Garden City Telegram from Garden City, Kansas • Page 1

Bounce Along with Today's Bonanza Specials Tomorrow's Forecast Partly Cloudy Garden City Telegram 1 p.m. Temperature 72 Volume 36 GARDEN CITY, KANSAS, 67846, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 1965 7c A Copy 3 Sections 26 Pages No. 138 Hickock, Smith Pay Extreme Penalty it if Crude, Casual and Impersonal By BILL BROWN LANSING As cold as the sheets of steel slacked on the warehouse floor. As casual as the guard leaning against a pile of lumber. As impersonal as the hangman, whose expression never changed under his broad-brimmed hat.

As crude as the very gallows it is exacted upon. This is capital punishment in Kansas. witnessed it being carried out on two men in the early hours of this morning. I know it happened but was mesmerized into a state of unreality by the total insignificance of the surroundings. The gallows at the Kansas State Penitentiary long have stood in the southeast corner of a general warehouse just outside the prison walls.

Inside a large vehicle door stands the instrument of legal death in Kansas. I almost failed To Be Buried At Leavenworth LANSING, Kan. (AP)-Hlch- ard Eugene Hickock and Perry Edwadd Smith, executed early today for the 1959 slaying of four members of the Herbert Clutter family, will be buried in a Leavenworth cemetery. Deputy Warden Kenneth Harton of the Kansas Penitentiary said he has directed a Leavenworth funeral home to arrange for the burials in Mt. Muncie cemetery.

Neither body was claimed by relatives, he said. The funeral was set for 10 a. m. Thursday. It will consists of graveside services presided over by the Rev.

Edgar Meissner, Protestant chaplain at the prison. The men will buried side by side. The state will pay for the burials but Smith's will cost it $250' less than Hickock's, Smith, an honorably Korean War veteran, is entitled $250 veterans burial allowance. the families specify it, there will be no grave markers. to see it as I entered the large chilled room minutes before Richard Hickock was brought in.

Two new ropes swung from a heavy cross beam about eight feet above the platform. were no chairs for prison officials and others who witnessed the hangings. We stood in small groups or wandered about, disguise apprehension and emotion with casual conversation or forced nonchalance. An almost total lack of formality put the one formal act that of the warden reading the warrants to the condemned men to the proceedings. There was no "last mile walk for the prisoners." Each was brought by car into the warehouse and emerged just a few feet away from the gallows' 13 steps.

The trap was sprung with an unsuspected suddenness. The victims reached the end of their ropes with a neck-breaking snap in full view of any of us who wanted to look. There was no squirming or utterances from the bodies. Death wasn't official until several minutes later but to the victims, life ended instantly. The stark reality of what I had witnessed came later after I had left the improbable surrounding of the executions.

It came as I sat down to a typewriter and to tell the story of two deaths to the readers and listeners of a society which has yet to grasp the complete answer to crime and punishment. Perry Edward Smith and Richard Eugene Hickock will not kill again. This is the only certainty which came out of this damp, chilly, unforgettable night. State House Kills Pay Increase Measure TOPEKA (AP) Kansas House members devoted most of a long evening session Tuesday to killing a bill which would have increased the salaries of several state officials. The bill was stricken from the calendar on a voice vote.

It was estimated the pay increases would have totaled between $175,000 and $200,000 a year. Woman, 80, Blown 1 Feet, Survives HILLSDALE, (AP) "And they thought I had a bad heart," an 80-year-old widow said today as she told how she was blown 700 feet into a lake by a tornado. She survived by clinging to wreckage from her home. Mrs. Hugh Norris, who lived alone, said she was sitting in her two-story frame home at nearby Beese Lake Sunday night when a storm struck.

"The house shook and made a lot of noise," she said. "The lights went out. So I went upstairs to my bedroom and found I couldn't open the door. "I went beck downstairs, lit two kerosene lanterns and started writing a letter. I just couldn't sit there and do nothing.

Then the noise started again. The table began to tip. I fell down. I can't remember when I felt the water. It kept coming up until it reached my chin." Realizing she was in the lake, Mrs.

Norris managed to reach a large piece of floating debris which once had been part of her home. "I called and called. There was no answer. Then I heard voices calling," she said. The voices were those of Dr.

D.D. Walker and Larry Raymond, neighbors of Mrs. Norris. Dr. Walker said that when he managed to locate where the voice was coming from out of the night-shrouded lake he walked out into the water until it reached his neck.

He found Mrs. Norris and carried her back to shore. He and Raymond took her to a hospital where she was treated for cuts and bruises and released. She went to stay with relatives. Only the foundation of Mrs.

