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The Walker Family Murders Pt. Two · The Path Went Chilly

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Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two of our series about the
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Walker family murders. Robin, do you want to catch everyone up and what
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we talked about in our previous episode. Well, the Walker family murders took
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place in the small town of Osprey, Florida, in December of nineteen fifty
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nine, just a few days before Christmas. The two parents were named Cliff
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and Christine Walker, and they had a three year old son named Jimmy and
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his twenty three month old daughter named Debbie. And what happened is that on
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one day they were visiting like a friend of theirs named the Mclouds, who
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worked as a rancher on a different property, and Christine drove back to the
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house first in the family car, while Cliff left the residence in his jeep
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with the two children because he had to pick up some feed. And it
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seems like they arrived within twenty to thirty minutes of each other. But when
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the mcclouds went to the residence the following day, they found out that they
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had all been murdered. They'd been shot several times and Christine had been sexually
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assaulted, and a few items had been stolen from the home, but it
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did not appear that robbery was the primary motive, and that this was a
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personal crime, possibly from someone who had a thing for Christine. They looked
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over a number of different suspects. One of them was a sixty five year
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old man named Wilburt took Her, who had been a letch towards Christine in
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the past, had inappropriately touched her and tried to kiss her while visiting her
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home on a couple of prior occasions. There was a cousin named of Cliffs
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named Curtis McCall, who was rumored to have had an affair once with Christine,
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but this can never be conclusively proven. But in the past decade,
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the most promising suspects have been Perry Smith and Richard Hickcock, who were responsible
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for the Clutter family murders, which took place in Kansas in November of nineteen
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fifty nine and where the subject of the true crime book in Cold Blood.
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Smith and Hiccock were executed in nineteen sixty five, and thus far they've been
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unable to find any conclusive evidence to tie them to the murders, though it's
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believed that the two men were in Florida while they were on the run as
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wanted fugitives on the date that the murders took place. They have made attempts
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to exhume the bodies of both men for DNA testing, but the results have
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only been inconclusive. But it turns out that they've recently discovered that Christine's DNA
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has actually mixed up with the Killers DNA, which was found in seamen in
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Christine's underwear, So it seems likely that cross contamination has occurred, and they
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were doing new testing to see if they can separate Christine's DNA with the Killers
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DNA so they can do some proper testing because a lot of suspects who have
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been ruled out in other years, it's possible that this is completely meaningless because
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the DNA was contaminated. So it's been sixty five years and they're still actively
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investigating it, but thus far they've been unable to conclusively link the crime to
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any of the known suspects. So I mentioned in our last episode that I
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originally covered this case on the Trail went cold in December of twenty nineteen,
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but in recent years, cold case investigators have come to the disappointing conclusion that
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a DNA sample taken from seamen found on Christine Walker's underwear wound up being contaminated
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and contained traces of Christine's own DNA. So while DNA testing has been used
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to rule out a number of suspects over the years, those results may now
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be meaningless. And that includes the testing which has been performed on the remains
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of Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, who are the most high profile suspects in
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this case. As you might recall, only a week and a half after
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the Walker family murders took place, Smith and Hickock were captured for committing the
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Clutter family murders and eventually executed for the crime. So if you believe they
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were the guilty parties in this case, then justice ultimately prevailed. I first
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became familiar with the Walker murders in twenty twelve when a number of articles came
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out about the attempts to link this crime to Smith and Hickock. I mean,
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even though In Cold Blood is one of the most famous true crime books
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ever written, Truman Capoti only spents a few paragraphs talking about the Walker murders.
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So even if you've read the book, it's easy to forget this case
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was even mentioned. Of course, whenever a cold case has some sort of
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link to another famous crime, it's very tempting to try and link them together.
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But this connection is pretty compelling. If Smith and Hickcock were not involved,
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then it would be one hell of a coincidence if the murderers of a
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family from Kansas just happened to be in the same county in Florida on the
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exact same date that an entirely different family was murdered under similar circumstances. I
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definitely think there are interesting arguments both for and against the theory that Smith and
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Hiccock were the perpetrators, but I'll talk more about that later on. The
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idea that the DNA is mixed really throws a rent in this whole case,
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because it really does call into question all of the people who had been interviewed
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and ruled out earlier in the investigation. Remember, five hundred and eighty seven
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people upwards towards six hundred people were suspects in this case at one point,
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and they were working off information that wasn't accurate. You had a mixed DNA
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sample, you had a fingerprint, that really ended up being a palm print.
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There were a lot of other issues, like was Christine assaulted or not,
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and so I believe a lot of those challenges put this case into a
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perspective where it's very difficult to get to the truth. And obviously they wouldn't
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have been thinking about DNA testing back in nineteen fifty nine and when they finally
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started using that as an option. I know that a couple of the suspects
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were tested and ruled out, but we have other suspects who are who have
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been dead a long time or their current whereabouts are unknown, and we don't
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even know if they're still alive. So not everyone has been tested, so
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there are just so many unanswered questions. Well, Smith and Hincock are compelling
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suspects. They were strangers just passing through the area, but some details of
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the crime suggest that the perpetrator knew the Walker family personally and may have had
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an infatuation with Christine. One particularly odd detail is that Jimmy's cowboy hat was
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apparently put on Debbie's head before the killer shot her, almost as if he
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couldn't bear to look directly at her face. While he did this, The
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two murdered children were only three years and twenty three months old, respectively,
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so they were not going to be reliable witnesses if they were left alive.
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But if they knew the shooter and could potentially recognize him, he may have
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felt the need to kill them to avoid being identified. Believe that when the
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killer showed up at the Walker residence that day, they may not have originally
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planned on killing anyone. He may have intended to make advances towards Christine.
