Walker Family Murders Pt. One

Welcome back to the Pathway Chili. I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and I'm Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case. December nineteenth, nineteen fifty nine, Osprey, Florida. After spending the day running errands and visiting a family friend, twenty five year old Cliffwalker, his twenty four year old wife Christine, and their two children, three year old Jimmy and twenty three month old Debbie, head back home in separate vehicles. The following morning, the

family's bodies are discovered inside their rural house. They were each shot in the head before de w was drowned in the bathtub, and Christine had been sexually assaulted. Over the next several decades, investigators would look at a number of different suspects, including Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, who were responsible for murdering the Clutter family in Kansas one month earlier, but in the end, no one is ever conclusively linked to the Walker family murders. After that, the

path went Chile. So today we are going to be covering the Walker family murders, a story which involves a married couple and their two young children being brutally murdered inside their home as they were preparing for the holidays. The investigation went uncover quite a few potential suspects, but there was no conclusive evidence to

point to anyone in particular. But the case has taken a very interesting turn in recent years, as investigators have been exploring the possibility that the perpetrators might be Perry Smith and Hiccock, who committed one of the most infamous crimes ever when they murdered the Clutter family inside their farmhouse in Kansas, a story which

became the subject of Truman Capote's iconic true crime book In Cold Blood. There are some striking similarities between the murders of the Clutters and the Walkers, and compelling evidence that Smith and Hiccock were in Florida at the time the Walkers were killed. However, an attempt to exume the killer's remains for DNA testing failed

to bring about a definitive conclusion. I originally covered this case on the Trail Went Cold four and a half years ago, but there's since been another new development with the DNA testing, which I'll discuss later on in this episode, and we're going to explore all different possibilities about who might have been responsible for this crime. So this one's horrifying because it's a whole family that's executed inside

their home, a place where they should have been safe. And it's really interesting because they're out running errands and visiting a family friend and then drive home in separate vehicles. I think, Okay, you know, maybe the husband doesn't get killed and he's the one who did it, but no, the

whole family winds up back at home and is executed. So it's a horrific case from the get go, and I'm praying that as technology advances, you know, with cold cases, it's the only plus is time and this ability to have new science and new ideas and new things coming to the case. There's genetic genealogy and things that might be able to get the DNA of these individuals that weren't able to get DNA from the exhumation or anything like that.

Yeah, because this case is nearly sixty five years old, but we're still talking about it on the podcast, and it is refreshing to know that there is still an active investigation trying to figure out who the perpetrators were. And at this point, I think there's a good chance that whoever committed this crime is now dead. It can never be arrested and prosecuted. But I do

like that they are trying to conclusively figure out what happens. But in this case, there are just so many suspects to choose from that it's hard to come up with the definitive conclusion about who the guilty party might be. Our story begins in nineteen fifty nine in Osprey, Florida, a small town located

in Sarasota County which had a population of only a few thousand people. One of our victims is twenty five year old Cliff Walker, who lives just outside of Osprey with his twenty four year old wife, Christine Walker, and their two children, three year old Jimmy and twenty three month old Debbie. The couple have been married for five years and originally hailed from the town of Arcadia

before they decided to move to Sarasota County. The Walkers currently reside a Palmer Ranch, a fourteen thousand acre property of land owned by one of the area's wealthiest families. In exchange for working there as a ranch hand, Cliff and his family are allowed to live rent free in an isolated farmhouse at a cattle ranch on the property, which is located at the end of a two mile

dirt road and about a mile away from their nearest neighbors. On Saturday, December nineteenth, the Walkers were prepared for the holidays, as a Christmas tree, which they had not had time to decorate, was resting on their front porch with wrapped Christmas gifts underneath it. On this particular day, the family went into town to run several errands, which included visiting a couple of used car lots and test driving a vehicle, as Cliff was looking to trade in

his family's older model car. The Walkers eventually went to visit Don and Lucy mc cleod, who lived in another isolated farmhouse on the Palmer Ranch property about twenty minutes away from the Walker residence. Like Cliff, Don worked as a ranch hand in exchange for living on the property rent free, and the two men spent part of the afternoon hunting together. When they returned to the mc clod residence, Cliff started loading up a jeep with sacks of cattle feed,

which he needed to take back to his house. Christine would go on ahead and drive back home in the family car, but since Jimmy and Debby wanted to ride with their father and the jeep, the children stayed behind. Approximately fifteen minutes after Christine left, Cliff finished loading up the cattle feed and drove away from the McLoud residence with his children shortly before four pm. But this

would turn out to be the last time the McLeod saw them alive. It shows how much someone would have had to target this family because the property is huge and it's isolated. For example, they live down a two and a half mile dirt road. They live twenty minutes away from the Walkers who live on the same property, so it is a vast area. And to say I'm going to go target this family, they had to have known their location

and that they would be in this farmhouse that was on the property. And what else throws me for a loop is these little ones were so small. It's not like two teenagers. You have a three year old and a nearly two year old. What were they going to be able to tell anybody.

