FL FL - Clifford & Christine Walker, both 23, & 2 kids, Osprey, 20 Dec 1959

[scriptgirl]

thanks, December.

 

[December]

thanks, December.

You're welcome. ^-^

 

[Eagle]

It was said, that the gun was believed to be a .22 rifle, and one was found a long time later buried in dirt not that far away from the location of the house.

Who, takes a "rifle" to a rape ? Who takes a 'rifle' period ? Unless it's all they have available. They came in a 'car', so it may have been in the car and then pulled out after he attempted to rape her, beat her, etc. and decided to eliminate her as a witness.... and then the family arrived, so they shot them too.

I wonder if people were saying anything particularly bad about her BEFORE she died

I remember in a few of the articles about her, etc. that they mentioned people made comments about her body and wearing things that "showed too much" , such as the cheerleading outfit..... too much at that time and age... well, was a skirt above the knees. I remember some of the pictures showed her in shorter shorts (for that time) which was considered a "disgrace". I remember my sister had to have shorts that were barely above the knee, and considered short at the time. Mid-calf of the leg, was the "respectable" length for shorts, and "those teenagers" & what they were wearing, as well as "rock-n-roll", was going to corrupt the world at that time. Then throw in that this was a small town community.

 

[Eagle]

I can't believe no one has botherd to mention they they were condemed to hang and they confessed ..Why would they not confess to the walkers if they had done it were they afraid of being hanged twice i dought it your only dead once they had no reason not to say ya we did it if they actually did it since they were gonna die for the clutters anyway.

Good points, and I would have to agree. They even said, the "Clutters" didn't deserve that (what they did to them). They admitted they had read about the Walkers, and even commented themselves it was weird because it was similar to what they had done. But said, they had nothing to do with it. I think at that point, they would more than likely admitted to it if they had done it. I think it was someone local.

But, who knows... the other side is that one was a "robbery" , and the other may have been a "sexual" motive , and maybe one was OK to admit to and the other not. Or, they didn't want to appear to be serial murderers.

Don't forget , that there is an extremely good argument out there that Hickok & Smith were cellmates previously, and their relationship was much more than just "buddies" ..... and Smith admitted he didn't like Hickok wanting to do something sexually with Nancy Clutter ...... and this may have been what got Smith so mad that he let out his anger at Hickok then by killing Mr Clutter.

 

[kline]

Ive been reading and re-reading alot of the articles on this since the whole exhumation took place.
I think their are alot of factors at work here.
I realize Christines Family members have had to endure alot of talk about Christine somehow provoking her own murder.
(apparently for having the temarity to be an attractive out going woman with a killer body and I would bet from looking at her face alot of charisma in a backwards 1950's rural community)
So I can see why they would see Proof of Smith and Hickocks guilt as a form of vindication after all these years.
And I am sorry for them that they had to face disappointment once again.
But there also seemed to be a REAL hunger in certain areas of the media to discredit Truman Capote and In Cold Blood.
('Capote(who by the way was a homosexual alcoholic who died of an overdose in 1984) didnt get the name right of some auto repair company in Talhasie where Hickock says he applied for a job...OMG!!!')
("Was Capote's 'Factual' Novel Actually a Lie?")
And so on ad nauseum.
Also a break through on this with a Perry and Dick tie- in would have been a real Marquee Worthy Career maker for the young law Enfocement officer who got this ball rolling.
Especially after previous investigators had exausted all the DNA suspects of the last 50 odd years and come up with a big zero.
(I noticed she now has to refer all inquiries on the case to her superiors)
Alot of agendas going on here.
Some understandable some not so much.
But the fact remains it wasnt Dick and Perry.
I got the impression that two thirds of the folks who wrote about this case in the media never actually read Capote's book.
In which Perry Smith expressed his loathing of Rapists and Sex Offenders which is why he stopped Hickock from assaulting Nancy Clutter.
So I kind of doubt he would rape Christine Walker and steal her majorette uniform.
You dont have to be a genius to see this case screams of a perp with an intense personal fix on Christine.
One of the articles had an old black and white photo of Christine leading a parade down what I assume is Osprey's main drag when she was in high school high stepping and twirling her baton...this was a striking young woman who would have drawn attention good and bad in a small town today much less back then and I would bet anything her killer was in her school or along one of those parade routes transfixed.
As far a witnesses seeing Hickock with a 'scratched up face'...Hickocks face was messed up and bizzare looking due to a 1950 auto accident.
I think they just took that and ran with it in retrospect.
As far as Hickock and Smith being lovers because they shared a cell for a few months..based on what proof?
Its like those who assume since Capote was gay then his interest in Perry Smith SURELY MUST have been sexual.
This whole mess has been a prime example of reaching a conclusion first then trying to bend and twist the narrative and evidence to fit it.
Never works.