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I can believe that when the killer showed up at the Walker residence that day,
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they may not have originally planned on killing anyone. He may have intended
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to make advances towards Christine, but when she resisted him and fought him off,
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things turned violent. Interestingly enough, while the murder weapon was never found,
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at least two friends of the Walker family seemed to recall at least two
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friends of the Walker family seemed to recall that Christine kept a twenty two caliber
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pistol on a shelf inside the closet in Jimmy's bedroom. If this is true,
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then maybe it was Christine who grabbed the gun in an attempt to defend
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herself before the killer took it away from her. This would explain why the
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first shot, which grays Christine's head, took place in the bedroom. But
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if the killer did not even bring their own gun, then this supports the
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idea that this crime was not premeditated and there doesn't seem to be a lot
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of planning that did go into it other than just showing up. Because you
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do have the clothes of Christine and her husband. The bloody clothes are found
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in a shed about a mile away from the house, so the killer was
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using things in the home to clean up. There was a quilt used in
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the house to clean up Christine's body, and so it does seem like he's
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just reaching and grabbing things in the home to use, including that hat that
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he puts over the baby's face before shooting her and then drowning her. So
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it is very possible that this person was there for Christine and ended up having
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to you know, felt cornered and felt trapped, became enraged something that triggered
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him to go from trying to make an advance to then murdering an entire family.
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Yeah, the evidence showed that the killer made an attempt to clean up
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the blood, so perhaps He was originally intending to take Christine's body away from
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the scene in order to dispose of it, but since Cliff and the children
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arrived home, he wound up killing them too. If Smith and Hickock were
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the perpetrators, it seems very odd that they would attempt to clean up the
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murder scene, given that they were just passing through the area. However,
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if the killer was a local resident, they may have felt more compelled to
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cover their tracks. We know that Christine returned home about twenty to thirty minutes
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before Cliff and the two children, who likely walked in during or after the
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attack on her. It seemed significant that the family car was not parked outside
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the house in its usual spot, which implies that someone else had already arrived
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and was waiting there when Christine returned home. The fact that the groceries were
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put away implies that Christine likely invited the perpetrator into the house and was going
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about a regular household business before she was attacked. Quite a bit of gossip
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about Christine circulated throughout the community following the murders, as she had caught the
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eye of a number of local men, and there were rumors she may have
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been conducted a secret affair, though that was never conclusively proven. But it's
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very plausible that the killer's infatuation with Christine may have been the motive for this
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crime. I think they had to know this family. Again, Remember they're
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out on this again. They're out on this several thousands of acres of property
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and they live two and a half miles down a dirt road. I just
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feel like between Christine's outfit going missing that was hidden in her wooden trunk,
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the baby's face being covered, Christine being raped, someone pulling into the house,
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and Christine not being scared enough to just shoot them on site or anything
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like that. She's putting groceries away most likely with this person talking to her.
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It seems like it's someone very personal to the family, both in Christine's
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behavior and in the behavior of the killer themselves. They knew the area.
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It seems like they had an emotional connection to the individuals that they killed,
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and that they knew that those children were going to be able to identify them
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because they were so intimately close to them. Okay, can I set up
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like an alternate scenario with Smith and Hickcock, for sure, say they meet
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the family, the Walker family, and they're out somewhere, say at a
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diner, at a convenience store, at the used car lot, and they
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set up a time to go back to the Walker residents meet them and you
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know, trade cars. They get the address, they find out where this
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is. They get directions either from the Walkers themselves or from somebody else locally.
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This could explain why, if they did indeed do this, they'd been
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seen with the Walkers, so that may explain why they wanted to have the
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cleaning up of the blood of the crime scene. Okay, so they go
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in and they meet Christine, and Christine allows them in. You know,
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they put away the groceries, and at that point Hiccock would take Christine and
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sexually assault her. And maybe this time Smith can't stop him. Because they've
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been on the run for a month, they're a lot more desperate than they
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were prior, so I'm sure that he could be acting like a feral animal
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at this point. The I mean, already, what they'd done to the
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Clutters was absolutely abhorrent. It was cold blooded, it was it was disgusting,
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and it insults everything that is human in all of us to think that
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somebody is capable of just so flippantly annihilating an entire family like they were nothing.
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But if Christine is being sexually assaulted, it's hard for me to believe
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that somebody like took her would be allowed in while she puts away her groceries.
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But these two, if they were putting it on that they wanted to
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trade vehicles, she might see them as non threatening, and then she might
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say, oh, yeah, like, my husband will be home in this
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amount of time casually before she's attacked. So they might have an idea of
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how long they have and maybe they thought that they could just attack her and
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leave. But then Cliff came back. And if you got two people,
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if Hickock is sexually assaulting Christine, you could have Smith by the door waiting
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for Cliff and the children to arrive. And I could see that maybe Hiccock
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has killed the others and he told Smith, well, you have to kill
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Debbie. He already seems like the more sympathetic of the two. I could
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see a scenario where it didn't matter if you knew a twenty three month old
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young girl, you may still have a problem with killing her, and so
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putting the cowboy hat over her face could have made it easier for him,
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given that he seems to be the one with slightly more compassion, given that
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we know that he wouldn't allow Hickock to rape the sixteen year old girl at
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the scene with the Clutter family murders, So maybe it's just a scenario where
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he just isn't okay with killing a small child. So that's also true.
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Yeah, all that's very possible. I mean, they killed two teenagers in
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the Clutter family, but they were fifteen and sixteen, and that's still a
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far cry from killing a three year old and a twenty three month old.
