I requested and received the case file.
Smith and Hickock were in Sarasota on December 17th, according to several witnesses. They spent the night of the 18th in Miami, and left the next morning. They were spotted back in Sarasota on the 19th, the likely day of the murders.
On the 20th, after the bodies had been discovered, attendants at two separate gas stations on US 17 south of Arcadia encountered Smith and Hickock (Hickock with a "scratched up" face). They asked how to get to Bairs Den without going through Arcadia. Bairs Den was a restaurant (with a service station) at the intersection of FL 70 and US 27. So, for Smith and Hickock to know about it, they must have passed it, either on the 17th or 18th (on the way from Sarasota to Miami), or on the 19th (on the way back from Miami).
Their desire to get to Bairs Den without going through Arcadia leads me to believe they wanted to avoid being recognized in Arcadia, implying (at least to me) that they did something illegal in Arcadia on the 17th or 18th. I am waiting for the Desoto County Sheriff to respond to my request for crime reports for 17, 18th and 19th of December.
I would also like to see the mugshots from their arrest in Las Vegas, but I haven't had any luck getting them. If Hickock was noticeably scratched up on December 20th, there might be evidence of that on the mugshot from the 30th.
Also, there is a statement by a recent investigator that every suspect that provided DNA has been excluded as being the contributor of the crime scene DNA except for Perry Smith. It did not give a list of which suspects were being referred to. If true, this implies that Hickock's DNA was actually conclusive in excluding him, and that only Perry's DNA was inconclusive.
It is beginning to look more and more like the obvious suspects might be obvious for a reason - they did it. If they didn't, we have a lot of coincidences to explain away.
Smith and Hickock were in Sarasota on December 17th, according to several witnesses. They spent the night of the 18th in Miami, and left the next morning. They were spotted back in Sarasota on the 19th, the likely day of the murders.
On the 20th, after the bodies had been discovered, attendants at two separate gas stations on US 17 south of Arcadia encountered Smith and Hickock (Hickock with a "scratched up" face). They asked how to get to Bairs Den without going through Arcadia. Bairs Den was a restaurant (with a service station) at the intersection of FL 70 and US 27. So, for Smith and Hickock to know about it, they must have passed it, either on the 17th or 18th (on the way from Sarasota to Miami), or on the 19th (on the way back from Miami).
Their desire to get to Bairs Den without going through Arcadia leads me to believe they wanted to avoid being recognized in Arcadia, implying (at least to me) that they did something illegal in Arcadia on the 17th or 18th. I am waiting for the Desoto County Sheriff to respond to my request for crime reports for 17, 18th and 19th of December.
I would also like to see the mugshots from their arrest in Las Vegas, but I haven't had any luck getting them. If Hickock was noticeably scratched up on December 20th, there might be evidence of that on the mugshot from the 30th.
Also, there is a statement by a recent investigator that every suspect that provided DNA has been excluded as being the contributor of the crime scene DNA except for Perry Smith. It did not give a list of which suspects were being referred to. If true, this implies that Hickock's DNA was actually conclusive in excluding him, and that only Perry's DNA was inconclusive.
It is beginning to look more and more like the obvious suspects might be obvious for a reason - they did it. If they didn't, we have a lot of coincidences to explain away.