I was literally trying to hold onto my mind

and at serious risk of losing it.

When my mother started going through

Nancy's drawers and closet,

it felt like a violation of privacy.

I knew Nancy would not want her aunts

or anyone looking through her things.

How could the aunts and uncles be in that house

and not feel the terror, the isolation?

A hundred practical, common sense, nosy aunts

could not have dispelled the sickness of that house

and made it safe as it had always been before.

It was a beautiful house.

Herbert and Bonnie had designed it themselves,

but nobody should ever have gone in it again."

**

Woman: They were very proud when they built this house.

There were a couple of different articles about it.

Grandma Bonnie was very, very good at all of the housekeeping,

organizing parties.

They did a lot of hosting.

4H meetings, Farm Bureau meetings, Co-op parties.

She was a very great entertainer.

This was her scrapbook.

Bonnie Clutter, born in 1914,

Grandma Bonnie in high school graduation.

She really wanted to finish nursing training,

but she had an appendectomy,

and back in those days, you were out for a very long time,

and she wasn't able to finish.

Woman: She loved being outdoors and teaching the children

about God's creation.

She would have them be quiet

and listen to all the sounds around them.

Edwards: Aunt Bonnie was very engaged in the family.

She was really very much a mother and a teacher.

Tedrow: Bonnie was a beautiful woman.

She was reserved, but she was a true lady.

Edwards: I think of her as just somebody that helped me learn

how to be a grown up, how to be a grown-up woman.

**

[Wind gusting]

**

Man: "After I got out of prison, I remember telling myself

that I just wanted to work for the things every man wants,

like a family and the respect of decent people.

But impatience and frustration,

unreasonable anger and bitterness,

these are enemies within.

They can only be defeated within.

Permitted to age, they'll kill a man but leave in his wake

a creature torn and twisted.

I came out of prison embittered, ruthless,

and emotionally unstable.

A few months later, I committed the unforgivable."

Paul: There was a deputy chief

of the Garden City Police Department

who took the photographs

that proved to be the pivotal evidence.

Rohleder: We got to the Clutters' place.

Sheriff Robinson was waiting outside.

I started my photographing first in the basement

in the north room where Mr. Clutter was found dead.

**

Al: When we developed the photographs,

we were able to see a boot print made in the dust

that one could not observe with the naked eye.

Thomas: Initially they were looking for a suspect.

Once they were able to find that second print,

they knew that there was a potential of a second suspect.

So probably that was one of the biggest clues they had

because you could help confirm that you have the right killer

if you found that boot.

The crime scene photographer, said -- They asked,

"Well, did you do that on purpose?" and he says,

"No, that was just good luck that I happen to take

that picture to give us the second boot print," so...

**

Woman: Beverly was asked right after it happened to go ahead

and change her name since they were getting married in December

anyway around Christmas time

so they said it would be really a good idea to go ahead

and change your name.

**

You know, here they had just lost all of their family,

but they had no idea at that point

why they had been murdered.

So they didn't know if there was a vendetta against the family

so it was a very fearful time for them.

Frack: Some people say, how did she do it?

Well, how did she do anything, you know, live, even?

To me, it was just the most sensible thing

you could have done.

Edwards: "It was beautiful wedding.

Beverly and Eveanna stepped in for their parents as hosts.

As though they had been doing this all of their lives.

They took responsibility for making everyone comfortable,

visited with each aunt, each uncle, with grandparents,

with cousins, with family friends and church members.

It was a fairy-tale wedding in the middle of a nightmare."

**

Paul: The crime affected our lives

because it killed Herb and Bonnie and the two kids.

It also killed something in our community.

Announcer: We interrupt this program

to bring you a special news bulletin.

Paul: Some people refer to it as a loss of innocence,

but I think it was more of a violation

of a presumed safety.

We had a lot more freedom. Uh...

Things have just changed.

Penick: We no longer seem to be that open type of community,

where you just could go into anyone's home.

Their doors were never locked.

You knocked on the door, you walked in.

We lost that.

And then, to lose those good people...

and then we lost,

because now we're afraid.

**

Edwards: Going back to Kansas for me was going back to be with family.

I always loved going back to visit Nancy, of course,

and the older cousins, even though they didn't count

cause they were older. [Chuckles]

But each one of them -- Nancy, Kenyon, Beverly, and Eveanna,

each one of the kids was special in their own way,

and Uncle Herbert and Aunt Bonnie's goal was

really to help them grow into the best person they could be.