 

[kline]

Oh by the way Eagle I wasnt taking a shot at you about the Perry and Dick being lovers business....those stories and the ones about Capote and Perry come almost exclusivly from two people involved in the case one being Harold Nye a detective assigned to the Clutter case by KBI who seemed to want to crawl out of his skin around Capote and who also seemed to be REALLY slighted by the fact that in the book Capote made his fellow detective Alvin Dewey essentially the 'hero' of the case.
He seemed to feel he had been unfairly regulated to a supporting character.
Which may be true.
However in virtually every article for which he was interviewed for the next couple of decades concerning the case he seemed to go far out of his way to take a shot at Capote ussually concerning his sexuality and to minimize Alvin Dewey's contribution to the Clutter Case.
The second was at the time a very young prosecuting attourney in Finney County named Duanne West.
He and Capote seem to have taken an immediate dislike to each other.
Once during the final stages of the book West took a half hearted invitation by Capote to "Look him up if he was ever in New York." literally and Capote drafted Harper Lee to help ferry West and his Wife around NYC to see a broadway play and out dinning in some upscale club.
Then West turned around and nearly held up publication of the book by refusing to sign a release form for months apparently just to bug Capote.
There is a video on Youtube where West is on film saying Perry Smith never said anything and had to be dragged up the gallows steps sniveling .
However I found in a Newspaper archive an article by a Kansas reporter who was at the execution, printed the VERY morning after in which he reports Perry's final words as being almost verbatim as to what Capote said they were in the book.
So it was interesting to see some of these ancient 50 year old personality conflicts STILL coloring reporting and peoples perceptions on this subject in 2013.

 

[tex124]

To Kline:

I agree with most of what you say, except the part about "the fact remains it wasn't Dick and Perry".

We still can't say that, after all this time and testing. The testing did not rule them out, any more than it ruled them in:

"Authorities said they were unable to match the DNA because only partial profiles could be taken from the exhumed bodies in December, and the Walker crime scene samples were old and degraded."

When they say there is no DNA match, that is true, but also it does not rule them out. I know I am beating a dead horse here, and I tend to agree with you (all other things being equal) that the most likely suspect would be someone who knew the Walkers, except for two things:

1) What are the odds that a family is murdered at the same time two killers who have done the same thing in another jurisdiction happen to be passing through (frankly, it sounds like some Hollywood murder mystery where the local sheriff picks on some poor schmuck who happens to be covered in blood and holding the murder weapon and some hero private detective or lawyer figures out who really committed the murder. In real life, the obvious explanation is usually the correct one), and

2) I don't believe the statement that "the Walker crime scene samples were old and degraded". They had already been used to eliminate a bunch of suspects, so either that testing was no good, and everyone they eliminated should be back on the suspect list or (and this validates your other point) there is some other agenda at work here.

I can believe that (1) is a coincidence, however unlikely. I find it impossible to believe that the samples were no good.

Years ago, I worked on a capital murder case and it taught me that in prison everyone lies to you. In fact, they lie so often and so well that eventually they start to believe the lies as reality. I can believe quite easily that Hickock and Smith (if they killed the Walkers) could have gone to the gallows denying that fact, just like Hanratty did with the murder he committed. They would do so even if they were already condemned for another murder. Killers do not think the way you or I do, in spite of Capote's efforts to make it seem like they are just regular citizens.

 

[kline]

To Kline:

I agree with most of what you say, except the part about "the fact remains it wasn't Dick and Perry".

We still can't say that, after all this time and testing. The testing did not rule them out, any more than it ruled them in:

"Authorities said they were unable to match the DNA because only partial profiles could be taken from the exhumed bodies in December, and the Walker crime scene samples were old and degraded."

When they say there is no DNA match, that is true, but also it does not rule them out. I know I am beating a dead horse here, and I tend to agree with you (all other things being equal) that the most likely suspect would be someone who knew the Walkers, except for two things:

1) What are the odds that a family is murdered at the same time two killers who have done the same thing in another jurisdiction happen to be passing through (frankly, it sounds like some Hollywood murder mystery where the local sheriff picks on some poor schmuck who happens to be covered in blood and holding the murder weapon and some hero private detective or lawyer figures out who really committed the murder. In real life, the obvious explanation is usually the correct one), and

2) I don't believe the statement that "the Walker crime scene samples were old and degraded". They had already been used to eliminate a bunch of suspects, so either that testing was no good, and everyone they eliminated should be back on the suspect list or (and this validates your other point) there is some other agenda at work here.