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So I could think that even hardened killers like them might have an issue with
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it, which is why they went to the trouble of covering Debbie's face with
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the cowboy hat. About the drum major erette costume. They could have just
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been going through chess and looking for things that could have been of value and
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maybe just say Hiccock, for example, could have spotted that and maybe he
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wanted to take it as some sort of trophy. That is true, like
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it's not going to have a lot of value for selling it, but if
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he wanted a memento of the crime, I could see him holding on to
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it, though we have to mention that it was never found, so if
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he took it as a memento, he did not have it on him when
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he was arrested. So now we're going to talk about potential suspects. One
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of the biggest criticisms about the original investigation is it some suspects, including Perry
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Smith and Richard Hiccock, were initially ruled out strictly because they passed lie detector
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tests. Of course, nowadays we all know the polygraphs are notoriously unreliable,
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but law enforcement put a lot more stock into their result sixty five years ago.
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Now, some of the people who passed polygraphs, including Don McLoud and
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Cliff's cousin Albert Walker, voluntarily submitted to DNA testing decades later and were excluded.
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Though since the DNA evidence was contaminated, I guess we could no longer
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say with one hundred percent certainty that they didn't do it. But there are
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other potential suspects who have never had their DNA taken, either because they are
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dead or their current whereabouts are unknown. It took several decades for DNA samples
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to be taken from the descendants of Wilbert took her, who was the Walker's
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nearest neighbor, and passed away a few years after the crime took place.
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On the surface, he does seem like a compelling suspect, since he seemed
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obsessed with Christine and even showed up at the walker residence on more than one
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occasion and tried to kiss Christine when her husband wasn't there. It's interesting that
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some of the Walker's clothing, which the killer likely used to wipe blood off
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themselves, was found in a shed about a mile from the residence. This
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suggests that they may have been familiar with the area, and since took her
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lived nearby, he may have known the shed was an ideal place to dispose
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of evidence. He's by far my favorite suspect at this point. I feel
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like he wanted Christine, and Christine was saying no, and the husband was
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aggressive and already had threatened him and pulled him aside and said, don't you
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dare come to our house. So if he had tried to make another attempt
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and knew that the husband was coming home, it's possible that he was armed
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and ready, like he's waiting to go ahead and execute the husband when he
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comes back in after he had already taken what he wanted. The only thing
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that would be surprising about that is that Tooker doesn't seem like the kind of
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person that would make her comfortable enough to be putting the groceries up and things
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like that nature where she seems so comfortable with the person who had come into
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her home. Yeah, now I'm going to talk about the reasons why Tucker
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doesn't seem like a promising suspect, even though there are some things that point
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towards him, because in a way, the fact that Tooker had a prior
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history of lecturous advances towards Christine almost makes them a more unlikely suspect. Like
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you just said, since Christine had enough time to enter the house and put
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away the groceries, she probably invited the killer inside and was comfortable enough having
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him around while she did this. But the last time took Her was there,
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he tried to kiss Christine, and this made Cliff so angry that he
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warned took Her not to come around the house again. So I have by
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doubts that Christine would have willingly invited him inside. I know Tooker's whereabouts could
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not be accounted for between four and five pm that afternoon, before he went
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out to dinner with a friend. But I'm not sure the lack of alibi
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is all that troubling when you consider that Tooker's whereabouts after five o'clock are pretty
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well accounted for. Remember, the Walker residence was located in a pretty remote
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area, and Cliff and the children are believed to have gotten home at around
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four thirty or so. Sarasota was located about ten miles away, So what
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Tooker really have had enough time to murder the family, clean himself off,
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meet up with his friend, and then spend the rest of the night having
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dinner and playing violin at a concert as if nothing happened. As tempting as
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a maybe to think that Tooker was the perpetrator, I just don't think he
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quite fits. However, I will add the disclaimer that recent DNA testing could
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not rule out took Her as a contributor, though since this testing was performed
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with contaminated evidence, I'm not sure if these results have much significance that's true
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to me. It either says that you can discard it completely or that there's
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a question mark because he could have been the contributor. So it's impossible to
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know that right now. I do agree it would be quite odd to be
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able to go and perform and to be around friends with no consequence and no
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affect that shows that something happened, But it really depends on his mental health
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and his level of psychopathy and narcissism and things like that. Where if he
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was entitled to Christine and he wanted her, and he got what he wanted
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and eliminated all the consequences for that, I mean, there are killers that
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we know commit an act and go straight home to their families and have dinner
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and tuck their kids into bed. So I think it's possible without knowing his
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background and personality, though it is nearly impossible to be able to say is
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it him or not? I just think the timeline is way too tight.
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Yeah, you think he couldn't have gotten cleaned up and at the places in
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time to kill that many people within such a short period of time and then
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just like smoothly slide into dinner and this violin thing. It just seems like
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a really short window of time for one man to have done that, and
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also an elderly man as well, like he was sixty five, and just
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like he would not have been traveling quickly from the crime scene, because if
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we're to believe that that happened, he would have been midway through sexually assaulting
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Christine. And then Cliff and the kids come home, so he then has
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to deal with all that. And it seems like Cliff was surprised when he
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came in the door. So is this sixty five year old man going to
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be jumping through the home running to the door, surprising him, and then
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he has to kill He basically shoots Cliff, shoots Jimmy, and then takes
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Debbie to the bathtub and then you know, drowns or puts the cowboy hat
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over her face. And then at some point he'd tried to clean up blood.
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We don't know when, if this was before or after he'd killed Cliff
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and Jimmy and little Debbie, or if it was prior to and he was
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going to dispose of the body, We cannot be sure, but I just
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think that that and then he goes and he stops by a shed and then
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disposes of clothing evidence there. You'd think he'd then have to go home get
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cleaned up and then go meet his friend. I just personally for me,
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that timeline is way too tight. A potential suspect who died before he could
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be DNA tested was Stanley Mouk, the Walker's meter reader. There really isn't
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anything to link mouth to this crime other than the fact that he seemed to
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have major psychological problems and talked about having urges to kill his own family.