Norris' home remains. The Weather Sunrise 6:09 Sunset 7:18 Max. Mln. Free. Dodge City 59 50 .16 Emporia 62 52 .10 GARDEN CITY 60 51 .09 Goodland 63 42 Russell 56 61 Trace Saltna 60 53 .18 Topeka 57 53 .04 Wichita 63 58 .07 Partly cloudy and mild tonight with west to northwesterly'winds 10 to 20.

Lows in 40s. Thursday partly cloudy and turning cooler with winds becoming northerly 15 to 30. Highs in lower Ms. Pair Meets Death On KSP Gallows Union Services Planned Friday Union Good Friday services LANSING Perry Edward Smith, 36, and Richard Eugene Hickock, 33, are dead. Within an hour during this early-morning damp and i are to be at the Community chilly darkness the two men paid the extreme penalty on church 710 N.

3rd from noon to the unpainted but sturdy gallows at the Kansas State Penitentiary. Hickock, 33, died first at 12:41 a.m.; Smith, 36, died next! peal efforts detail a and the ap- Perry Edward Smith Richard Eugene Hickock Last Words Attack CapitalPunishment LANSING Perry Edward Smith went to the gallows here early this morning with an attack against capital punishment fresh from his lips. Asked if he had anything to say before mounting the gallows, Smith stated, "Yes, I would like to say a word or two. "I think it is a hell of a thing that a life has to be taken in this manner. I say this especially because there's a great deal I could have offered society.

I certainly think capital punishment Is legally and morally wrong. "Any apology for what I have done would be meaningless at this time. I don't have any animosities toward anyone involved in this matter. I think that is all." Hickock's Eyes To Two Persons LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) Eugene Hickock, executed at the Kansas Penitentiary early today along with Perry Edward Smith, secretly arranged to have his eyes given for use in saving someone else's sight.

The eyes were taken by a doctor to the Kansas University Medical Center at Kansas City, for use in corneal transplants. Later Dr. Lawrence Hyde, director of the eye bank at the center, said both eyes were transplanted this to a woman, the other to a man. He said normally such transplants are made within 14 hours after removal from a donor. He did not identify the recipients by name.

Richard Eugene Hickock had less to say. When asked if he wanted to make a statement Hickock answered, with a nolicable smile, "No, I guess I don't." But then he motioned for Kansas Bureau Investigation Agent Roy Church, who played a major role in the arrest of the two men, to come over to where he (Hickock) was standing. "You're sending me to a better place than Hickock stated, and added that ho did not bear any grudge against Church for his role in the case. He then shook hands and said, "Goodbye." In succession, Hickocfc asked two other KBI agents who worked in the case, Harold Nye and Clarence Duntz, t( come forward and gave them a similiar message, only much audible. Little Hope Seen for Private Club Measure TOPEKA (AP) The House moved against profit-making private cluibs Tuesday.

The lower chamber cut away the portion of a Senate-passed bill which provided for commercial clubs. The House left Intact the provision for licensing of non-profit private clubs such as country clubs, fraternal and veterans organizations. Hope appeared dim for agreement from the Senate, and indications were the state may go through two mores years of little or no regulation of the clubs. at 1:19. It was almost years since their conviction of slaying Herh Ve.sirv Clutter, a well-to-do wheat farmer, his wife, teen-age daughter and son at the lavish Clutter home west of Garden City, the night of Nov.

14, Dr. Mitchell Jones of Newton, who examined Smith in touch tody there and 3 p.m. Theme of the service will be "The Last Seven Words of Christ" presented by seven local ministers. Union Good Friday services Cowgill Elected Garden City Mayor Garden City has a new mayor. Jim Cowgill was elected to that post during the re-organizational session of the new five- man city commission' this morning.

James Sloan has served as mayor the past four years. Cowgill has just completed his first 4-year term on the commission. Elected vice chairman of the group was Gervais Reed, newly elected member. City Clerk, Charles Peebles, administered the oath of office to the new commission. Other now member is James Steward.

Cowgill and Morris Jones were re-elected and Sloan carries over for another two years of his 4- term. In other action City Manager Deane Wiley presented to commissioners an oral request made by Bud Meredith in behalf of. Earl Brookover that one of the large twin-engine hangars at the airport be provided with rest rooms, water and heat. Commissioners took no formal action on the request and asked tJiat the request be made in writing for a later decision. City Clerk Peebles asked that April 28, 8:30 a.m., be set for a hearing on completed street and sewer improvements.

Commissioners approved his request. Other approvals given at this morning's session: Non-discrimination at airport facilities. Bond of Donald Spence, doing business as the Merchants Security Patrol. Renewal of lease for premises at airport to be used for grain storage as asked by E.J. Rickel, president of Grainton Elevator Co.

new lease for Gilbert operate go-cart track based on annual instead of monthly rent. Official bonds for the newly elected commissioners were approved prior to the reorganization of the board. The city manager presented information on the city operation and budget and presented commissioners with various city informational booklets and materials. Commissioners also accepted a petition to curb, gutter, pave and otherwise improve Thomp- son, 6th to 3rd. The Garden City Telegram was desinated the official city paper.

