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f Kansas PressIORNING GREAT BEND DAILY TRIBUNESTATE and AREA NEWS • SPORTS FINAL MARKETSBEND, KANSAS, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1963-TWO SECTIONS—THIS ISSUE 16 PAGESSINGLE COPY PRICE 5cJudge Denies Hickock,Smith StayRights BillMeets DelayIn Committee★ ★ ★ ★ Case in Courts Since '59Jailhouse Gossip Led to MurdersBy ARNOLD B. SAWISLAKWASHLNGTON (UPI) -The Kennedy administration Wednesday got a 24-hour reprieve to scramble for votes in an apparently losing battle to block a civil rights bill that it feels is too strong to get through Congress.The issue now is set for decision Thursday morning at a closed meeting of the House Judiciary Committee. Judiciary Chairman Emanuel Celler, D-N.Y.. bought the extra time for administration lobbying by postponing a scheduled showdown meeting Wednesday.The bi-partisan bloc of civil rights militants who are seeking to ram through a stronger bill than President Kennedy sought continued to predict it would win. Celler would not forecast the outcome. Rep. William M McCulloch. R-Oiiio. senior GOP member of the committee who is allied with Celler on the issue, said he was pessimistic about the result.The strong-bill group apparently had the votes to win if the question had been put Wednesday. One source said thereTOPEKA. Kan. (UPI) — It started w'ith jailhouse gossip and ended in the most brutal crime of the century in Kansas.Kansans who have watched it progress through the courts since 1959 now simply say ‘Clut ter case” or “Clutter killers’■ n TV -___ 4 » *.Aand know people will under stand what they are talking about.They refer to the Nov. 15, 1959, murders of Herbert Clutter, his wife Bonnie Mae, | daughter Nancy, 16. and son | Kenyon,15.Clutter and his family were roused from their beds at the | farm home near Garden City late that November night by two intruders.Richard Eugene Hickock of Edgerton. Kan., and Perry Edward Smith of Elko. Nev.. who I became friends in the Kansas State Penitentiary, came seeking money—all the money they heard Clutter kept in a safe at his home.A fellow convict who had once worked for Clutter had told them the prominent farmer keptup to $10,000 cash at his home.Working quickly the burglars tied up the Clutters hand and foot with window sash cord. Clutter told them there wasn’t any safe and he didn’t have much money in the house.They ransacked the place but only turned up $80 and a port able radio.Afraid to leave witnesses to their crime, they began the extermination of the entire family. They went from room to room, shooting each of the victims in the head with a 12-gauge shotgun at close range.The blasts nearly decapitated the Clutters. They cut Clutter’s throat with a butcher knife before shooting him.Then they disappeared on a rambling cross - country flight that took them to Mexico City, back across the Midwest and finally to Las Vegas, Nev., where they walked into the waiting arms of police who had been alerted to watch for them.From there the course of events was well • chronicled. Hickock and Smith confessed toofficers in Las Vegas and were returned to Garden City for trial.A week-long trial in #Finney County district court saw them sentenced to death by hanging.Then came the long string of appeals. They went through the state supreme court twice, with one of the hearings taking months and virtually amounting to a new trial.Twice they sought to put their case into federal courts, but were denied because they had not exhausted all state remedies.Federal Judge George Templar’s decision Wednesday capped off a six-day hearing in U.S District Court where all of the principles in the case took the stand and told their stories once more.Now Hickock and Smith have only two more legal steps to take before they have exhausted all state and federal remedies. Then only a hope for executive clemency from the governor will remain.Barry Has EdgeMadalyn SaysAfhoicf WnrLBy JOSEPH GALLOWAYTOPEKA, Kan. (UPI) — Federal District Judge George Templar Wednesday denied pe titions for a new trial sought by condemned killers Perry Edward Smith and Richard Eugene Hickock.The two are awaiting the death sentence for the Nov. 15, 1959, murder of four members of the Herbert Clutter family of Garden City.“The petitioners have failed to establish that their constitu tional rights have been violated,” Templar wrote in a 26-page opinion.He added there had been “no miscarriage of justice and therefore” he must deny the habeas corpus and recall his previous order staying their execution.Hickock, 32, and Smith, 34. claimed they received an unfair trial in Garden City for the murder of the prominent farmer, his wife and their two teen aged children. They claimed news coverage of events prior to the trial and incompetence of court-appointed attorneys who defended them prejudiced the jury.They also charged that illegally seized evidence was introduced at the trial and that their confessions were not properly taken.In his opinion. Templar said he found the confessions were given voluntarily by Hickock and Smith and that they were fully advised of their legal rights.‘‘They were not deprived of the right of legal counsel at
Newspaper Details
Great Bend Western Kansas Press
Great Bend, Kansas, US
Thu, Oct 24, 1963
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Grace G.
USA 06 Oct 2023
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