This week in 1965

“I don’t have any hard feelings. You’re sending me to a better place.”

— Richard Eugene Hickock, convicted of murder, hanging, Kansas.
Executed April 14, 1965

Hickock met Perry Smith in prison, where the two concocted a plan to rob the Clutter family of ten thousand dollars that they supposedly kept in a safe at home. After finding no money, the convicts murdered all four family members. Smith and Hickock’s lives, trial, and crimes were the subject of Truman Capote’s book “In Cold Blood.”

Capote recorded Hickock’s final words slightly differently from newspaper accounts: “I just want to say I hold no hard feelings. You people are sending me to a better world than this ever was.” Then, Capote wrote, Hickock greeted the witnesses to his execution with a smile, saying, “Nice to see you.”