Truman Capote

Credit: AP

In Cold Blood Killers' Bodies Exhumed in Kansas

Originally posted 12/19/2012 12:50PM

The bodies of two men put to death for the 1959 murders made famous in Truman Capote's 1966 bestseller In Cold Blood – and subsequent film depictions – were exhumed Tuesday as detectives probe an unsolved 1959 quadruple homicide in Florida.

Investigators hope to see if DNA from Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, who were both hanged in 1965 for the grisly killing of the Herb and Bonnie Clutter family of Holcomb, Kan., matches any evidence in the equally brutal murder of the Cliff and Christine Walker family in Osprey, Fla.

"Maybe it will bring closure to the Walker family, and even after 53 years that would be a good thing," Kyle Smith, deputy director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, tells Reuters.

To the Associated Press, he added, "Obviously, where these perpetrators are dead, it's not going to result in any prosecution." Still, he conceded, "There's a lot of historical interest, as well."