Mrs. Marjorie Philbrick, representing the Gay Niters Home Demonstration Unit, '-as granted permission to plant two flower beds on each side of the band shell in Stevens Park. Wilev told commissioners a radiological monitoring class for Civil Defense will be at the National Guard Armory April 15, 20 and 23. Classes were conducted Friday and Tuesday. Com- missioners paid a tribute to Mrs.

Philbrick for her outstanding work in stocking the CD shelters. A deed from Mr. and Mrs. Henry Weldon, Mr. and Mrs.

J.E. Dale and Mr. and Mrs. John Eaton was accepted. The deed covers a tract of ground formally known as Central Drive.

It is for street purposes. Commissioners also waived all fees and licenses for a Brodbeck- Schrader carnival to be May 23 through 29, sponsored by the Garden City Roping Club. The board accepted a quitclaim deed from Alice Cobb for spaces in Valley View Cemetery. Denied was a request by Robert Lange that he be allowed to tie into the city sewer system. Lange lives outside the city limits.

Commissioners set April 28 for a bid letting for certain storm sewer work to be done on llth from Olive to the drainage ditch and May 12 for letting of bids of other curb, gutter and paving work. TAKING THE OATH of office, administered by City Clerk Charlw right, are four city commissioners two two new members. From left, they Photo Morris Jonei, James Steward, Gervals Reed and Jim Cowgill. Cowgill and Jones tke During the morning session the commission named Cowgill mayor. They had exhausted three Hth hour attempts to escape the hangman.

It was their fifth date with the executioner. Four others were reprieved. Gov. William H. Avery, U.S.

Dist. Judge George Templar of Topeka, Kan. and Associate Justice Byron R. White of the U.S. Supreme Court all denied petitions for a state of execution Tuesday.

The had been in the courts since the convictions, March 29, 1960, four times before the Supreme Court whidi refused to review the case. As Hickock waited for the trap to spring beneath him, the prison chaplain, the Rev. Edgar Meissner, read a portion of the 23rd Psalm. As Smith waited, the Rev. James Post, former prison ehap- Inin quietly, "The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away.

Blessed is the name of the Lord. May the Lord have mercy on your soul." Later the Rev. Mr. Post said Smith had not wanted anything read over him. "I cheated him a little bit," the former chap lain added.

He had known both men for the greater portion of their stay on death row. The slaying of the Clutters climaxed a penny-ante robbery. When officers arrived, Clutter 48, lay sprawled on a mattress in the basement, stabbed, his I a she charge fired in his head. He wore pajamas, his hands were bound and his mouth was taped shut. On a couch in an adjoining room was 14-year-old Kenyon Neal Clutter, bound, gagged and shot in the head.

In separate upstairs bedrooms were the bodies of Mrs. Bonnie Mae Clutter, 45, and Nancy Mae Clutter, 15. Mrs. Clutter was bound and gagged, Nancy only bound. Each had been shot in the head.

Missing was less than $50 in cash, a portable radio and a pair of binoculars. Investigators checked out official witness of the execution at Smith's request. Dr. Jones said Smith apparently was born and reared in Washington state and was abandoned by his mother, a bareback rider in a circus, when he was 9. His last word on his father was that he was prospecting in Alaska.

Smith's most recent address of any duration before the murders was in Elko, Nev. Prison officials did not get word from any relatives of Smith. Hickock and Smith ate their final meal in separate rooms, each with a chaplain sitting by. They shrimp, had ordered french fries, spiced garlic with him in an effort to help are conducted annualy under him, visited Smith and was an the auspices of the Garden City Ministerial Alliance. Presenting the "first word" will be Dick McCaulley, Assembly of God Church.

Second "word" will be by The Rev. Dorsey Rotruck, Church of the Brethren. Third the Rev. Alvin Houser, First Christian Church; fourth the Rev. C.

M. Fogleman First Methodist Church; fifth Bruce Oyler, Youth For Christ director; sixth the Rev. V.L. Bobbs, Second Baptist Church; seventh the Rev. Herman Liese, First Baptist Church.

The Rev. Malcolm Bertram, Community Church, will deliver the call to worship. Six members of the Community Church will serve as ushers. Mrs. Sam Lowery will be organist.

A free will offering will be taken at the north exit for the Migrant Ministry. Three Arrested In Burglaries KANSAS CITY, Kan. Stolen office equipment, tools and money valued at nearly $8,000 were recovered with the arrest of three men Tuesday. The articles had been taken in three burglaries of the Fairfax industrial distri during tha past seven days, police said. Questioned were LaCount A.

