Murderer. Along with Perry Smith, he murdered the Clutter Family: father Herbert Clutter, his wife Bonnie, and their two children, 16-year-old Nancy and 15-year-old Kenyon. Novelist Truman Capote chronicled their crime in his book "In Cold Blood" (1966). The book is considered historical fiction, because it includes conversations and actions that were not confirmed by either the killers or the police; however, many police officials familiar with the case believe it is fairly accurate. Born in Kansas City, Kansas, and raised on a local farm, Hickock came from a good, stable farming family. Following high school, he obtained work on the Santa Fe railroad, and shortly afterwards, married Carol Bryan. Together they had three sons, and to earn more money, he became a mechanic for the Mark Buick Company. A 1950 car accident left him with a dislocated jaw that disfigured his face and left him unemployed. While still married, he fathered a child with another girl, Margaret Edna, and his wife promptly divorced him when she found out. Because he was unemployed, he wrote multiple bad checks, and was given five years in Lansing Prison for fraud and burglary. While in jail, he met Smith, and the two became friends. Another inmate, Floyd Wells, told them about the Herb Clutter family, who supposedly kept a large sum of money in a safe at his isolated house in Holcomb, Kansas. Following their release from prison, on the evening of November 15, 1959, Smith and Hickock entered the Clutter house, and at gunpoint demanded the money from the family safe. When informed that there was no money and no safe in the house, the two men tied up each person in separate rooms of the house for later questioning: Herb and Kenyon in the basement, Bonnie in her bedroom, and Nancy in her bedroom. They then executed the tied-up Clutters, one at a time. Perry would later confess to doing most of the killing. Herbert Clutter was tortured before dying, with his throat slit, and then killed by a shotgun blast to the front of his face. Son Kenyon was killed the same way, with a shotgun blast to the front of his face. Wife Bonnie had been killed by a shotgun blast to the side of her head, while Nancy had been killed by a close shot to the back of her head. The murders were discovered the next morning, Sunday, when family friends came over to the Clutter house to join them in going to church. When prison buddy Floyd Wells remembered Hickock telling him of his plans to kill the Clutters for their money, and he heard about the murders on the radio, Wells promptly informed the prison warden. Smith and Hickock were quickly found in a stolen car in Las Vegas and returned to Kansas for trial. Hickock was executed by hanging, at the Lansing Correctional Facility, Lansing, Kansas.