I can believe that (1) is a coincidence, however unlikely. I find it impossible to believe that the samples were no good.

Years ago, I worked on a capital murder case and it taught me that in prison everyone lies to you. In fact, they lie so often and so well that eventually they start to believe the lies as reality. I can believe quite easily that Hickock and Smith (if they killed the Walkers) could have gone to the gallows denying that fact, just like Hanratty did with the murder he committed. They would do so even if they were already condemned for another murder. Killers do not think the way you or I do, in spite of Capote's efforts to make it seem like they are just regular citizens.

Yeah one would think the viabilty of their crime scene DNA would be the FIRST thing they would establish before they started winnowing down their suspect list based on DNA, eliminating virtually all of them.
Because if it is in such a state that it cant 'include or exclude Smith and Hickock' then the same would have to be true for all of their original primary suspects.
As far as them being in the area when the Walker murders happened it is truly weird but the Clutter Killers covered ALOT of ground in the month after the Kansas murders.
Passing through many States.
Im sure crime occured in every major city they passed through while they were there and obviously they werent responsible for all of it.
I think its admirable that the investigators took a long shot to break the stasis of this case by thinking outside the box but I notice the worthiness of the crime scene DNA wasnt even an issue until AFTER it didnt match Hickock and Smith.
Perhaps they didnt anticipate all of the publicity but by the time the results finally came back I think many had alot invested in it being them for alot of different reasons.

 

[December]

Maybe there are degrees of matching or something... and the people they excluded didn't match at all while the Clutter murderers matched a little. But, not enough to say it was or wasn't them because there are thousands of other people who'd match just as much?

This being said, I don't know why those two guys would be interested in the marriage license or the majorette uniform. But, I still wonder if the murderer is even the one who took that stuff.

The bloody bootprint turned out to belong to a "careless deputy". Maybe someone else got careless and those two items disappeared after the murders.

 

[kline]

Maybe there are degrees of matching or something... and the people they excluded didn't match at all while the Clutter murderers matched a little. But, not enough to say it was or wasn't them because there are thousands of other people who'd match just as much?

This being said, I don't know why those two guys would be interested in the marriage license or the majorette uniform. But, I still wonder if the murderer is even the one who took that stuff.

The bloody bootprint turned out to belong to a "careless deputy". Maybe someone else got careless and those two items disappeared after the murders.

Entirely possible.
I wish I knew more about DNA analysis,im afraid my knowledge is about CSI miami level.

 

[Eagle]

This being said, I don't know why those two guys would be interested in the marriage license or the majorette uniform. But, I still wonder if the murderer is even the one who took that stuff.

Personally, I think that's probably the case .. "unless" .... as suggested it was a person who knew her well, had a fantasy about her related to the days she wore the outfit, etc. And, I think the odds of that are as high as other theories on it.

My information was that Perry & Smith spent more than a few months in the same cell, and more like a couple of years. If you've been around prisons at all, your cellie has your back and you theirs, and .. well, close bonds of all types do develop. The info. that I referred to, refers to those that were in prison with them and what they had said about their relationship, not some detective. Either way, don't know that any of it had anything to do with they did or didn't do.

What I keep going back to is the .22 rifle that was found years later nearby buried in the dirt (over time or intentionally, don't know).... that goes with that they were convinced it was a .22 rifle used to shoot them. But, it still might not be the 'same' rifle.. but is suspect to me when it was found 1/2 mile from their house. I've wondered due to today's technology even sn#'s that seem gone, can be lifted ... and who this gun would track back to , if it could be tracked back to anyone at this point (doubtful).

 

[kline]

Personally, I think that's probably the case .. "unless" .... as suggested it was a person who knew her well, had a fantasy about her related to the days she wore the outfit, etc. And, I think the odds of that are as high as other theories on it.

My information was that Perry & Smith spent more than a few months in the same cell, and more like a couple of years. If you've been around prisons at all, your cellie has your back and you theirs, and .. well, close bonds of all types do develop. The info. that I referred to, refers to those that were in prison with them and what they had said about their relationship, not some detective. Either way, don't know that any of it had anything to do with they did or didn't do.

What I keep going back to is the .22 rifle that was found years later nearby buried in the dirt (over time or intentionally, don't know).... that goes with that they were convinced it was a .22 rifle used to shoot them. But, it still might not be the 'same' rifle.. but is suspect to me when it was found 1/2 mile from their house. I've wondered due to today's technology even sn#'s that seem gone, can be lifted ... and who this gun would track back to , if it could be tracked back to anyone at this point (doubtful).