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And he also had to be the meter reader at a residence in Sarasota where
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another brutal, unsolved murder took place four months earlier. On our last episode,
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we talked about the death of Chandler Stephans aka the Sarasota Mummy murder,
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and this case is incredibly baffling in its own right. As you might recall,
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the killer hogtied Stephans, wrapped a heece of tape around his head and
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proceeded to torture him for hours before cutting his throat. The night before he
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was killed, there was an incident where Stephans woke up in the middle of
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the night to discover that his sofa had been set on fire. And I'm
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sure this was done by the same person who later murdered him. What's truly
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bizarre is that the house belonged to Stephan's stepmother and he had only been living
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there for forty eight hours before he was murdered. Prior to this, Stephans
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had not lived in Sarasota for years, and only a small handful of people
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even knew he would be staying at that house, and they were all eliminated
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as suspects. There have never been any any solid suspects in this crime,
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and the only thing which links Stanley Mouth to it is that he happened to
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be the house's meter reader. But unless Mauk just happened to be reading the
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meter during the forty eight hour period Stephen's was staying at the house, I'm
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not sure how he would have even known someone was there. I don't know
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how well acquainted Malk was with the Walker family, but theoretically, if he
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went to their house to read their meter and was there when Christina arrived home,
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she may have been comfortable enough with Mout to invite him inside. But
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the circumstances of the Walker murders and Stephan's death are a lot different, as
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Stephan's murder was a prolonged, premeditated crime, which seemed to be planned at
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least one day in advance and took place in the middle of the night,
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whereas the Walker murderers were quick, sloppy and took place during the daytime.
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I'm inclined to think that crimes are not connected at all, but there's really
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no evidence to prove or disprove Mauk's involvement. I guess the only way to
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know for sure would be if Mouk's remains were ever zoomed for DNA testing.
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One of the things about him for me is that he is openly talking about
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having these urges to kill his family, and he has these clear mental health
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issues. Would someone like that be able to keep it under control and not
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mention, not say something about hurting the family, or if he was responsible
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for the other mummy murder, being able to keep all that quiet. I
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mean, he's saying things that he knows are problematic and troublesome, and it's
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almost like a cry for help. Would he not also then say I have
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hurt somebody or I fear that I could hurt other people. Many people have
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not I mean, this is not like a you know, everyday occurrence,
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but there's a lot of people who struggle with feelings of violence and anger and
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rage and un unconceivable ideas that they don't normally think they would have. But
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that's part of mental health issues. He talks about it. Nothing's been said
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about these murders. I just think at some point he would slip up trying
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to get help with his mental health. Yeah, that's a good point.
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If he's willing to openly say that he's willing to murder his own wife and
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children, that I think if he did a crime like that for real,
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he would never be able to keep it under wraps. And he did not
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die until nineteen ninety seven, so if he was guilty, he would have
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had to have stayed silent about it for at least thirty eight years. And
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that just does not seem to fit his personality. He's already struggling and already
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saying, I have these thoughts, like clearly it was something he wanted help
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with, and to think he could have that kind of intense mental health distress
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and then be able to kill and keep it under wraps and not go completely
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out of his mind, I just I don't think that would be possible,
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giving his fragile mental state, already. I think you're right. It seems
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like a bit of a red herring just because there's two murders associated with him,
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because he was the meter reader. But so many things would have had
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to fall into place for him to been there on those days, and especially
24:56
the Mummy murder, Stephan's murder. I think his wife would have noticed if
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he was away in the middle of the night and he was gone for hours,
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because he was tortured for hours while those slits for his nose were cut
25:08
out, and finally his throat was slit, I would think his absence would
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have been noted, because you're not reading meters in the middle of the night,
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Yeah, exactly. The other interesting potential suspect was Curtis McCall, who
25:22
was rumored to be conducting an affair with Christine, but it sounds like there
25:26
was no evidence to back this claim up besides gossip and hearsay. I'm not
25:30
sure investigators even heard about these rumors until Curtis's cousin came forward and told them
25:36
years later. There's nothing to really implicate Curtis aside from the fact that he
25:40
had a violent temper, seemed very nervous and on edge. Following the murders,
25:44
and once owned a twenty two caliber gun, which he claimed to have
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sold to someone he could not remember. It's interesting how when he took a
25:51
polygraph, the only question where Curtis showed signs of deception was have you withheld
25:56
any information about the Walker murders? But again, this is an early nineteen
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sixties polygraph test we're talking about, so I'm not sure how much stock you
26:04
can put into that. It could mean that Curtis was telling the truth when
26:08
he said he had no involvement in the murders but still withheld details about his
26:12
relationship with Christine. The theory that the entire family was killed by a man
26:18
Christine had an affair with is a compelling one, but since it involves hating
26:22
the reputation of a married murder victim, you always hate to push these theories
26:26
forward without proof. Christine allegedly been asking some questions to her friends about how
26:32
to terminate a pregnancy, which I'm sure led to gossip about her being pregnant.
26:37
But let's also not forget that she suffered through two miscarriages that year.
26:41
So an alternate explanation is that Cliff wanted her to get pregnant again, and
26:45
Christine just could not bear the prospect of potentially suffering through a third miscarriage.
26:49
Whatever the case, we know that Christine was not pregnant at the time she
26:53
was murdered, so this whole angle might not mean anything. When a series
26:59
of articles were published about this case in the Sarasota Herald Tribune in December of
27:03
two thousand and five, they said that Curtis McCall's current whereabouts ron known,
27:07
so he's never been subject to DNA testing and I'm not even sure he's still
27:11
alive today. On our last episode, we discussed an anonymous phone call made
27:17
in nineteen ninety four by a woman claiming to be a bartender in Stroudsburg,
27:21
Pennsylvania, who said that an elderly customer of hers made an emotional confession to
27:26
the Walker murders. If her story is true, some people have wondered if
27:30
that man might have been Curtis McCall. But once again, even though Curtis
27:36
might be a compelling suspect, there really isn't any strong evidence to prove or
27:40
disprove his involvement. I think if you give any credence to the elderly late
27:45
or to the lady who says she had an elderly customer confide in her and
27:49
that she wanted to tell the police, but she'd have to call them back.