Bly, 16, John Johnson, 53, and Frank Williamson, 19, all of the Kansas City area. B1 and Williamson were charged with larceny and bur- lary. Johnson was apprehended with seven of the eight office machines, taken from the Hotpoint Co. (2949 Chrysler Road) police said. Also recovered were tools belonging to employes at the Trail- motoile Co.

at Seventh Street and Kindelberger. When Williamson bread, ice cream and strawberries and whipped cream. The gallows was built in a warehouse just inside the walls at the southeast corner of the prison. It was chilly inside the hieh stone walls. Five bare light bulbs, suspended from the peak of the wooden roof, lighted the platform at the top of 13 steps.

At thn outlot, two nooses were suspended from a large crossbeam built diagonally across the platform. Warden Sherman Crouse read the death warrant after Hickock was brought in at 12:14 and Smith at 12:56. Each was given a chance to say a last word before he climb efi steps to the platform. Hickock addressed his remark don't have any hard feel' four agents of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation who were listed as assistants to the executioner. Al Dewey, agent at Garden City, and Roy Church played important roles in the solving of the case.

The others were Harold Nye, director of investigations for the KBI, and Clarence Duntz. The identity of the hangman was not disclosed, but Warden Crouse said he is not an em- ploye of the state. A few moments after each man dropped through the trap, a guard stepoed to the body and opened the shirt. Dr. Robert H.

Moore, the prison physician, listened for heart beats and determined when the men were more than 700 tips before Hickock and Smith almost boastfully admitted the crime. The idea of robbing Clutter took shape in their minds while serving time in the prison the spring of 1959 for writing bad checks. Hickock was told by a former cellmate that the wealthy farm- ever, for whom the fellow convict had once worked as harvest hand, kept large sums of money in a safe at home. Hickock took Smith into his confidence and the petty crooks dreamed a big dream. Clutter had no such safe and never carried more than $50 or $60 in cash.

Hickock and Smith did not discover this until the night they entered the home. When they couldn't find the safe they awoke Clutter. He gave them the little cash he had and said there was no more. They aroused the remainder of the family and again searched the house, confirming Clutter's story for themelves. The murders followed.

Hickock's mother, Mrs. Eunice Hickock, who lives at Bethel, and bis brother, Walter D. Hickock of Garnett, Kan. visited him Tuesday afternoon. Joseph Jenkins and Robert Bingham, Kanas City, attorneys who made the last-1 ditch efforts to gab them a new i trial, visited both men.

So did Truman Capote, New York writer who has written a book reporting the murders, the Garden Sass Gus Garden finds a rummage sale is where you buy stuff from other 'basements to your owu. dead. After each execution, a was arrested, police said, he had hearse entered the warehouse i in the trunk of his car office and bore the body away. equipment taken from the B. F.

Goodrich Co. (830 Kindelberger). An Epilogue to Heinous Crime It is finished. Richard Eugene Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, whose names already are legend in the crime annals of Kansas, are dead. Their deaths on the crude gallows within the walls of the Kansas State Prison have written the epilogue to the state's most heinous crime in modern history.

Death came five years and five months after that fateful night of Nov. 14, 1959, when Hickock and Smith entered the modern, attractive farm home of the Herbert W. Clutter family i a mile west of Holcomb. They left behind the shotgun-mutilated bodies of Clutter, his wife, Bonnie, and their two teen-age children, Kenyon and Nancy. Arrest of the two slayers came a month and a half later in Las Vegas, where police picked up the pair on Dec.

31, 1959. They were returned to Garden City and trial was conducted in the Finney County District Court in late March. There was never a question of guilt. Both confessed to the crime, and the evidence was overwhelming. The all-male jury returned a guilty verdict and recommendation of the death sentence late the afternoon of March 29, 1960.

Early the morning of April 5, 1960, the two were taken from the Finney County jail atop the courthouse to the Kansas State Penitentiary at Lansing. There they remained, except for a brief period for a court hearing in U.S. District Court in Topeka, until their walk to the gallows early this morning. The past five years have been ones of continuous legal battles in both low and higher courts. Never had they denied committing the crime.

Paramount in their struggle to escape the gallows was tha cry of an unfair trial due to a prejudiced jury, lack of adequate counsel and prejudicial pre-trial publicity. This legal battle continued to the last minute. Their latest court-appointed attorneys, Robert H. Bingham and Joseph P. Jenkins, worked feverishly in the final days.

But wherever they turned in the district court where Hickock and Smith were sentenced and in the State Supreme Court the story was the same. Judges denied motions for stays of execution and new trials, with findings of "no new or different ground for relief." Any hopes that a Kansas Legislature would abolish capital punishment were abandoned a few weeks ago when a bill doing this was killed in committee. Gov. William Avery also turned a deaf far to pleas for clemency..