Bodies of In Cold Blood Killers Exhumed in Old Case

The bodies of the two men executed for the 1959 murders of a Kansas family that became infamous in Truman Capote's true-crime book In Cold Blood were exhumed today in an effort to solve the slaying of a Florida family weeks later. Bone fragments were collected from the skeletal remains of Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, who were hanged for the murders of Herb and Bonnie Clutter and their children in Holcomb, Kan., on Nov. 15, 1959.

The fragments were collected at the request of a Sarasota County Sheriff's detective, who has been trying to determine whether Hickock and Smith killed Cliff and Christine Walker and their two young children on Dec. 19, 1959, in their home. Smith and Hickock fled to Florida after the Clutter murders. They checked out of a Miami Beach motel on Dec. 19, and at some point that day bought items at a Sarasota department store. No word on how long it will take to process the DNA results. (More In Cold Blood stories.)