American mass murderer who teamed with Dick Hickock to kill the Clutter family on 15 November 1959 in Holcomb, Kansas. He admitted that they were looking for money in the house and that he was the one who did the killing. Sentenced to death for his crimes, he was hanged at 1:19 AM on 14 April 1965 in Lansing, Kansas, aged 36. The crime was publicized in the 1966 book by Truman Capote, In Cold Blood, later made into a movie.
A white male, Smith had powerful shoulders and the thick, crouching torso of a weight-lifter. Small in stature, he was no bigger than a 12-year-old, with tiny feet and wearing elaborate tattoos. His voice was gentle and articulate and his expression was changeable on a flexible face. He spent a lot of time looking in the mirror. As a kid, he spent seven years in a Catholic orphanage. His father was an Irish cowboy who worked for a while as an agricultural agent and his mother was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian. He had her dark coloring, expressive eyes and dark hair. His mother later died, choking on her own vomit while drunk. His sister Ferm was a suicide, jumping to her death in San Francisco and his brother, Jimmy, drove his wife to suicide and the next day, killed himself.
In August 1952, Smith was involved in a motorcycle accident that left him in the hospital for six months with crippled legs, after hitting a truck. In continual pain, he was an aspirin junkie.
Link to Wikipedia biography