Florida Investigators Eye Notorious ‘In Cold Blood’ Killers in 1959 Murders

Perry Smith and Dick Hickock are notorious as the perpetrators of one of the most grisly mass murders of the 20th century: the slaying of four members of the Clutter Family in Kansas in 1959.

Now, Florida investigators are asking whether the duo, who were made famous by one of the greatest true-crime novels in history “In Cold Blood,” could have killed another family that same year after escaping the scene of the murders.

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports investigators from the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office are working on a legal brief they hope will allow them to exhume the murderers’ bodies to test their DNA against evidence collected in the 1959 murders of four members of the Walker family in rural Osprey, Fla.

The family was last seen alive six days before Christmas 1959, out shopping for a new car. Investigators believe they died a few hours later.

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