You know thats a good point,one would think they would still have that rifle and wouldnt they be able to determine if it was one used as the murder weapon via balistics?
Of course im sure in a rural hunting/gator infested community like that a .22 caliber rifle was pretty common to most house holds...it may have nothing to do with the crime but still its something.

 

[December]

Eagle, I think it is more than likely someone who knew Christine and recalled seeing her marching in parades. But, if it does turn out to be those other two then I do not believe they took the majorette uniform or the marriage license.

And I agree about the .22 rifle. Not too many people would bury a rifle without a good reason. Now, whether it could be traced to anyone is another story entirely. But, who knows, someone might recall who once had a .22 like that one particularly if that person suddenly no longer had it. Hmmm... wasn't their one suspect who sold his rifle and could not remember who he'd sold it to?

 

[scriptgirl]

I still say it was someone who knew and was obsessed with Christine that did this.

 

[Backwoods]

I still can't consider Hickock and Smith out of the picture on this one.

Some interesting stuff in the third installment of a series, linked below -- we may have already had the first two installments, not sure...but anyhow there are links to those as well at this link (blue bbm):

Sunday Favorites: What Really Happened to the Walkers?

Part 3



...This connection is unfounded to some degree, but other pieces of evidence discovered within the killers' vehicle strongly suggests they had come into contact with the Walker family.

According to the SCSO, a pocketknife bearing a fruit tree design, children's socks and a greasy toddler's undershirt were found in the car.

Items taken from the Walker home after their murders included children's clothing, Christmas presents and a pocketknife with a fruit tree design that belonged to Cliff Walker, a report states. ...


...Investigators later found some of the Walker's stolen clothing in a field a mile from their home, a detail similar to the Clutter murders where investigators found personal items buried in a Kansas field. Hickock later admitted to authorities he sold two baby dolls wrapped in Christmas paper to a preacher in Louisiana.

The investigation stalled a couple years later when a serial killer named Emmett Monroe Spencer admitted to the Walker murders, but the confession was discredited by the then-Sarasota County Sheriff Ross Boyer ...


Yet details on Spencer indicate he and his girlfriend went on a crime and killing spree throughout the country and along the East Coast and into Florida, which one court record referred to as an “orgy of drunkenness, robbery and murder.” ...


...Sarasota County Sheriff’s detectives submitted Christine Walker’s underwear, which was found with semen on it, to the Florida Department of Investigation in 2004; four years later a complete DNA profile was obtained from the underwear, while a second partial DNA profile was also discovered. ...

more at: http://www.thebradentontimes.com/ne...avorites_what_really_happened_to_the_walkers/

 

[scriptgirl]

Whoever did this was local. I wonder, if all the men who went to high school with Christine were investigated and if Cliff ever knew of anyone fancying Christine.

 

[Eagle]

Eagle, I think it is more than likely someone who knew Christine and recalled seeing her marching in parades. But, if it does turn out to be those other two then I do not believe they took the majorette uniform or the marriage license.

And I agree about the .22 rifle. Not too many people would bury a rifle without a good reason. Now, whether it could be traced to anyone is another story entirely. But, who knows, someone might recall who once had a .22 like that one particularly if that person suddenly no longer had it. Hmmm... wasn't their one suspect who sold his rifle and could not remember who he'd sold it to?

I would have to do some digging again, but there was one person who they said had a rifle "like it", but when asked about his rifle.... he said he had 'sold it' but couldn't remember they guy's name he sold it too. Which I found odd, since he had supposedly sold it near the time of the killing. Don't take my word on it, but it seems like I remember .. this person lived only a couple of miles away from them.

 

[justthinkin]

I still can't consider Hickock and Smith out of the picture on this one.

Some interesting stuff in the third installment of a series, linked below -- we may have already had the first two installments, not sure...but anyhow there are links to those as well at this link (blue bbm):



more at: http://www.thebradentontimes.com/ne...avorites_what_really_happened_to_the_walkers/

I agree. There are indeed some similarities between this and the Cutter case that can't be ignored, in particular, circumstantial evidence. I also wonder if police failed to extract dna from the teeth of Perry and Hickock? I don't know much about dna either, but recently read that dna can be extracted from teeth even if it is no longer viable from bone.

 

[Eagle]

How many suspects .... are even still alive ? If some were talked to when they were older, etc... some times they want to clear their conscience / minds before they are gone, about things they have done.

 

[Eagle]

How many suspects .... are even still alive ? If some were talked to when they were older, etc... some times they want to clear their conscience / minds before they are gone, about things they have done.

And sometimes, they forget what they've said in the past.... and the truth or other clues then come to the surface as well. That's happened in numerous cold cases. Also, they may have said things to some people along the way..... and then sometimes, like you said..... they've lived with it so long and just want to get it out and said.