Sarasota County detectives are in Lansing, Kansas, trying to solve the murders of a Sarasota County family over half a century ago. The bodies of convicted killers Perry Smith and Dick Hickock are being dug up to collect DNA evidence that could link them to the murders of the Walker family, including an Osprey rancher, his wife and their two children exactly 53 years ago, Wednesday. Smith and Hickock are the central characters in Truman Capote’s true-crime classic “In Cold Blood.” Capote’s book depicts how Smith and Hickock killed the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas. The two criminals traveled through Florida a month after killing the Clutters. Sarasota detectives found Cliff Walker, his wife, Christine, and their two toddlers shot dead in their home on Dec. 19, 1959. Smith and Hickock were executed in 1965.
