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

[Eagle]

Has either Curtis McCall, Tooker, or Stanley Mauk been cleared in the case ... either thru DNA or anything else ?

On Hickok & Smith ; I have my doubts, but I wouldn't write them off either. Bothers me that Smith was arrested with a pocket knife like Cliff Walker's. Just as he was also found to have pawned a $10 radio he took from the Clutter's son's room. He seemed to take along personal effects of victims and had a thing for knives in particular.

The fact Curtis McCall could not remember 'who' he sold his .22 pistol too, shot up a big red flag to me. People don't tend to "forget" who they sold a firearm to, nor when / where / for how much / etc. And he sure claimed he couldn't remember anything. He also 'disappeared'. Did they find him ? There some Curtis McCall's around Arcadia, Fl well into 1990's.

The other thing, in about 1962 a rusty rifle was found buried by 2 kids near where the Walker's lived and was suspected as being the murder weapon. Anyone know if it was ever examined and/or what they found in relation to this gun.

The outifit of Christine's and marriage certificate on the wall.... are rather personal and interesting items for any killer to take. Suggests a connection to someone who knew them to me. I hope DNA will help them nail down who did it.

 

[Sarasota]

the Herald Tribune now charges for online content for those that do not subscribe, so I am posting without the link...... personally I would have been surprised if there was a match.


NO DNA MATCH with Hickock and Smith

 

[Backwoods]

DNA tests fail to link 'In Cold Blood' killers to Florida murders

KANSAS CITY, KANSAS (Reuters) - DNA tests failed to prove a suspected link between the 1959 murders of a Kansas family portrayed in the book "In Cold Blood" and a quadruple homicide in Florida later the same year, authorities said on Tuesday.

However, the inconclusive testing was based on poor DNA samples that had undergone years of storage and handling. ...

..."Based on the totality of the evidence, investigators still regard Smith and Hancock as the most viable suspects in the Walker murders. However, DNA testing seems unlikely to provide conclusive evidence one way or the other," the statement said. ...

more at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-crime-incoldblood-20130813,0,3005526.story

Hopes of solving 1959 quadruple murder cold case are dashed as police fail to connect 'In Cold Blood' killers with slain Florida family

... 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. No more tests were scheduled.

‘The complication lies in the fact that there's still some uncertainty,’ Bell said. ‘It wouldn't exclude them but it also does not provide us with any level of confidence to say there's a match because there's not.’ ...

... Testing decades-old DNA can be difficult, said Dr. Michael Baird, the laboratory director of the DNA Diagnostics Center in Ohio. ...

...He said testing a partial DNA profile would be like looking at a fingerprint that didn't have all the swirls. ...

read more at: http://metronewsday.com/news/12524-...-blood-killers-with-slain-florida-family.html

 

[Reader]

DNA Fails to Link 'In Cold Blood' Killers to Fla. Case

http://gma.yahoo.com/dna-fails-cold-blood-killers-fla-case-200136605--abc-news-topstories.html

DNA evidence failed to link the notorious duo profiled in Truman Capote's novel, "In Cold Blood," to the 1959 slayings of a Florida family, ending authorities' best hope for closing the cold case.

Perry Smith and Richard Hickock had long been suspected in the December 1959 murders of Cliff and Christine Walker and their two children in Osprey, Fla. The family was slain one month after the pair killed the Clutter family in Kansas, a crime for which they were later hanged.........

Despite the fact that a DNA link was not able to be made, Rose said that "based on the totality of the evidence, investigators still regard Smith and Hickock as the most viable suspects in the Walker murders." ......more at link.....

 

[STANDREID]

DNA evidence failed to link the notorious duo profiled in Truman Capote's novel, "In Cold Blood," to the 1959 slayings of a Florida family, ending authorities' best hope for closing the cold case.

That's about the same surprise as the sun coming up this morning.

 

[kline]

That's about the same surprise as the sun coming up this morning.

Absolutley totaly NOT surprised.
Im a little puzzled by the investigators response about them STILL being the most viable suspects...based on what?
I would think the perp's DNA not being either Perry Smith's or Hickock's might compromise that hypothesis.
I had a feeling all along with all the hyped publicity about the exhumation and DNA tests that someone was going to end up with egg on their face.