It's tragic when you think about the fact that yes, mom and dad were killed, but then these two little ones were killed, and in so many ways, I think, like why they weren't going to be able to identify people unless they knew them really well, and it was like Uncle Johnny, right, unless they could tell who this person was. So a lot of troubling issues right from the start of given how isolated and how cold blooded this

whole instance was. Yeah, as we're going to talk about, there are a wide variety of suspects in this case, some of whom were personally affiliated with the Walkers, while others would have been complete strangers. But you are right that this was such an isolated location that I don't think anyone could stumble

upon a by pure chance. And as we're going to talk about, one of the most prominent theories is that whoever was responsible was probably already waiting when Christine arrived home, and that the crime may have been in progress when Cliff and the children arrived, and that could be the reason that the children wound up being murdered too. At five point thirty am on the morning of December the twentieth, Don McLeod traveled to the Walker residence as he was planning to

gohag hunting with Cliff. When he arrived, Don was surprised to see that the Sacks of cattle feed were still inside the park jeep, along with Cliff's loaded hunting rifle. Don became concerned when he discovered that all the houses doors were locked and no one would answer. He decided to use his pocket knife to cut a slit through the screen on the back door and use the knife

to prop open the latch and enter the house. When Don walked inside, he was shocked to discover Christine's body lying on the living room floor in a pool of blood in the doorway to the dining room. Christine had been raped and beaten by an unknown assailant before she was shot twice in the head with a twenty two caliber gun. The bodies of Cliff and Jimmy were lying on

the floor in another section of the room. Cliff had been shot beneath his right eye, while Jimmy was shot in the head three times, and there were streaks of blood on the floor to indicate that the boy had crawled towards his father after the first time he was shot. This prompted Don to flee the house and find a payphone to call the Sarasota Police to apartment. When they arrived at the house, the police followed another trail of blood into the

bathroom, where they discovered Debbie's body lying face down inside the bathtub. Debbie had been shot once in the head, but someone had also stopped a sock in the draid and filled the bathsub with four inches of water. It was believed that the killer had right out of bullets after firing the first shot into Debbie and decided to drown her in the tub in order to ensure she was

dead. Jimmy's cowboy hat was also found on the floor with a bullet hole in it, so the killer may have used it to cover Debbie's face when he shot her. That to me indicates that he did know her. Right. Yes, it's a little girl, but he didn't have any empathy for the little one. The other little boy who's crawling towards his dad, who's dying. He shot him three times with no problem, but to drown the

little one and to look at her face when he shot her. It does feel like it had to be someone who knew her, because otherwise the empathy wasn't shown for anybody else. Exactly like you would think twenty three months old, that the girl is not going to be able to talk or provide a positive identification, but it could lend credence to the idea that this was someone

acquainted with the family. So theoretically, if the police said to Debbie, can you point out whoever the killer was, and she would probably still at that age, still have the wherewithal to do so. So that's why he decided to kill her, even though it's possible he didn't even really want to.

But I mean, it wouldn't even stand up in court even if a child that age could point to somebody, because there's so many different things that can influence memory, and the communication of a nearly two year old wouldn't really

be something that would likely secure a conviction. I mean, maybe if that person didn't have an alibi, and they were some of the that may have had the motivation, or an interesting Christine, But to kill a little baby that age, it just seems like overkill in that situation because I don't know how verbal she was, But maybe it was that killing that really, for some reason tugged on the killer's heartstrings. Maybe they knew them, maybe they

didn't. But killing a little baby girl that age, it just is so brutal. It just hits me right like a gut punch. Oh yeah, just all the details about this are so disturbing. And even Jimmy himself, like, he was only three years old, so he's not going to be much of a witness either. He's going to have a hard time verbalizing what he saw. Yet this person had no hesitation about shooting this little boy three times in this Three times that just seems like overkill. You would think one

would be enough for a child, would it not. Yeah, And he's two and a half miles away from anybody else, so even if he ran, like, is a baby gonna nowhere to go? And is he going to make it without dying? It's just it's ridiculous. The killer had apparently locked the door when they left the house, and a number of twenty two caliber cartridges were found at the scene, so the second shot which was fired

into Christine was a thirty two caliber slug. A red cellophane cigarette wrapper from a brand of cigarettes Cliff did not smoke, was also on the living room floor. Cliff smoked cool brown cigarettes and had purchased a cart and on the day that he was killed, but they were apparently taken by the person who shot him. Cliff's pocket knife was also stolen, and strangely, the Walker's marriage certificate, which normally hung inside a frame on the living room wall,

was also missing. Upon first glance, there didn't seem to be anything else stolen from the house, but it was later discovered that a drum majorrette uniform Christine wore in high school and ordinarily kept in a plastic bag inside a ceed or chest, had been stolen. As well as far as physical evidence from outside intruders. There appeared to be unidentified fingerprints on a baptub bosset, though in later years it was determined that it was most likely a palm print.

