defense of these petitioners. When they accepted the appointments each
petitioner had made a full confession, and they did not then contend, nor did they seriously
contend at any time in the state courts, that these confessions were not voluntary. A radio taken
from the Clutter home and sold by the petitioners in Mexico City had been recovered, and the
attorneys knew of other evidence of their guilt then in the possession of the prosecution. When
called upon to plead to the charges against them they stood mute, and it was necessary for the
court to enter a plea of not guilty for them. There was no substantial evidence then, and none has
been produced since the trial, to substantiate a defense of insanity. The attempt to establish
insanity as a defense because of serious injuries in accidents years before, and headaches and
occasional fainting spells of Hickock, was like grasping at the proverbial straw. The attorneys
were faced with a situation where outrageous crimes committed on innocent persons had been
admitted. Under these circumstances, they would have been justified in advising that petitioners enter pleas of guilty and throw themselves on the mercy of the court. Their only hope was through
some turn of fate the lives of these misguided individuals might be spared.»
In the report he submitted to the Kansas Supreme Court, Judge Thiele found that the petitioners
had received a constitutionally fair trial; the court thereupon denied the writ to abolish the verdict,
and set a new date of execution — October 25, 1962. As it happened, Lowell Lee Andrews, whose
case had twice traveled all the way to the United States Supreme Court, was scheduled to hang
one month later.
The Clutter slayers, granted a reprieve by a Federal judge, evaded their date. Andrews kept his.
ln the disposition of capital cases in the United States, the median elapsed time between
sentence and execution is approximately seventeen months. Recently, in Texas, an armed
robber was electrocuted one month after his conviction; but in Louisiana, at the present writing,
two rapists have been waiting for a record twelve years. The variance depends a little on luck and
a great deal on the extent of litigation. The majority of the lawyers handling these cases are courtappointed and work without recompense; but more often than not the courts, in order to avoid
future appeals based on complaints of inadequate representation, appoint men of first quality who
defend with commendable vigor. However, even an attorney of moderate talent can postpone
doomsday year after year, for the system of appeals that pervades American jurisprudence
amounts to a legalistic wheel of fortune, a game of chance, somewhat fixed in the favor of the
criminal, that the participants play interminably, first in the state courts, then through the Federal
courts until the ultimate tribunal is reached — the United States Supreme Court. But even defeat
there does not signify if petitioner’s counsel can discover or invent new grounds for appeal;
usually they can, and so once more the wheel turns, and turns until, perhaps some years later,
the prisoner arrives back at the nation’s highest court, probably only to begin again the slow cruel
contest. But at intervals the wheel does pause to declare a winner — or, though with increasing
rarity, a loser: Andrews’ lawyers fought to the final moment, but their client went to the gallows on
Friday, November 30,1962.
«That was a cold night,» Hickock said, talking to a journalist with whom he corresponded and who
was periodically allowed to visit him. «Cold and wet. It had been raining like a bastard, and the
baseball field was mud up to your cojones. So when they took Andy out to the warehouse, they
had to walk him along the path. We were all at our windows watching — Perry and me, Ronnie
York, Jimmy Latham. It was just after midnight, and the warehouse was lit up like a Halloween
pumpkin. The doors wide open. We could see the witnesses, a lot of guards, the doctor and the
warden — every damn thing but the gallows. It was off at an angle, but we could see its shadow. A
shadow on the wall like the shadow of a boxing ring.
«The chaplain and four guards had charge of Andy, and when they got to the door they stopped a
second. Andy was looking at the gallows — you could sense he was. His arms were tied in front of
him. All of a sudden the chaplain reached out and took off Andy’s glasses. Which was kind of
pitiful, Andy without his glasses. They led him on inside, and I wondered he could see to climb the
steps. It was real quiet, just nothing but this dog barking way off. Some town dog. Then we heard
it, the sound, and Jimmy Latham said, «What was that?»; and I told him what it was — the trap
door.
«Then it was real quiet again. Except that dog. Old Andy, he danced a long time. They must have
had a real mess to clean up.