27:53
I really feel it's someone's conscience. Weane on them saying, Okay,
27:57
I know information about this case and I want to tell it, but either
28:02
I'm afraid to be harmed by the person at the root of it, or
28:06
I love them so much I don't necessarily want them to go to prison or
28:08
to death row for this murder or for these murders. And so to me,
28:14
her trepidation sounds like she knows much more if her facts are actually true
28:19
than what she wanted to share, and the fact that she hung up,
28:23
it's just it's bizarre. I think she either knew the killer and it wasn't
28:27
some random person in her bar, or she's fabricating it. But again,
28:32
like you said on the last episode, Florida to Pennsylvania, that's a big
28:34
jump to know this crime back in nineteen ninety four. Well, if by
28:38
chance, the woman is telling the truth, and I think that would rule
28:41
out the possibility of Smith and Hiccock being the killers, because they had been
28:45
executed and dead for three decades at that point, so there really wouldn't be
28:49
any reason for her to withhold information which incriminated them. So now we finally
28:56
have to address the likelihood of Perry Smith and Richard Hiccock being the perpetrators,
29:00
and there is a pretty compelling case for that. On the surface. For
29:03
decades, it seems like no one really looked at them that seriously as suspects,
29:08
largely due to the fact that In Cold Blood gave off the incorrect impression
29:12
that the two men had alibis. As iconic as the book might be,
29:18
it contained a lot of factual errors, particularly when it came to Smith and
29:22
Hickock's movements while they were on the run. Plus another reason they were initially
29:26
discounted as suspects was because their fingerprints did not match the prints found on the
29:30
bathtub faucet at the Walker residence. But as the years have gone by,
29:34
it seems more likely that it was actually a palm print. We have numerous
29:38
eyewitness sightings placing the two men in the area of Florida around the time of
29:44
the murders, and while eyewitnesses can be mistaken, some of these sightings are
29:48
pretty credible. I think the most interesting sighting is from the gas station owner
29:52
outside Arcadia, who said that Smith and Hickock stopped by and asked for directions
29:57
on December twentieth. Not only did he identify the two men, but he
30:02
accurately described the nineteen fifty six Chevrolet bel Air they were driving and even got
30:07
two of the digits on their license plate correct. And he also said that
30:11
the man matching Hickock's description had a badly scratched up face. It was obvious
30:18
that Christine Walker put up a major fight against the person who attacked her,
30:22
and since both of her high heeled shoes had blood on them, she likely
30:26
used them as a weapon to defend herself. If Hiccock was a perpetrator,
30:30
then this would explain the scratches on his face. This one is really confusing
30:34
for me. I get that there are links to these men, and it
30:38
is really disturbing to have that gas station owner talk about Smith and Hitcock stopping
30:44
by and asking for directions. The car is a unique aspect as well,
30:48
because the family was looking at that kind of model in particular that day,
30:52
looking at used cars. But man, I guess they would have had to
30:57
get the address from the family, because if not, they're just so far
31:03
out, they're so remote, they're so isolated. No one's driving by in
31:10
desperation saying, hey, let's drive on to this thousands of acres of property
31:14
and find someone to rob, and let's pick the farmhouse that's a workhands house
31:18
and not the main home that might have more money and more valuable goods.
31:22
It really would have had to be like you guys said earlier, where they
31:26
had met in public that day and made arrangements later in the afternoon. But
31:30
I don't know as a husband, especially back in the sixties, I don't
31:34
think if I knew I was meeting someone for a car at four and I
31:40
was over at another friend's house and it's three point fifty, my wife,
31:42
sure as heck is not going home by herself and maybe meeting up with these
31:48
two guys. I'm going to make sure I'm with her. I'm going to
31:49
make sure that, because there's these strange men coming to our house that seemed
31:53
very pleasant earlier in the day, that I'm the first one at the home
31:56
as the husband, right, that we all go into the house together,
32:00
or that I go alone while she hangs out at the friend's house. So
32:04
I just think it would have been better precautions in place if the husband thought
32:07
that they were driving home to meet two men. I don't think Christine would
32:12
have gone home first by herself to be solo. Do you think people in
32:15
their twenties are always so forward thinking, though, especially not back in nineteen
32:21
fifty nine either, Like this was like a small town that wasn't known for
32:23
violent crimes. So if by chance they met these two young men earlier that
32:29
day, they probably thought, Hey, they seem like friendly guys. They
32:30
seem like harmless and maybe we're just not thinking about the possibility that if I
32:35
let my wife drive home first and be alone with them, that it could
32:37
lead to murder and sexual assault. I just think at the age of twenty
32:43
five, I wasn't really thinking that like these things could potentially happen to me.
32:46
And if I had a partner at the time, I could see that,
32:49
like you just set up that scenario, Robin, had we met them
32:53
in public, I couldn't necessarily think that that person would think, oh,
32:58
there's a situation where you know, I'm going to put my partner in danger.
33:02
I just think that what Cliff was twenty five or twenty six, twenty
33:06
five, twenty five. I just think he's so young that he hasn't been
33:12
you know, the world hasn't shown him necessarily all of the awful things out
33:15
there. I mean, he did have to deal with the creepy neighbor coming
33:21
and trying to kiss Christine, but he might not have seen Smith and Hickock
33:23
as that type of danger, because they may have come off as like,
33:28
Hey, these are two guys that seem really nice, and they're going to
33:30
come and do this trade, and this is going to help us out.
33:32
And if Christine meets them ahead of me, it's not a big deal because
33:36
I'm following right behind her. Well, let's do a recap of this theory.