Two hairs were also found which were inconsistent with anyone from the Walker family. One of them was a dark hair discovered inside the bathroom, while the other was a blonde hair inside Christine's dress. So when you look at the evidence here, remember Christine had been raped. The marriage certificate's missing, her majorette

uniform is missing, and it seems as if she's the target. That someone's really angry that they didn't get what they wanted from her, and they're going to make her suffer the most and take away what matters to her, which is her husband and her two children, so it's really bizarre. Yes, a pack of cigarettes was taken, but that would be convenience. Someone went to look for an outfit and there's a hair inside her dress and things like

that. So to me, it feels like she was the one that was most handled and harmed and victimized both physically and by the things that were taking

in the house, compared to the dad and the two children. So you think that it was sexually motivated and the robbery was just like a tertiary motivation or resent resentment, like she's mine, I wanted her, I didn't get what I wanted, and so they come and they rape her, they kill everything that matters to her, and they take the marriage certificate as a like, well not anymore, you know what I mean, like someone who wanted

to be with her, it didn't get that opportunity. And then shoot, if I walk by a pack of cigarettes, that's expensive, but take those with me. They'll be a twist later with the marriage certificate. So wonderful will change your opinion. Okay, Okay, go for it. Yeah,

we'll talk about that later. But I still think that the drum major ATTE uniform is the weirdest detail because at least with the marriage certificate it would be out on the wall in the open, But to discover the majorte uniform you would actually have to go into a seat or chest, so it's not visible. So that gives off the impression that whoever did this knew it was there.

And I'd assume it's quite like a cute little risque cheerleading outfit looking thing, which back in that time, you know, a short skirt and a little majorette sweater or something like that would to me be quite sexual as well. Investigators attempted to read traced the victim's movements to figure out how the murders might have taken place. Christine had left the McCloud residence and arrived home before her husband and children, but it turned out she did not park the family

car in its usual spot in front of the house. This led to speculation that the killer was already there and had parked their own vehicle in this spot before Christine arrived. Indeed, a local resident who flew their plane over the property that afternoon at approximately four to twenty pm recalled seeing two cars parked outside the house. Unfortunately, When a deputy arrived at the scene, he parked his car in that spot and may have destroyed tire track evidence from the killer's

vehicle. Christine's purse was hung up in the kitchen, grocery she purchased earlier that day had been put away, and a Christmas card she received from Lucy McLoud was on top of the refrigerator. This seemed to suggest that Christine may have been familiar enough with her killer to invite him inside the house and allow

him to wait there while she performed her household tasks. A quilt from Jimmy's bedroom was stained with blood, and the evidence showed that Christine was raped on top of the bed before the killer fired his first shot at her, which only grazed the top of her head. He then dragged Christine's body into the living room and fired a second shot into her head. It seemed like the killer was using the quilt to white blood from Christine's legs, but may have

been interrupted when Cliff and the children arrived home. One of Christine's high heeled shoes was found on the porch while the other was in the bedroom, and they both have blood on them and the bruises and abrasions on Christine's face indicated that she had put up a fight against her attacker and attempted to use her shoes as weapons. After leaving the McCloud residence in the jeep, Cliff and the two children had been seen stopping at a gas station, so the approximate

time they would have arrived home was around four thirty. Cliff had been shot from a distance, so he was likely ambushed and killed instantly the moment he set foot in the house. A few months after the murders, bloody clothing belonging to Cliff and Christine was found inside a shed about a mile from the walk of residence, so the killer likely used it to clean themselves up when they left, and they had to know where that shed was a mile away

from the house. Again, this property is so big, so how did they find that little shed? Was it on the two and a half mile drive down their driveway or is this somewhere off more obscure, Because the more and more you hear about this, the more and more these people have to know the family and the area, which is an important factor here. And you got to think about these kids too. If Mom's already dead or she's being killed. Dad walks in and is ambushed. Those two babies are standing

there watching their parents get killed before they're also murdered. Yeah, that's just what's horrifying about it, And the idea that the killer went through this without hesitation just kind of shows that they had no conscience. But you're right, the fact that they found this shed does indicate that they had a familiarity with

the area. It's not entirely clear to me if it was on the Palmer Ranch property or if it just happened to be in abandoned shed nearby, but they obviously knew it would be a good hiding place while they got rid of the bloody clothing. Do you know if the shed was visible from any road.

I'm not entirely sure. No, I don't really have any details, only that it was a shed about a mile from the residence, because if it was visible from the road, it may have just been a spot of opportunity, and then we could just be looking into it like this is something that has meaning and that they must have known the area or known the property,

known the walkers. But it's like whether it's one person or multiple people leaving the scene we want to find summer to dispose of these clothes, and they just happened to see this shed while they're escaping, and they're like, Oh, this looks like a good place to dump this stuff, and then they just leave it there. Unfortunately, the local police were woefully inexperienced with

handling a crime this nature. Believe it or not, They did not even possess a good camera, so they had to get a news photographer to take pictures of the crime scene for them. Bloody cowboy bootprints were also found at the house, and for the longest time, it was assumed they belonged to the killer, but it turned out that the prints were from a deputy who'd

