In the pre-dawn hours of November 15, 1959, the quiet farming community of Holcomb, Kansas, was irrevocably shattered by a senseless act of violence. Inside their rural home, 45-year-old White female Bonnie Mae Fox Clutter, her husband Herbert, and their two teenage children, Nancy and Kenyon, were brutally murdered. The perpetrators, two ex-convicts named Richard "Dick" Hickock and Perry Smith, had entered the Clutter home through an unlocked door with the intention of robbing a safe they
believed contained a large amount of cash. This belief, however, was tragically unfounded.
Upon discovering there was no safe, the two men proceeded to wake the sleeping family. Bonnie, along with her children Nancy and Kenyon, were forced into a bathroom while Herbert was taken to his office. After a futile search for the non-existent safe, the other family members were retrieved. Bonnie was bound with rope, gagged, and then taken to her upstairs bedroom. Her husband and son were taken to the basement, and her daughter Nancy to her own bedroom.
The ensuing events were marked by chilling brutality. Herbert Clutter's throat was slit before he was shot in the head. Fifteen-year-old Kenyon was then shot to death in an adjoining room in the basement. The killers then moved upstairs, where they shot 16-year-old Nancy. Bonnie Clutter was the last to be murdered, killed by a single shotgun blast to the side of her head as she lay in her bed. The killers left the scene with a portable radio, a pair of binoculars, and less than fifty dollars in cash.
The investigation into the murders led authorities to Hickock and Smith after a former cellmate of Hickock's, Floyd Wells, came forward with information. Wells had previously worked for the Clutter family and had told Hickock about a safe he mistakenly believed was in the house. Hickock and Smith were arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada, on December 30, 1959, six weeks after the murders. They were extradited back to Kansas, where they stood trial. Both men were found guilty on four counts of first-degree murder and were sentenced to death. After several years on death row, Richard Hickock and Perry Smith were executed by hanging on April 14, 1965.