 

[tex124]

This does not make sense to me. I could understand that they might not have gotten good enough samples from Hickock and Smith (in which case why can't they dig them up and try again?) but to say that "the Walker crime scene samples were old and degraded" raises a red flag to me. Haven't they already eliminated a whole bunch of people based on those same samples? That would tell me that they already have a DNA result in the system which they are using. Why would they need to test the samples again, unless there truly was a problem with them in the first place, in which case all the people who were eliminated based on the results should be back on the suspect list.

 

[Eagle]

There are different "kinds / types" of DNA tests, that give different information at different levels. They may not have been the 'type' that they could compare, although I would have a hard time believing that.... because common sense says to do the same "type" as what you already have results for, unless they couldn't do that "type" on the samples they obtained (degraded, etc).

 

[Backwoods]

I guess, speaking unscientifically, perhaps what they could get from the older samples was enough to conclusively rule out, in some instances, but not enough to conclusively "rule in" Hickock and Smith.

 

[CanManEh]

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.

 

[flourish]

I remember seeing the movie "In Cold Blood" about 1967. It was done in Black and White, and it stayed pretty close to the book by Truman Capote, and to the actual case.

Robert Blake played the part of killer Perry Smith, and the movie opens with a shot of Blake as Perry sitting in the back of a bus with his foot propped up on the seat in front of him. I still remember some idiot sitting in the row behind me saying to his friend, "That's the shoe they trace him with." (Thanks a lot of spoiling the movie for others!)

The story is about Perry just getting out of prison and meeting up with his prison buddy, Dick Hickock. Hickock has a scheme to rob a "rich" rancher named Clutter, and the two set out to do that. They go to the Clutter's Kansas farm home, break in, surprise the family (Dad, Mom, Son, and Daughter), tie them up and demand that they give up the combination to a non-existant safe. Frustrated and angry, Perry Smith proceeds to kill the entire family.

The rest of the movie is about the two on the run and the investigation into the Clutter murders.

This case about the Walkers has some similarities to the Clutter murders and by a big coincidence, Perry and Dick happened to be in a nearby Florida city at the time. Did they do it? Hard to say. They certainly had the background and experience to have done it, but what would have been their motive?

In the end, the two were hanged in Kansas. They both denied having anything to do with the Walker murders.

Bump

Sent from my Event using Tapatalk 4

 

[December]

Could it be the missing majorette uniform and marriage certificate were crimes of opportunity after the murders? It seems a lot of men liked to try to drop by in hopes of finding poor Christine alone (I'm not saying that is her fault). NOW no one in their right mind would step into a house full of murdered people unless they were prepared to go to PRISON for those murders. But, in 1959, no one thought about DNA testing. The most they would be worried about would be leaving fingerprints.

So, what if someone committed these murders.

Another person stole the very personal items (and maybe even more than we know about.. just nothing of enough significance to be noticed).

Then the friend discovered the murders and reported them to the police.

So, three people in the house (at least) besides the police and victims. Or could someone have snatched those items while the police were there? One article said newspaper photographers helped document the scene. Who else was in the house? Someone said the retired railroad worker was lurking about in a photo they saw.

How many police were even available to work the case? Four victims is a lot.

I will say that one of the forsenic items that is now perhaps useless is Christine's panties. There was something not belonging to her or her husband there. But, it molded. So, it was useful to a point, then became less useful to useless.

The man that found the victims commented about how messed up Christine's face was from the beating she endured. Everyone is assuming that was only to subdue her for rape. What if the murderer was mad at her?

Maybe the murderer thought Christine had given it up to one of her many admirers (I am not saying she did, I don't know her). And so, he was mad he wasn't getting any too and her protests went unbelieve and her attempts at rebuff made him even madder. Men* will lie. Someone lied about Christine and that lie made it to the ears of the wrong person. The liar may be the person Cliff fought with a few days before.
ETA
*women will also lie, but it doesn't sound like any women wanted to have sex with Christine

 

[December]

Here is an article I found. It is fairly recent. I don't know this site or how well they research things, but they seem to have read several reports.

Also, they have some nice photos of Christine in her majorette uniform. Also, a nice photo of Christine and Cliff.