33:40
One of the biggest arguments against Smith and Haycock is that the evidence suggested
33:45
that Christin knewer killer and invited him into the house while she performed tasks like
33:49
putting her groceries away. But would she really have done this for two strangers,
33:53
especially when her husband wasn't home yet. Well. In twenty sixteen,
33:58
true crime writer J. T. Hunt published a book about the Walker murderers
34:01
titled In Colder Blood and presented a fairly plausible theory about how Smith and Hiccock
34:07
might have wound up at the house. We mentioned our last episode that Cliff
34:10
visited some used car lots because he was looking to trade in the family car
34:15
for a newer model, and one of the vehicles that caught his eye was
34:17
in nineteen fifty six Chevrolet, the same model which Smith and Hiccock were driving
34:22
at that time. If the two men somehow crossed paths with the Walkers that
34:28
day and showed Cliff their Chevy bel Air, they may have arranged a meeting
34:31
to trade vehicles at the Walker residence. When Cliff and the children were at
34:36
the McLeod residence later that afternoon, God and Lucy McLeod asked if they wanted
34:40
to stay for a little while longer, but Cliff specifically said that they needed
34:45
to get going because it was almost four o'clock. So could this mean that
34:49
Cliff had a scheduled meet up with Smith and Hiccock. Given that the Walker's
34:52
residence was in a very remote location at the end of a dirt road,
34:57
it seems doubtful that the duel could have stumbled upon placed by accident. But
35:00
if they had a pre arranged meeting and Christina met both men earlier that day.
35:06
They may have been already parked at the house when Christine arrived home,
35:08
and she was comfortable en up with them to invite them inside to wait for
35:13
Cliff. That is very possible, especially if she noticed the car and the
35:19
make and model. Okay, we met them earlier. We're actually looking at
35:22
this car. We're going to make a trade with them. And so she
35:24
said, well, come on in, My husband will be back, like
35:27
you guys said earlier, in thirty minutes, which gives them this kind of
35:30
window of saying, we have thirty minutes to do whatever we want with Christine.
35:34
There is a possibility that that's what happened, for sure, because if
35:37
it was committed today, I think that the hypervigilance that you described, Ashley,
35:45
that like we would all feel now, is something that most couples would
35:49
have in place. You wouldn't just send your wife ahead to meet with two
35:52
strange men. But it isn't the true crime riddled world that we have today
35:57
with the Internet and all of this access to information. It was sixty five
36:01
years ago. Yeah, And even though the Clutter family murders was a pretty
36:05
big crime, and Smith and Hiccock were wanted fugitives. It's not like today
36:10
where you can circulate information immediately and their faces would be plastered everywhere. So
36:15
I think it's likely that Christine had no idea that the Clutter family murders had
36:20
even occurred, and never would have suspected that these were wanted murderers. Now,
36:23
there were two separate unidentified hairs found at the murder scene which were inconsistent
36:30
with anyone from the family, which would make sense if there were two killers.
36:34
One of the hairs was dark and theoretically could have matched Smith, and
36:37
the blonde hair found inside Christine's death could have belonged to Hiccock. When DNA
36:43
testing was performed on the Seman evidence many decades later, Smith was excluded,
36:49
but the results on Hiccock were inconclusive. Of course, we have no idea
36:52
if those DNA results are valid, but that's still a very important detail.
36:59
Even though Smith had had no qualms about murdering an entire family, he had
37:02
a major revulsion about rape and was so adamant about stopping Hiccock from raping Nancy
37:07
Clutter that the two men nearly broke out into a fight. But perhaps this
37:13
time around. Smith couldn't stop Hiccock from raping Christine, and while we cannot
37:17
conclusively prove this, the semen and the blonde hair could belong to Hiccock.
37:22
Another detail which may point to two killers is that, even though most of
37:28
the shots were fired from a twenty two caliber weapon, a thirty two caliber
37:31
slug was found near Christine's body. I find that detail strange as it's always
37:37
been theorized that the reason the killer drowned Debbie in the bathtub was because they
37:42
ran out of bullets in their twenty two. But if they also had a
37:45
thirty two caliber weapon, why not use that to shoot Debbie and finish the
37:49
job. Two separate guns might suggest two killers, but then again, it's
37:53
possible that the twenty two actually belonged to Christine and she grabbed it out of
37:58
the bedroom closet. The one thing which could lean away from Smith and Hincock
38:01
being the perpetrators is the fact that the crime seemed more personal in nature.
38:07
When the duo murdered the Clutter family, the motive was robbery, and they
38:10
were under the mistaken impression that the Clutters had a safe of money inside their
38:15
house, and only elected to kill the family because they didn't want to leave
38:19
them alive as witnesses. The Walker family were far from wealthy, so they
38:23
seemed like pretty unlikely targets for robbery. Only a handful of items were stolen
38:29
from the Walker home, but even if the family didn't have much, it's
38:32
surprising that Smith and Hiccock wouldn't have taken whatever they could get their hands on,
38:37
as they were living day to day while on the run as wanted fugitives,
38:40
and you did anything they could find to survive. I think back then
38:45
too, you would be able to hawk a bunch of things so much easier
38:49
right than you can today because there's not any kind of tracking and are able
38:52
to report it or anything like that. And so if they did rob this
38:55
farmhouse of a ranch hand in hopes of getting ahead in their criminal pursuit,
39:02
I just I feel like they would have gone to a place that had more
39:07
valuable things. And then, like you said, let's say they did pick
39:09
the Walkers, why not completely clear that house out and take several things.
