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"In Cold Blood" Killers Exhumed In Leavenworth Co

By Brian Hagen

12/18/2012

Richard "Dick" Eugene Hickock and Perry Edward Smith

(KNZA)--Made famous in the real crime classic “In Cold Blood,” convicted murderers Perry Smith and Richard Hickock have, since their execution by hanging in 1965, been buried in a private Leavenworth County cemetery.

Now, their resting place is quiet no more, due to a search warrant obtained, and executed, by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

The remains of Smith and Hickock were exhumed from the Mount Muncie Cemetery in Lansing Tuesday by members of the KBI's Crime Scene Response Team in order for DNA samples to be collected for testing.

Present with the KBI team was a representative of the Sarasota County, Florida Sheriff's Office. That's because the warrant to exhume the bodies was obtained to assist investigators in that jurisdiction with their ongoing probe into a 1959 quadruple homicide, with the two killers suspected of committing the crime.

Authorities say the pair fled to Florida after the Kansas killings, and are believed to have been in the area where a Florida couple, and their two children, were murdered.

Hickock, a native of Kansas, and Smith were arrested and convicted for the 1959 murder of the Clutter family in Finney County, Kansas.

Truman Capote later immortalized the case in the bestselling “In Cold Blood,” which was based on extensive interviews he conducted with Smith and Hickock during their time on death row in Lansing, Kansas.

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