accidentally stepped into a pool of blood in the living room. In addition, if you look back at the original newspaper accounts of the case, you can find statements from the Sarasota County Sheriff that Christine was not sexually assaulted, but this was not true, as it turned out that Stephen was found on Christine's

underwear, which would eventually become crucial evidence in this case. You also have to remember that they pulled into the parking spot right in front of their house too, knowing that if there was an intruder who came into this house, it is possible they came in a vehicle. You'd park further away from the residents, hoping you could investigate right around the perimeter of the home and see

if there's footprints, tire track, things like that that are foreign. And instead they're like, we're just gonna pull right up front door service, jump out and start walking around here with our bare feet and see what happens. So you can tell that they're not used to investigating cases like this. So the investigation, at least five hundred and eighty seven people would be looked at as potential suspects. We're going to start off by looking at potential suspects that

have since been cleared. One of them was Don McCloud, who originally discovered the bodies. Another person of interest was Cliff's cousin, Albert Walker, who lived around seventy miles away in the town of Wakula and just happened to show up in Osprey on the day the bodies were found. When Albert arrived at the murder scene, he broke out into hysterics and he had another emotional breakdown at the family's funeral, where he fainted twice and had to be carried out

of the church. Some people found Albert's behavior suspicious and thought he might be staging his emotional outbursts to cover up his own involvement, as there were rumors that he was enamored with Christine. Albert also raised some eyebrows when he claimed he traveled to Osprey in order to speak to Cliff about a Christmas party he was hosting, but it turned out that Cliff was never planning to host any

party. Another odd detail was that when Albert originally arrived in Osprey, he stopped at a local gas station asked for directions to the Walker residence, even though he had briefly lived there on a previous occasion and should have known where it was. However, both Albert and Don McLeod pass polygraph tests, and

in two thousand and five voluntarily submitted themselves to DNA testing. By this point, he was determined that the semen found on Christine's underwear did not belong to Cliff and was likely left by her killer when he raped her, But a DNA sample taken from the seamen did not match don Or Albert and officially cleared them as suspects, but there are some other persons of interest who have never

had their DNA tested. I will say something that the invesciators must have done right is not jumped to conclusions, because when you do look, Albert sounds very suspicious. There's a lot of bizarre behavior. Also, asking for directions makes it seem like he's trying to have an alibi, like where he was, and like I just want to make sure I'm seen around a place I'm

actually familiar with. But then he steps forward and he takes a polygraph, he has his DNA tested, all of that, and that's at the scene of the crime. And so it's you know, we look back at so many cases and we can talk about wrong convictions, and it looks like here, someone who's bizarre and makes some pretty questionable decisions regarding this family but might not have been the killer, was cleared and not suspected of this crime after

passing these tests. So that's a good thing in this case, definitely, And I am glad that for all the mistakes, they did preserve the semen so they could do this DNA testing several decades later, though, as we're going to talk about later on. There would be an additional complication with that. Investigator looked at a meter reader named Stanley Mauk who serviced the Walker residence. Well, there was no direct evidence to link Molk to the crime.

He spent time in a mental institution and received elector shock therapy because he claimed he was sometimes overwhelmed by an uncontrollable urge to kill his wife and children. Another detail which put Malk on the police's radar is that he also happened to be the better reader at a house where another brutal murder took place only four

months earlier. On August seventh, nineteen fifty nine, the body of a twenty two year old University of Florida student named Chandler Stephens was discovered inside a house he was renting from his stepmother in Sarasota, which is located just ten miles northwest of Osprey. Stephens was found hogtied and his head was completely wrapped with his heesive tape. The killer had only left Stephen's nostril holes uncovered so he could breathe, and then proceeded to torture him with a knife for hours

before his throat was cut. The crime became known as the Sarasota Mummy murder and remains unsolved to this day. Other than the fact that Stanley malk was a meter reader at both residences, there was nothing to link the Sarasota Mummy murder to the Walker murders, and Mouk died of brain cancer in nineteen ninety seven. So when you look at this one, the fact that there was a the duct tape and the knife being used versus gunshots and drowning, Yes,

they're both brutal. Yes he was a meta reader at both, but those are quite different methods of operation for killing somebody. Oh yeah, Like one of these days, I think I want to do like my own individual podcast episode on the Sarasota Mummy murder because it's creepy and it's bizarre, and I don't think there are ever any suspects in that case. But that sounded like the living hell to be tortured for hours. Will you're wrapped in tape

and only have your nostril hols uncovered so you're still alive. But it doesn't seem like there's any connection between the two cases. But it is kind of a weird coincidence that malk would be a meta reader. At both these residents where murders took place, Investigators were told that a couple of different men from the area had made inappropriate advances on Christine, but one person who stood out

was sixty five year old Wilbur took Her. Tooker lived about a mile from the Walk residence, it was their closest neighbor, and he seemed to have an obsession with Christine. On more than one occasion, took Her had stopped by the house while Cliff was away and attempted to kiss Christine. When Cliff found out about this, he became so angry that he reportedly had to be talked out of killing took Her, but he still confronted him and warned took

Her not to come around their house anymore. On the day of the murders, Tooker's whereabouts could be accounted for after five PM, as he had dinner with a friend in Sarasota before going to a local high school to play the violin in an orchestra at a concert later that night. However, Tooker technically had no alibi between four o'clock and five o'clock, the exact time period the Walkers were killed, and he passed away in March of nineteen sixty ten three.

