In the Shadow of My Brother's Cold Blood

by Walter David Hickock

Dave Hickock never pulled the trigger of a gun or held a knife to murder another person, but he was sentenced to a lifetime of shame, ostracism, guilt, and psychological anguish because of the actions of one man-his brother. On November 15, 1959, Richard Hickock drove to a bus station in Kansas City and picked up Perry Smith, a prison buddy. Together, they drove to Emporia, Kansas, and purchased rubber gloves, nylon cord, and black stockings. Before day's end, four innocent members of the Clutter family in a town across the state of Kansas would have their throats slashed and Richard and his buddy would be arrested and charged with one of the most brutal and infamous murders ever. As the brother of a cold-blooded killer, Dave's life would never be the same. In this compelling narrative told to Linda LeBert-Corbello, Dave shares his journey from the depths of a family tragedy to how he eventually found the kind of inner-peace that accompanies acceptance of the truth and forgiveness. I do not just want to forget and live happily ever after. I want to be forgiven. -David Hickock

Genres: True Crime

168 pages, Paperback

First published April 9, 2010

Reviews

[Sharon]

A different perspective, one that I really hadn't given much thought to before. This is a behind the scenes look at "In Cold Blood", the murder of the Clutter family, as told from the viewpoint of a brother of one of the murderers.

I am from Kansas, and I know some of the Clutter family members, so I have always been of the impression that the book written by Truman Capote was not entirely factual, and was in fact, hurtful to the remaining Clutter family. After reading this book, I can see that there were many victims as a result of the murder in Holcolm, Kansas on November 14, 1959, and that the murderers' families were deeply effected as well. Hickock had a wife and children and a brother and parents who loved him, and they were left to suffer a lifetime of regrets and sorrow and grief as a result of the crime and the national attention it received.

This was interesting because I have been reading through the prison files of Richard Eugene "Dick" Hickock and Perry Edward Smith that were recently released online at the Kansas Memories website through the Kansas Historical Society.

I did have kind of a hard time with the sympathetic viewpoint of Dick Hickock as his brother stated repeatedly that he and others saw an aura about Dick right before he was executed and that he knew that Dick was at peace with God. Perhaps that was wishful thinking on the part of the brother since it was reported that Hickock and Smith expressed no remorse for the killings.

Also interesting was the fact that Dave Hickock refused to give a DNA sample to test against the Florida family murder scene unless he was given money for it. I found Dave Hickock's story to be depressing because he spent the rest of his lifetime dodging his responsibilities.

[Kay]

What a waste of time!

This is a horribly written book. Mr. Hickock does nothing but whine about himself and repeats the same things over and over.

[Jena]

There were some interesting details that are not in Capote's In Cold Blood but these are the only things that make the book worth reading. The rest of the book is a sad and repetitive ramble about Walter David Hickock's sad life and his many regrets. The Clutter murders destroyed his parents, made him an outcast and cost him his relationships with his children. He was also racked with guilt because his brother had asked him to buy the gun that would be used to kill the Clutter family. I read an article about Mr. Hickock shortly before his death that pretty much summed up this book, so I'd recommend reading that instead. The book itself is edited rather sloppily, perhaps because Mr. Hickock died before seeing the final draft and couldn't advise on tightening it up and taking out the repetition. Although I can understand why the person who recorded Mr. Hickock's story didn't want to change the things that he said, there were some rather glaring grammatical errors that should have been caught. After finishing the book, I felt very sorry for Mr. Hickock and hoped that writing the book brought him some peace at the end of his life.

[Peter Jones]

I am all for self-published books, but In the Shadow of My Brother's Cold Blood should have had a ghost writer edit what ghost writer Linda LeBert-Corbello wrote of what Walter David Hickock told her. The last sentence of the book's first paragraph, narrating the murderers' purchasing rope to tie-up who they would murder later that night, is shockingly inappropriate. "They drove to Emporia, Kansas, and while there visited a variety store to select items they believed they needed for the evening's adventure." It gets reliably worse. At no point does the book read like a narrative Hickcock related to LeBert-Corbello, it reads like her third person account written in his first person. The "as told to" cannot get herself out of the way.

[Jenny Donaldson]

This book was very interesting

I rated this book three of five stars because it seemed to me there was a lot of repetition in it. It was very interesting to me to learn how a person who does a heinous crime affects his family and loved ones. I was stunned to read about the gall of the community with their cruelty and ostracized of the family of Richard Hickok. By the end of the book, however, the repetition I mentioned before got old.