Every few minutes the doctor came to the door and stepped outside, and stood there with this
stethoscope in his hand. I wouldn’t say he was enjoying his work — kept gasping, like he was
gasping for breath, and he was crying, too. Jimmy said, ‘Get a load of that nance.’ I guess the
reason he stepped outside was so the others wouldn’t see he was crying. Then he’d go back and
listen to hear if Andy’s heart had stopped. Seemed like it never would. The fact is, his heart kept
bearing for nineteen minutes.
«Andy was a funny kid,» Hickock said, smiling lopsidedly as he propped a cigarette between his
lips. «It was like I told him: he had no respect for human life, not even his own. Right before they
hanged him, he sat down and ate two fried chickens. And that last afternoon he was smoking
cigars and drinking Coke and writing poetry. When they came to get him, and we said our
goodbye, I said, ‘I’ll be seeing you soon, Andy. ‘Cause I’m sure we’re going to the same place. So scout around and see if you can’t find a cool shady spot for us Down There.’ He laughed, and
said he didn’t believe in heaven or hell, just dust unto dust. And he said an aunt and uncle had
been to see him, and told him they had a coffin waiting to carry him to some little cemetery in
north Missouri. The same place where the three he disposed of were buried. They planned to put
Andy right alongside them. He said when they told him that he could hardly keep a straight face. I
said, ‘Well, you’re lucky to have a grave. Most likely they’ll give Perry and me to the vivisectionist.’
We joked on like that till it was time to go, and just as he was going he handed me a piece of
paper with a poem on it. I don’t know if he wrote it. Or copied it out of a book. My impression was
he wrote it. If you’re interested, I’ll send it to you.»
He later did so, and Andrews’ farewell message turned out to be the ninth stanza of Gray’s «Elegy
Written in a Country Churchyard»:
The boasts of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour:
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
«I really liked Andy. He was a nut — not a real nut, like they kept hollering; but, you know, just
goofy. He was always talking about breaking out of here and making his living as a hired gun. He
liked to imagine himself roaming around Chicago or Los Angeles with a machine gun inside a
violin case. Cooling guys. Said he’d charge a thousand bucks per stiff.»
Hickock laughed, presumably at the absurdity of his friend’s ambitions, sighed, and shook his
head. «But for someone his age he was the smartest person I ever come across. A human library.
When that boy read a book it stayed read. Course he didn’t know a dumb-darn thing about life.
Me, I’m an ignoramus except when it comes to what I know about life. I’ve walked along a lot of
mean streets. I’ve seen a white man flogged. I’ve watched babies born. I’ve seen a girl, and her
no more than fourteen, take on three guys at the same time and give them all their money’s
worth. Fell off a ship once five miles out to sea. Swam five miles with my life passing before me
with every stroke. Once I shook hands with President Truman in the lobby of the Hotel
Muehlebach. Harry S Truman. When I was working for the hospital, driving an ambulance, I saw
every side of life there is — things that would make a dog vomit. But Andy. He didn’t know one
dumb-damn-darn thing except what he’d read in books.
«He was innocent as a little child, some kid with a box of Cracker Jack. He’d never once been
with a woman, Man or mule. He said so himself. Maybe that’s what I liked about him most. How
he wouldn’t prevaricate. The rest of us on the Row, we’re all a bunch of bull-artists. I’m one of the
worst. Shoot, you’ve got to talk about something. Brag. Otherwise you’re nobody, nothing, a
potato vegetating in your seven-by-ten limbo. But Andy never would partake. He said what’s the
use telling a lot of stuff that never happened.
«Old Perry, though, he wasn’t sorry to see the last of Andy. Andy was the one thing in the world
Perry wants to be — educated. And Perry couldn’t forgive him for it. You know how Perry’s always
using hundred-dollar words he doesn’t half know the meaning of? Sounds like one of them
college niggers? Boy, it burned his bottom to have Andy catch up on him and haul him to the
curb. Course Andy was just trying to give him what he wanted — an education. The truth is, can’t
anybody get along