At the time I released my original Trail with Cold episode four and a half years ago, no DNA testing had been performed in regards to took Her, but investigators have since obtained DNA samples from his surviving descendants and compared them to the DNA from the Seman evidence. While a conclusive match was not made, took Her could not entirely be dismissed as a contributor either, So he

has never officially been ruled out. What does that mean? So, I mean, I know, if you can't make a conclusive match, you can't go forward with it with any kind of conclusion. But if he can't be discounted as a contributor, the rates are so high when you match certain elements of someone's DNA, So if he matches on some of these, what's going on with the inability to rule him out? I'm not entirely sure. It might just have to be with the quality of the evidence because it's so old

and it's degraded, and it may have been cross contaminated. They may have found something like maybe some of the markers for ticker matches, but not all of them. And maybe it's because they don't have a full DNA sample that they can't say, well, it's definitely not him, or it's definitely him. But yeah, this has only come about in recent years when DNA testing has advanced a lot. But I guess they just weren't able to get like a conclusive match, so they and it's not like they have to arrest him

and take him a trial because he's long dead at this point. So the fact that they said that the match was not strong enough to announce that he was the killer leads me to believe that there's still plenty of reasonable doubt. That's true too. But you did have the other two men that the DNA was cleared. I mean they said, no, you are not a contributing factor. And so it's interesting to have another suspect where they say we can't rule him out. It's like, oh my goodness, I guess it all

depends on DNA markers and how many of them are a match. Do we know much about his personality because to rule him in, to think that, like, is this the type of person that could in cool blood, I guess in Colder Blood, which was the name of the book that was written

about this case later on. But to be able to kill a family of four with two children, like one of them just under two years old, the other three years old, to do that and then to show up and to meet your friend for dinner and then go play violin in an orchestra and to see they obviously would have talked to the people around him and said,

did he seem phased? Was he panicked? And I think that it would shake most people to their core, even if you're unless you're a psychopath, I can't imagine a situation where you wouldn't be showing some kinds of outward signs of being very affected by the actions that you had taken in order to end the life of a family of four. Yeah. That's the thing about Tooker is that he's definitely alleged like he has a history of inappropriate behavior, But

I haven't heard anything about him having a history of violence. And he's sixty five years old this point, so it's just kind of crazy that he could live a normal life and then while he's a senior citizen, wipe out an entire family including two young children, and then just show no emotion about it

whatsoever. So, I mean, there's a lot to think that took her could be the guy, but the crime is just so brutal and cold blooded that it just seems weird that someone with no known history of violence could just do this at such a late stage in his life. Ash, did you just shudder at the thought when you heard that this guy came to her house, Christine's home while her husband isn't there, and then proceeded to try to hit on her, not just one time, but two times, Yeah,

multiple times. Has no respect for her boundaries, has no respect for her as a wife and mother, and just basically has the attitude that if I want it, I'm going to get it. That seems like what he's going to come to her home, He's going to force himself on her. I don't blame her husband for being like almost irrationally outraged, like leave my wife and my family alone. It crosses a horrific line and really violates Christine as a woman, And at the time, there's not a whole lot of attentionion

around that. So she's sitting there, going, I have this man harassing me and physically coming on to me, and I really don't have a way to get him to leave me alone. Investigators were also contacted by the cousin of a man named Curtis McCall, who believed that Curtis may have been conducting

a secret affair with Christine. Curtis was a former high school boyfriend of Christine's, and two weeks before the murder, while Cliff was away at a rodeo, Christine supposedly stopped by the home of one of Curtis's relatives in Arcadia to look for him. A couple of Christine's friends claimed she'd asked them how to

terminate a pregnancy. Christine had actually experienced two miscarriages in nineteen fifty nine, so there was gossip about the possibility of her becoming pregnant with his secret lover, though the autopsy revealed she was definitely not pregnant at the time of her death. Curtis was also believed who have owned a twenty two caliber pistol. Was known for having a violent temper and reportedly appeared nervous and on edge following

the murders. When he was interviewed by investigators, Curtis denied ever having an affair with Christine, and while he admitted to once owning a twenty two caliber pistol, he claimed to have since sold it to someone whose name he couldn't remember. Curtis was also given a polygraph test, and according to the results, the only question he answered which indicated deception was have you withheld any information

from law enforcement officers about the Walker murders. There was ultimately no evidence to implicate Curtis, but when police attempted to track him down for DNA testing in two thousand and five, he could not be located. To be honest, that question opens up a lot of possibility. Have you withheld any information from

law enforcement officers about the Walker murders? If I had just been on a polygraph test, or I had been talking to the police before the polygraph test and I had lied about my relationship with Christine, if I had lied about not knowing the man's name that I gave the gun, to those types of issues, and then they say have you withheld any information? Then I say

no, It's possible. The way my brain works and body reacts that I'm admitting that, yes, I lied about something we talked about, but it could be a more minor personal thing that had nothing to do with the murders themselves and had to do with his dynamic with the family in general. I think it tells us more probably that he was likely asked did you murder the