39:15
Surely there was some jewelry, Surely there was some other stuff in the house
39:19
that could have been sold or given away and made trades with so it doesn't
39:22
seem like they walked away with much other than a pack of cigarettes a big
39:27
partner of cigarettes. Now, it seems like there's been some confusion about the
39:31
disappearance of the Walker's marriage certificate. For years, everyone believed that the certificate
39:37
was stolen from the wall in the living room, which would lend credence to
39:39
the idea that the killer was someone who was infatuated by Christine and became angry
39:45
about her marrying someone else. But in the aforementioned book in Colder Blood,
39:50
it's mentioned that Cliff's niece contacted investigators in twenty twelve because the marriage certificate suddenly
39:55
turned up and some items given to her by a relative. I really wish
40:00
I could find other sources which provide additional clarification about this, because I'd really
40:05
like to know how this relative got the certificate to begin with. I'm not
40:09
trying to say they were personally involved in the murders, but perhaps they wound
40:13
up perceiving the certificate on a previous occasion and everyone mistakenly assumed that the killer
40:17
stole it. Regardless, it seems like the one item which has still never
40:22
been accounted for is Christine's missing drum majorrette uniform from her high school days,
40:28
which is undoubtedly the weirdest detail of this case. If Christine was murdered by
40:32
a stranger, then perhaps I can see them taking the uniform as some sort
40:37
of souvenir or memento of their crime. But this uniform was kept in a
40:40
plastic bag inside a chest, so unless they happened to come across it during
40:45
a random search of the house, how would a stranger have even known it
40:49
was there. I really don't see why Smith and Hickhock would elect to steal
40:53
a random item like that either. If they wanted to keep the uniform as
40:57
a memento of some sort, what actually happened into it. I know that
41:00
when they were arrested they had a pocket knife on them, which matched the
41:04
ones stolen from Cliff, but there was no mention of the drum major Ette's
41:07
uniform, and that does not sound like a typical item you would pawn off
41:12
if you need money. I guess. The other possibility is that, like
41:15
the marriage certificate, the uniform somehow went missing from the home before the crime
41:20
took place and it is never turned up. But otherwise I think it's the
41:24
strongest piece of evidence to indicate that this crime was motivated by the killer's obsession
41:30
with Christine. Without the missing uniform, I would be much more inclined to
41:35
believe that Smith and Hickock were the perpetrators. But part of me still believes
41:38
that this was some sort of crime of passion in which Christine was the primary
41:43
target and her husband and children were collateral damage. I think that from this
41:50
get go, when you described the case to me, it was very clear
41:52
that there was something about Christine that this killer wanted, that there had been
41:58
a desire to be her part. There had been a feeling that he had
42:01
been let on, and he was resentful of the fact that Christine had a
42:06
husband and children. In my mind, he takes time to sexually abuse and
42:10
assault Christine, and then he quickly kills the husband to eliminate the threat.
42:15
And then there's a struggle in some ways with the daughter to cover her face
42:21
and shoot her, but with the son, almost this kind of reaction of
42:25
fear where the baby's crawling after being shot towards his dad and so he has
42:30
to quickly shoot him again. So I feel like there is something more personal.
42:35
I went for Christine, I had to eliminate the threat of her husband,
42:37
and then I had to stop the two kids from recognizing me. There
42:40
just seems something so directly personal about it. At the end of his original
42:46
Trail and Cold episode, Robin found it very frustrating that there wasn't enough usable
42:52
DNA on Richard Hikok's remains to conclusively determine if he was the source of the
42:57
seamen founding Christine's underwear. But the frustration level has only increased now that we
43:02
know there was a cross contamination and Christine's own DNA was likely mixed with the
43:07
DNA of the killer, which essentially meant that the evidence has gone right back
43:12
to square one. Well, I personally do not believe that John McLeod and
43:15
Albert Walker were strong suspects. The fact that they were supposedly ruled out by
43:21
DNA testing two decades ago no longer means anything. Now we cannot even discount
43:25
the possibility that Perry Smith could have been the source of the seamen. So
43:30
I'm hoping that the recent exhumation of Cliff In Christine's bodies will lead to the
43:35
recovery of some usable DNA evidence which could potentially be linked to a suspect,
43:40
even if they are already deceased. Personally, I'm on the fence over the
43:45
idea of Smith and Hickock being the perpetrators. I do think the fact that
43:50
two home invasion murders of two separate families took place in entirely different states within
43:53
one month of each other, and the same two people just happened to be
43:58
in the area when the second crime took place, it's just too much of
44:00
a coincidence to ignore. But I still have the nagging feeling that it might
44:06
only be a coincidence and the real perpetrator was someone much closer to the family
44:09
who lived in the area. Even though all the previous DNA testing was unreliable,
44:15
it was worth noting that wilburd took her was the one suspect who could
44:19
not be conclusively discounted as the contributor, so perhaps more advanced testing will answer
44:23
the question about his involvement once and for all. In the meantime, if
44:28
you happen to have any information about the Walker family murders, please contact the
44:32
appropriate authorities. Jules Ashley any final thoughts on this case. I feel like
44:39
it's one that's personal in nature. I think that that baby looked at that
44:45
killer in the face and they knew each other, and he had to cover
44:47
her face to shoot her. I think the child crawling towards his dad,
44:52
there was this immediate gut reaction of like, oh my gosh, I have
44:54
to just end his life because I've already injured him, and the husband was
44:58
a threat, so that was a quick elimination. But Christine to me,
45:01
seemed like this target of an obsession of some sort and an entitlement to who
45:07
she was and to her body, so I'm leaning more towards that direction.
45:13
It is tragic to think about the fact that any human being is capable not
45:19
of just killing an individual, but is able to kill an individual and sexually
45:23
assault her, kill her husband, and then look at two children who are
45:29
barely able to communicate with adults and say, there's such a threat to me
45:34
right now, I need to eliminate them as well. And to be able
45:37
to go on for decades and decades and not have any kind of moral conscious
45:43
to say I did that blows my mind. It was a three year old
45:47
at a nearly two year old that were also killed at that scene, and
45:52
so the whole thing carries such a heavy horrific weight to it that this is
45:58
one of the more difficult cases we've discussed. It's an old case, but
46:01
it's one that seems so relevant, and you have a whole family who is
46:06
annihilated and no one knows why. I'm praying that scientific technology allows them to
46:13
be able to break apart Christine's DNA from the killer's DNA and through genetic genealogy.
