‘In Cold Blood’ Murderers Investigated in Florida

OSPREY, Fla. (AP) _ A Florida detective wants to exhume the bodies of two Kansas murderers who were featured in the iconic true crime book “In Cold Blood.”

Sarasota County Sheriff’s detective Kimberly McGath says she believes there is evidence linking Perry Smith and Richard Hickock to the 1959 murders of a family of four in a rural community south of Sarasota.

Smith and Hickock were convicted in Kansas of murdering Herb Clutter, his wife and their two daughters, also in 1959.

The murders were the subject of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood.”

McGath says the Walker family’s killer left behind his DNA on a preserved piece of clothing.

Officials say if Smith and Hickock are exhumed, the DNA can be compared.

Smith and Hickock visited Florida after the Kansas mass murders.