Walker family? And he didn't get deception on that because, like he said, ashe it could be anything that he could be hiding that he thinks could have contributed to the reason that they were murdered. It's just so difficult to know, right, I mean, like, did they say was she pregnant? Did you ever get her pregnant? And he says no, what if

he had or what if he didn't know? And he's thinking like maybe, and he says no emphatically, and he's thinking on that question like, oh my gosh, I've lied about a couple things out of you know, pride and decency or respect for Christine or respect for her husband, whatever. And then it's going to show deception because yes, I've withheld information. I lied to you about a couple of things, but I didn't kill her and I don't know. It doesn't necessarily mean he knows who did kill her, but

could have been deceptive about his story surrounding he and the family. There were a number of other interesting leads which went nowhere. Emmett Monroe Spencer, a convicted murderer on death row at Rayford Prison, sent a letter to police in which he confessed to the Walker murders. However, his confession was soon discredited once investigators determined that he was in California at the time the murders took place.

Spencer was known for being a pathological liar, and while his confession contained enough accurate details about the crime to suggest he might be involved, it turned out he had learned this information from newspaper articles. This was an unfortunate side effect of the police using a news photographer to take pictures of the murder scene, as a number of these photos were published in the newspapers and featured enough

details for Spencer to construct his false confession. In August of nineteen ninety four, an anonymous woman called the Sarasota County Sheriff's office who claimed to be a bartender from Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. She said she was talking to one of her regular customers, whom she described as a retired white male in his sixties who

worked odd jobs in the area. She said, he suddenly started crying, and when the woman asked what was wrong, the man supposedly told her that he had once killed some people named Walker in Osprey, Florida, many years ago. The woman said she would call back later with more information, but she never did, so this tip could not be verified. That is so bizarre because she's up in Pennsylvania and she says that one of her regulars comes

in. She never gave them a name or any information. And I wonder if she was able to give any facts that made it quite specific to the murder. I mean, we know enough facts were out in the media because of this false confession by the death Rowan made at Rayford. But if there was a specific piece of information that she shared at the time, it would make it a valid informant. But at I don't know. It's all the way up in Pennsylvania, one of our regulars and she doesn't follow through.

It makes me think she's either actually more in touch and more personal with the individual she's calling about, like a husband, a boyfriend, a dear friend, or she's reaching for something. Why would you not give the information if you were going to share it, unless you might have a dynamic with a person that made you worried or heavy about trying to share that information with police.

And the weird thing about the possibility of this being a false tip is that this was nineteen ninety four, thirty five years after the murders, and it's the early stages of the Internet. So it's not like someone from Pennsylvania could just google about this murder, which took place in Florida decades earlier. So I don't know how widespread knowledge was about the Walker murders up in places

like Pennsylvania during the nineteen nineties. So maybe she legitimately he did hear someone say they had killed someone in Florida named Walker, and maybe the person was lying, but she still thought it was an important enough tip to call.

But then why would she hang up without providing more information. The most interesting development would take place in twenty twelve, when the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office announced that they were exploring the possibility that the Walker family murders might have been connected to another family, which also happened to be one of the most infamous crimes in American history. Many of you were probably already familiar with this story,

but here's a quick refresher. During the early morning hours of November fifteenth, nineteen fifty nine, a pair of ex convicts named Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, who had recently been paroled from the Kansas State Penitentiary, entered a farmhouse located outside of Polcombe, Kansas. The occupants of the house were forty eight year old Herbert Klutter and his forty five year old wife Bonnie, along with

their sixteen year old daughter Nancy and fifteen year old son Kenyon. The family were woken up by the intruders before they were bound and gagged well incarcerated. Smith and Hickock had been told by a fellow inmate that the Clutter family kept a large amount of cash inside a safe at their farmhouse, but this turned out to be untrue, as no such safe existed. The two men responded by slashing Herbert Clutter's throat and then shot every single member of the family in

the head before fleeing the scene. Smith and Hiccock would remain fugitives for over a month before they were finally captured in Las Vegas on December thirtieth. Both men were subsequently convicted and sentenced to death for the murders before they were executed

by a hanging on April fourteenth, nineteen sixty five. As you probably know, the case attained worldwide notoriety after noted author Truman Capodi published a book about it titled In Cold Blood, which remains one of the most highly read true crime books of all time. Now, given that the Walker family murders took place during the period of time when Smith and Hiccock were on the run, and there were a number of similarities with the Clutter family murders, investigators explored

the possibility that the two men may have been responsible for both crimes. There's actually a brief section in Cold Blood where Capodi references the Walker murders, as Smith is described as reading about the crime in the newspaper and remarking to Hiccock