And it was really fun to see Kenyon that summer

and to see what he was like grown up.

Oh, Kenyon was handsome, and I remember him.

I can close my eyes and what I see is this tall, lanky kid.

He's got a flat-top-type hair cut, wearing glasses,

and he was -- as I remember him,

he was kind of a little jokester.

[Chuckles] He got this old Model A,

and all it had was the frame and the gas tank

and then the engine and then the radiator.

That's it.

I mean, if you fell out, you fell out.

[Chuckles]

He's not one of these guys that would sit down

and contemplate the world.

He was wanting to do something.

We'd go hunting, we'd do something.

In fact, we were pheasant hunting a day or two

before they were killed, so...

[Clicks tongue]

Thomas: On the 10th day after the homicide,

there was word received that a person might have

information related to the Clutter killings.

Welch: The reward offer of $1,000 from The Hutchinson News

got the attention of an inmate at Lansing.

The director sent Agent Wayne Owens

to interview him.

Man #1: "December 5th, 1959.

I just got back from Kansas State Penitentiary

where the boss sent me to interview a prisoner

who had something he wanted to get off his chest.

The prisoner is Floyd Wells,

and he is a white male, 32 years old.

Now, he worked for the Clutters during 1948 and 1949."

Man #2: "This is just about the time their new house was completed.

I remember just a short time before I left the Clutters,

Mr. Clutter paid a large lumber bill,

and I thought he paid in cash with money from the safe.

Mr. Clutter made the remark to me that he paid out

more than $10,000 that day."

Man #1: "Some time after he was received at Lansing

for burglary and larceny,

Wells was a cellmate to Richard Eugene Hickock,

28 years old."

Man #2: "Hickock said he was about to get out,

and he was going to go west looking for a job.

I was telling him about how wealthy Mr. Clutter was.

We talked quite a bit about Mr. Clutter."

Man #1: "Hickock did some talking, too,

told Wells he had a friend by the name of Perry Edward Smith.

Hickock stated that when they got out

they were going to pull some jobs

to get enough money to buy a boat for deep-sea fishing.

Smith was paroled on July 6th.

Soon, Hickock was paroled and told Wells

he and Smith were going to the Clutters to find out

if he still had the $10,000 in their damn safe."

Man #2: "He told me he'd probably tie them up

and then rob them and then kill 'em.

I didn't believe he would.

A day after it happened, I heard it on the radio.

I didn't hardly believe it."

Man #1: "I've told this story to the boss,

and he feels it's worth rushing to you fellas.

The only thing that remains is to get a location

on Smith and Hickock,

'cause they are both not where they're supposed to be."

Man: We drove to Highway 56 back into Garden City,

then went north towards Scott City.

Then we turned off on a gravel road.

We dug a hole in a ditch on the side of the road

and buried the shells, cord, tape, and gloves,

then headed back across Kansas to Edgerton.

Most of our conversation driving away

concerned our going to Mexico the next weekend.

I worked all week like normal.

On Friday, we went and played some pool.

The next day, I passed checks at 8 or 9 places in Kansas City.

On that night, must have been, what, November 21st?

We got a sandwich at the Eagle Buffet

in downtown Kansas City,

and at 10:00 p.m., drove out of town.

We drove 1,700 miles through Oklahoma,

Dallas, Texas, then continued to Laredo,

crossing into Mexico around 2:00 a.m. November 23rd,

spent a night at a house of ill repute in Mexico City.

Sold my Chevrolet to some cop,

also sold him the portable radio and binoculars from the Clutters

and got rid of all the other stuff,

but even after selling everything,

we were soon out of money again.

I found that my partner never had any respect for a dollar

and he threw money around more than I did.

Our last two days in Mexico were costly ones.

We had less than $100 between us.

We bought two pistols, and moved onto plan B,

returning to the States.

Welch: Agents were going through the roster

of Mr. Clutter's employees

for the last 10 years, and again came upon

Floyd Wells name, which would further

corroborate this bit of information

that they were working on.

Al: We found that the pattern fit,

that Hickock did get out of the institution

and did contact his buddy by the name of Smith in Reno, Nevada.

So they set that into process to start finding

this Richard Hickock.

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