Duh, the link

http://krazykillers.wordpress.com/tag/sarasota-county-florida/

 

[tex124]

Well, I think what we are being told is BS. The authorities already have a viable sample from the Walker crime scene otherwise they would not have been able to eliminate so many suspects over the last two decades. As for the samples from Hickock and Smith-if they weren't good enough they should try again. I remember reading about the controversy over whether Jesse James was actually buried in his grave in Missouri-his body was exhumed in 1995 and dna compared to his descendants' and it came out a match. You can't tell me that a body from 1882 is any less degraded than one from 1964. I also read about how they matched the dna from the bodies of the children of the last Tsar of Russia to that of Prince Phillip-the Romanov kids were buried without coffins in 1918, so I would think that their bodies would have been even more degraded than Hickock and Smith. Something does not smell right about this. It is like someone has decided to let sleeping dogs lie, for whatever reason.

I think Backwoods was exactly right: it would have been better had the FBI done the testing, rather than the KBI.

 

[December]

Well, I think what we are being told is BS. The authorities already have a viable sample from the Walker crime scene otherwise they would not have been able to eliminate so many suspects over the last two decades. As for the samples from Hickock and Smith-if they weren't good enough they should try again. I remember reading about the controversy over whether Jesse James was actually buried in his grave in Missouri-his body was exhumed in 1995 and dna compared to his descendants' and it came out a match. You can't tell me that a body from 1882 is any less degraded than one from 1964. I also read about how they matched the dna from the bodies of the children of the last Tsar of Russia to that of Prince Phillip-the Romanov kids were buried without coffins in 1918, so I would think that their bodies would have been even more degraded than Hickock and Smith. Something does not smell right about this. It is like someone has decided to let sleeping dogs lie, for whatever reason.

I think Backwoods was exactly right: it would have been better had the FBI done the testing, rather than the KBI.

.

I don't know why they didn't go for the teeth. Isn't that the best repository of DNA after death? I mean, these guys are dead. They really do not care if they're relieved of a molar or two.

But, some of these articles aren't well written. I thought the degraded sample was the one left at the crime scene.

 

[tex124]

I had the same problem with the articles. The degraded samples that they are talking about are the ones from the crime scene which, as I have pointed out does not make sense, since they should already have a dna result on those which has been used to clear many potential suspects, so why test it again? The articles suggest that they only obtained partial dna from Hickock and Smith, for whatever reason. It sounds to me like someone did not do a good job (I mean what are the odds that both bodies would only yield partial dna?). Like I say, if you can get enough dna from a century old corpse to clear up who is buried where, I can't imagine that you would not be able to do the same from someone who has only been in the ground for a relatively short 50 years. I would not be surprised if it is disinformation being put out by the lab and the reporters did not know any better to question it.

Now I have read that certain soils cause a problem in gathering dna, for instance if bodies are buried in peat bogs there is a reaction from the soil that makes it difficult to gather dna, but I assume that both Hickock and Smith were protected in a coffin, so that factor should not have occurred.

I find it strange. I would love to know what the opinion of the investigating officers in Florida is.

I first read "In Cold Blood" when I was a youth in 1973, and even back then I thought that Hickock and Smith were responsible since I thought it was too coincidental that they just happened to be in the area at the time. As for the fact that they did not confess to the Walker murders: I don't find that strange at all. Many killers don't confess to murders they committed before they are executed. An example is James Hanratty, who went to the gallows claiming his innocence of rape and murder in 1962 and many people were convinced of his innocence. In 2002, a dna test proved that he committed the rape and murder "beyond a reasonable doubt".

 

[December]

Tex124, I think a lot of murderers don't think they are guilty of anything. It is, in their minds, somehow all the victim's fault. No matter how convoluted of thinking is required for them to lay all of the blame that THEY should take onto the victims, they will do it. And then, they will tell anyone who will listen of their "innocence." And a lot of people will listen, somehow forgetting that the murderer has made sure the victim is not around to contradict the killer's story. So, I agree, those two creeps not confessing doesn't mean they didn't kill the Walkers.

One of the linked stories says the two of them were in a Sarasota department store and one had a "scratched up face." Well, it is known that Chrstine fought back against her attacker even pressing her high heel shoe into service as a weapon.

 

[scriptgirl]

where does it say that Christine's face was messed up from a beating?

 

[December]

where does it say that Christine's face was messed up from a beating?

It is in one of the videos. I'll see which post it is.

eta
it is post 148. page 6.

 

[December]

The relative of Christine talking about how unfair people were being by claiming she brough the rape on herself (which I agree with him 100% there), that is a typical criminal tactic... to blame the victim. The person who started the smear campaign against her may well have been the killer or influenced by the killer.

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