that the murders or the Clutters may have inspired this. When Smith and Hiccock were questioned about the Walker murders, they admitted to having traveled through Florida, but denied ever visiting Sarasota County. Both men pass polygraphs, and In Cold Blood seems to imply that they were eliminated as suspects because they had solid alibis on the day of the crime. But in the years following its publication, a number of factual inaccuracies have been discovered in the book, putting these so

called alibis. It's difficult to take anything from my book as saying, Okay, this is fact, right. I mean, it's a great book, but I could understand where you know, you're taking people's words for it. He's where did Capoti get all of his information? So I wouldn't hold the

book as fact that these guys had a solid alibi. But I find it interesting that you have Christine was sexually assaulted, and it seems like her murder was very purposeful, and then the other ones were like getting rid of evidence, right, So a quick shooting of the husband and quick shooting of the son and drowning the daughter. It almost seems like the in Cold Blood there was more of a like they're tied up and they're looking for money, they're

trying to get information out of the family. They to me, they feel very different, where one is a like either sexually motivated and emotionally motivated goal towards Christine and the family had to die as a collateral versus, we're tying this family up for a purpose of this robbery, and then we're going to execute people so we don't get caught. To me, I see them as

very different. It is true that the Clutter family murders were probably done out of frustration, because both these men were under the pulse impression that they were going to get rich and that there was a safe in the house, and when they found out that this was a lie, they took it out on the family and murdered all of them. But I know that the mos do

seem a bit different. But I definitely could see Smith and Hitcock murdering another family if they were desperate enough, because they were two of the most wanted fugitives in the United States at that time, so if they had the opportunity to steal anything from the Walker residence, I could see them going through with

it. I mean, there isn't anything definitive, but it does seem like quite a coincidence that we have these two separate family murders, which all took place within a month of each other, and these two killers could be placed in both areas at both times, and I think that motivations could change a little bit from Okay, I think we're going to get rich to that of desperation, possibly coupled with a sexual motivation, which we'll talk more about with

Hiccock later. There is that possibility there, I think, because when they started out they'd been parolled, and when if they had committed the Walker murders, they would have been on the lamb, so they would be desperate for things like any type of money, food, cigarettes, things like that, a place that they could just rest their head for a second. So it could be that they started off with the one motivation and then as time went

on and desperation grew, their motivation kind of morphed into something else. The timeline from in Cold Blood is that Smith and Hickock spent the evening of December the eighteenth, nineteen fifty nine, sleeping in their car parked by the side

of the road near the Alabama Florida border. They then traveled through Florida the following day and spent the evening of December the nineteenth at a hotel in Tallahassee, but in actuality records showed that the two men had checked into a hotel in Miami Beach on December the eighteenth and pay for one week's stay in advance, and no witnesses could confirm having seen them in Tallahassee until the twenty first.

On the morning of December nineteenth, Smith and Hickock decided to check out of the Miami Beach Hotel, even though management refused to give them a refund on the additional days they had already paid for. Miami is located over two hundred miles southeast of Osprey, but the two men would be spotted in Sarasota County later that day, as they were seen purchasing items from a Sarasota department

store located only a few miles away from the Walker residence. The following day, the owner of a gas station just outside of Arcadia claimed that two men driving in nineteen fifty six Chevrolet Bellaire stopped to ask for directions. He would later identify the two men as Smith and Hickcock, who were driving a stolen Chevy bel Air at that time. But what's most interesting is that the witness

described Hiccock as having a badly scratched up face. Now this car is a very important detail because, as you recall, Cliff Walker had been planning to trade in his family car and frequented some used car lots on the day he was killed, and one vehicle he expressed interest in was in nineteen fifty six Chevrolet, So theoretically Smith and Hiccock could have gained access to the Walker home

under the pretense of arranging a trade for their car. When the two men were arrested, one of them was carrying a pocket knife which was similar to the one which was stolen from Cliff Walker, and on Christmas Eve of that year, Smith and Hickcock sold two dolls wrapped in Christmas paper to a local minister. There was speculation that these dolls may have originally been intended as Christmas presents for Debbie and have been lying under the Walker's Christmas tree before they were

stolen. It really has you put things in perspective where there seems to be opportunities where you do have these two men with different things, like the dolls are very bizarre. Why would these two men have access to dolls? Like why would they go buy those? That car is very highly concerning, And the fact that they're lying about where their locations were, like why would you lie about that you paid for these hotels? You found at other hotels.

I mean, it's very confusing. They're a whereabouts back and forth. It seems like they're very sporadic and very unorganized. Yeah, exactly. And I could see them just happen to drive through Ausbrey that day, in crossing paths with the Walker and then deciding to make an arrangement to trade cars, and then thinking, hey, this is a good opportunity. They have an isolated farmhouse that is miles away from anyone else. This is a perfect opportunity to

pull off some sort of murder. And like Jules talked about, since their wanted fugitives trying to evade the lock, they could have been desperate enough to try anything, even though obviously the Walkers were not a wealthy family and they're not going to get a large haul. If they decide to rob them, they could have run into them. Maybe they had the original plan in case somebody would recognize the vehicle that they were in. Maybe they wanted to go

to a used car lot at extreme their vehicle. They could have met the Walkers there and then made a later plan to go to their home and said, well, this is where it's located. Because just something about the crime says to me that there's two people, and I think part of it is that whoever decided to go and sexually assault Christine obviously knew that there was other

people that lived there, and they felt comfortable enough. She probably said my husband's coming home, like I'm sure that she would have, because to put myself in that position, if you're scared and somebody's attacking you, you're going to say, like you should leave, my husband's coming home. So this person likely would have been aware of this fact. And the fact that they then go and take her to the room and sexually assault her makes me think

that you feel comfortable enough that somebody else is watching that front door. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, because if they had encountered the walkers in town, they obviously know that the husband and the children are going to come back eventually, So for one of them to feel comfortable enough to commit sexual assault,

that would make more sense if they had backup. And of course no other detail is that they found a thirty two slug at the scene which did not match any of the other bullets, which could point to the possibility that there were two guns used by two different people. One reason that Smith and Hiccock did not seem like promising suspects during the initial investigation. Is that the unidentified fingerprints found on the bathtub faucet in the Walker residence did not match either

of them. But like we mentioned earlier, it now seems likely that these fingerprints were actually palm prints. And of course, while polygraph tests were given a lot more weight sixty five years ago, modern investigators are well aware of how unreliable they are, so they did not put much stock into the fact that both men passed when they were originally questioned. Following their execution, Smith and Hiccock were buried at Mount Munsey Cemetery in Lansing, Kansas, so this

Arizonta County Sheriff's Office made arrangements to exhume their bodies. They hoped to extract some mitochondrial DNA from the bones to see if it matched any of the semen evidence from Christine's underwear. While in August of twenty thirteen, the Sheriff's office

announced that the results were inconclusive. DNA was taken from Smith's feamer bone and it did not match the DNA from the seamen, but only a partial DNA profile could be extracted from Hickock's remains, and since the samples from the murder scene were old and degraded, it could not be conclusively determined if Hickcock's DNA was a match or not. It's worth noting that during the Clutter Family murders, Hickcock had made an attempt to rape the teenage shod Or Nancy, but

Smith intervened and prevented this. If both these men were responsible for the Walker murders, Hickock likely would have been the one who sexually assaulted Christine, So the fact that Smith was excluded as being the source of the seamen's sample did not necessarily rule him out as being involved in the crime. In spite of these inconclusive results, Smith and Hiccock are still both considered to be viable suspects.

It goes back to that original investigation where you have things where they're looking for a fingerprint to match, and if it was a palm print, then you're never going to find a fingerprint that matches the palm print. And when you do look at the idea that one of these suspects was sexually aggressive and almost raped the teenager at the other home, and then He's the one who they can't rule in or out as the DNA contributor that is highly concerning.

In a surprising turn of events, Cliff Walker's niece contacted investigators in November of twenty twelve and revealed that Cliff and Christine's marriage certificate had turned up among some items which were recently given to her by relative. It's not entirely clear how the marriage certificate wound up there, but this development seemed to indicate that it

was not actually stolen by the killer. In twenty eighteen, the Sarasona County Sheriff's Office announced that they were going to attempt to use genetic genealogy in hopes of turning up a match to the DNA evidence. However, in recent years, investigator have realized that some of the DNA found on Christine's underwear was similar to an incomplete DNA sequence belonging to Christine, which was collected from her dress.

This meant that cross contamination had likely taken place, and Christine's DNA wound up being mixed with the DNA belonging to her killer. In other words, all the DNA testing which have been performed over the years was now meaningless as it did not prove or disprove any of the suspects culpability. Just last year, Cliff and Christine's remains were exhumed and sent to a private lab as there is hope that their DNA can be identified and removed from the mixture found in

Christine's underwear. This would hopefully allow scientists to extract the killer's genetic code from the sperm cell evidence and upload it to an ancestry website for the purposes of genetic genealogy. However, as far as I can tell, this is yet to take place, so after nearly sixty five years, the Walker family murders continued to remain unsolved. So I guess you could say the path went Chile.

It would be hopeful that now with the technology we have, that they could separate the male and the female contributor in a mixed or contaminated sample, but who knows if that's possible. In this situation, it does make you want to go back to the man who had not been ruled out. He couldn't be conclusively excluded, but he wasn't a direct match, and wondering well were certain markers of his present and so were Christine's and that's why he wasn't

a one hundred percent match. Yeah, that's what I was thinking of as well with Wilbur Tooker, is that they just simply said that the results were inconclusive, but he could not be excluded. So it's possible that some of the markers did match. But if the markers that didn't match actually belonged to Christine rather than the killer, that's why they could make a definitive conclusion.

So it would be interesting to see if this is successful and they were able to extract the Killer's DNA and retested it against Hooker's d would it be a more complete match. So I think this would be a good time to bring it into Part one. But join us next week as we present part two of our series about the Walker family murders. Robin, do you want to

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