Clutter Family Robbery & Murder Essay

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Cold Blood" case is very chilling and has been depicted by Truman Capote personally as well as by others in much the same or at least a slightly different way. Beyond that, while the Clutter case was bad enough, there is a major question as to whether the two assailants in the Clutter case also committed the Walker murders. While there is no "smoking gun" that links the two Clutter killers to the Walker case, there are a few common threads that are very intriguing. This report shall cover those common threads, the steps that an investigator would undertake when it comes so such an investigation and the steps a prosecutor would take at trial including what witnesses would be called. There will also be a discussion about interrogation techniques, whether a search warrant was needed to obtain the shotgun and the knife from the Hickok home and whether a search warrant was needed for the post office box found in the car when the assailants were arrested. While building a case against killers like this during that era was most certainly more difficult than it is now, the ability to do so still remains given the right amount and right types of police work.

Analysis

While public pressure on a prosecutor or district attorney can be stifling and wilting when it comes to gruesome and senseless crimes, these public servants cannot allow that pressure to justify making rash or illegal decisions when it comes to pursuing the case. The Duke Lacrosse rape case was a perfect example of what happens when a prosecutor worries about getting reelected and saving his neck rather than deciding to prosecute or not based on the merits and the evidence that exists. The verbiage of Al Dewey in In Cold Blood is answered by a fairly simple response. There were two major links between the two crimes, those being the nature and method of the crime and the car that was spotted at both crime scenes. Indeed, both the Clutter and Walker cases were typified by a lot of brutality. Also, a Bel Air being present at both scenes is intriguing but those cars were not exactly rare at the time. However, that "link" is very thin. In addition to the Bel Air being a pretty thin piece of evidence, the actions at the Walker crime scene were different in some noticeable ways. First, while there was a "leave no witness" mentality to both scenes, a rape occurred at the Walker scene. With the Clutter scene, robbery and leaving no witnesses were the only threads that were crystal clear. It was not about rape and the pair even hedged a bit before they did what they eventually ended up doing. The drowning in the tub of the two-year-old was also clearly different than the Clutter scene. In the case of the Clutters, all of the victims were shot except for the Clutter who had his throat cut. However, there are also some things that seem to implicate the Clutter killers. First, they were provably at a convenience store near the Walker home. Second, the Walkers apparently were in the market for a Bel Air and that is what the killers were driving. Third, there were apparently scratches on the face of one of the Clutter killers and that would be consistent with defensive wounds being inflicted due to a woman resisting a rape or perhaps anyone in the Walker family resisting being killed or otherwise brutalized. It would have been outstanding if DNA from the exhumation of the killers' bodies matched up but a DNA link could not be proven or disproven. While the amount of links and commonalities is extremely neat in some ways, it is almost entirely circumstantial. For example, the killers being near the Walker home or being in a Bel Air does not provably link them to the crime scene. As noted above, the methods of the killings had some notable variations from the Clutter case. Finally, robbery was far and away the obvious motive of the Clutter case but the Walker case seemed more about a rape that culminated with the killing of anyone who could be a witness. Even with that, Capote asserts in his book that Hickok had to prevent Smith from raping one of the Clutters, that being Nancy (Capote, 1995).

As far as the evidence that would be collected, each individual body and the scene as a whole would be evaluated to indicate who was killed, in what order, what the possible motives might have been and so forth.

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They would also want to interview anyone who witnessed anything in or around the house as well as friends and family of the Clutters so as to figure out the events of the day. This could include what precisely the family did or did not do that day, what seemed out of place, any strangers in the area, what cars were passing through and so forth. Of course, it would have been wise to interview the cell mates of the two ex-cons had the investigators known about that connection. However, they did not have to worry about that because Floyd Wells offered a tip. That tip eventually led to the suspects being identified and a dragnet that was laid out that eventually led to the suspects being caught. However, in absence of something like that, the typical procedure would be to interview friends and family quite heavily as many to most crimes involve one, the other or both. In more modern crime scenes, suspects can be identified using things such as DNA, fingerprints, boot/shoe prints, video surveillance and other technologies or forensic techniques (Capote, 1995).

Evidence that would be used at trial would include a reconstruction and dictation of what happened at the scene of the crime including who was killed, in what order and why. The prosecutor would explain the timeline including what gave the convicts the information they used, the plot they hatched, the statements they made to witnesses before capture, statements they made to the authorities after capture and so forth. If the crime happened in the modern age of forensic technology, there would also be the use of blood spatter evidence, footprints, DNA, camera footage that proved where they were and so forth. However, it has to be noted in this case that the two criminals did not assert they did not do it. Rather, they asserted that they were temporarily insane. As such, the prosecutor would want to show the diligence and planning that went into the crime and how well in advance it was. Insane killers usually have little to no premeditation on their mind. As such, proving that the men were greedy and lucid rather than detached and deranged would be quite easy to pull off. Witnesses would and should include Wells (although he did fudge some information, Hickok's family due to the returning of the shotgun to his parents' home, anyone who witnesses the two assailants at any point on the way to, around the time of and after the murders took place, and so forth (Capote, 1995).

In terms of interrogation techniques, there are a few things that a good interrogator can use and abuse when it comes to getting perpetrators to talk. First, the two men can be turned against each other. For example, one suspect could be told that the person who rolls on the other will be spared the hangman's noose if they talk. They could also indicate that the other person has already rolled and that the other guy's fate is sealed. Further, the interrogators need to operate from a position of power and strength. As much as is possible, they should ask questions that they already know the answer to so that they know whether the suspect is being honest and/or as a means of reverse psychology. They could intentionally fudge the information and see if the suspect corrects the bad statement or if they let it slide. How this manifests and operates would depend on what is known, what is not known and so forth. In the event that the people confess, it all comes down to whether they will take a plea or whether they will try to assert (rightly or wrongly) that they were not in their right mind. Again, the Clutter killers were clearly lucid and in their right mind (sort of) in that they clearly planned and premeditated everything they did (Capote, 1995).

As for whether the investigators needed a search warrant to get the shotgun and knife, the answer is really no. This is because the killers were the ones that revealed where the items were and thus the cops had full probable cause to get the items, in all likelihood. Even so, it would be a good idea to get one anyway since any good defense attorney is going to try and strike that evidence if a righteous warrant was not obtained. If the items….....

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