46:19
This is one of those old cases where they can just say we know
46:22
what happened, right, and to be able to give a period and a
46:25
punctuation mark to the end of this story. Most likely these people are deceased.
46:30
Most likely nothing's going to come of a justice point of view, but
46:36
to know who it was would be something that would really change kind of the
46:38
history of this case. This is one of the hardest cases that I think
46:44
we've covered, and I think it's just because you get this really visceral reaction
46:49
from three year old Jimmy being shot in the face several times while crawling towards
46:54
his father, and little Debbie her fate being her end being in this bathtub
47:01
and being shot in the face with this cowboy hat covering it. It's just
47:06
so sad and so tragic because they didn't have to die, they were too
47:10
young to be able to testify and all. While I agree with everything that
47:15
you said, Ash, you make a really compelling case for it being personal.
47:20
I'm fifty to fifty. I could go either way. I think there's
47:23
a lot of evidence that two people were at this murder scene from the way
47:28
that the perpetrator felt comfortable, and that isn't to say that both things can't
47:32
be true. There could have been two people there and they're just suspects that
47:37
were close that haven't been identified. I mean, there could be people who
47:39
weren't even on the radar were assuming that the investigation was so thorough and that
47:45
they have all of these people on this list and they've just had to go
47:49
through them and check d Ena against it. There's a possibility it could have
47:52
been people that were close to the Walkers, close to the family, that
47:55
just weren't on that list, and there could have been multiple people that did
48:00
it. Just those two hairs that were there. The fact that the person
48:02
felt comfortable sexually assaulting Christine when they likely knew that Cliff was going to be
48:08
coming home with those children just leads me to believe that there's a strong likelihood
48:13
that there are two people involved. Whether it's Smith and Hiccock, I really
48:17
have no idea. The only thing that my gut tells me for sure is
48:22
that there's multiple people involved, and I think Ashley make a strong case for
48:25
it being somebody close to the family. But I just I'm scratching my head
48:30
on this one. Yeah, me too. This is one where I fully
48:35
admit to changing my mind all the time. I mean, all family annihilation
48:38
murders are horrific, but this one is particularly bad because of the young age
48:44
of the two children and the brutal fashion that they were murdered, and also
48:46
the fact that it has remained unslved for nearly sixty five years. And when
48:52
I first learned about this case, I was fully convinced that Smith and Hiccock
48:55
were the perpetrators, because they had done a crime like this just one month,
48:59
or they could be placed in the area at that time, and like
49:02
Jules said, there was a lot pointing to this crime being committed by two
49:06
people. I do think there is a good chance that they were the killers,
49:09
but I still harken back to the fact that there's just seemed to be
49:13
something a lot more personal about this crime, that whoever did this was someone
49:17
who knew Christine personally and had an infatuation with her and felt that they had
49:22
to kill Cliff and the children because they felt they could be recognized because they
49:27
happened to live in the area. But we also were talking about the idea
49:30
of there being two perpetrators is that we've gone over a number of different suspects
49:35
like Curtis McCall and Wilbur Tucker, and if they were responsible, who would
49:38
their accomplices have been. We don't have any other scenarios involving two suspects,
49:43
which is why I often leaned back to Smith and Hickock. But there really
49:47
just isn't a lot about this crime which makes sense, And the only way
49:51
it's going to be solved is with DNA testing, which really hopes that they
49:55
can separate the killer's DNA from Christine's DNA, because that gives them more options.
50:00
They could submit it into a ancestry website for the purposes of genetic genealogy
50:06
and maybe it will wind up get it being a familial match to someone who
50:09
has never even popped up on the radar as a suspect to begin with.
50:13
So yeah, I think there's one hundred percent chance whoever did this is now
50:17
dead and it will never be arrested or prosecuted for this crime. But if
50:22
genetic genealogy is successful, then they could identify a suspect. And I am
50:28
glad that, in spite of the age of the case, that investigators are
50:30
still working on this and it'll be great if we can give an update announcing
50:35
that they have identified the perpetrator sometime in the future. Robin, do you
50:39
want to tell us a little bit about the trailment Cold Patreon. Yes,
50:44
the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three years now, and we offer
50:46
these standard bonus features like early ad free episodes, and I also send out
50:52
stickers and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up with us on Patreon
50:57
if you join our five dollars tier to your two We also offer monthly bonus
51:01
episodes in which I talk about cases which are not featured on the Trail Went
51:07
Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon, and if you join our
51:10
highest tier tier free the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer
51:15
is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of UNSAWD Mysteries, where you can
51:20
download an audio file and then boot up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon
51:24
Prime or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in the background,
51:30
where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases featured in this episode.
51:35
And incidentally, the very first episode that I did a commentary track over was
51:38
the episode featuring this case. So if you want to download a commentary track
51:43
in which I make more smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure
51:46
to join Tier three. So I want to let you know a little bit
51:50
about the Jewels and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad free episodes of The
51:53
Path Went Chili. We've got our Path Went Chili mini's, which are always
51:58
over an hour so they're not very but they're just too short to turn into
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a series, and we're really enjoying doing those. So we hope you'll check
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out those patreons will link them in the show notes. So I want to
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thank you all for listening, and any chance you have to share us on
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social media with a friend or to rate and review is greatly appreciate it.
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You can email us at the Pathwentchili at gmail dot com. You can reach
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us on Twitter at the Pathwin. So until next time, be sure to
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bundle up because cold trails and chili pass call for warm clothing. Music by
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Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy