Want to see evidence used to solve the Clutter and Fleagle gang murders?

For the first time, the public is invited to see artifacts from some of Kansas’ most infamous crimes.

An exhibit has opened at the Finney County Historical Museum in Garden City featuring items used to convict a 1920s bank robbery gang and the 1959 Clutter murder case.

One of the items in the exhibit — called “True Crime, Solving Notorious Cases from Finney County’s History” — is the car window that Finney County robber Jake Fleagle left his fingerprint on, which was used by the FBI to convict him in 1928. Another artifact is one of the boots worn by Perry Smith, who, along with Richard Hickock, killed four members of the Herb and Bonnie Clutter family in Holcomb.

There are more than 20 items in the exhibit.

It marks the first time the museum is publicly acknowledging the Clutter murders in their displays.

“It is still a sensitive topic to a lot of people,” said Steve Quakenbush, director of the museum and the county’s historical society. “It happened a long time back but there are still a lot of people here who knew and respected the Clutter family. It is a part of our history and we wanted to treat this in a way that portrays accurately what happened.”

Quakenbush said the museum frequently gets visitors wanting to know about the murders.

“We get individuals who are just deeply tuned into the case, sometimes obsessed. We get authors and television producers and, in my personal opinion, they are people doing something sensationalistic and shallow.

“We wanted an exhibit that would be respectful of friends and family members but also tell what happened and help people understand. We tried to put emphasis on how those crimes were solved.”

Synopsis of crimes

Perhaps lesser known to 21st century Kansans, Quakenbush said, is the evidence on file of another Finney County crime and how it was solved.

Members of the Fleagle Gang were Ralph and Jake Fleagle, George J. Abshier (also known as Bill Messick) and Howard “Heavy” Royston.

During the 1920s, the Fleagles, Abshier and Royston were Finney County bank robbers, breaking into banks in Ottawa, Marysville and Larned and robbing several trains on the West Coast. In 1928, their life of crime came to an end when they robbed a bank in Lamar, Colo.

The bank president shot at them from a gun he had hidden in his desk. He wounded Royston but was killed in the shootout himself. The banker’s son reached for a gun, hidden in the bank’s closest, and was also killed.

The Fleagle Gang fled with what money it could and escaped with two hostages. One hostage was thrown out along a road, the other’s body was later found near Liberal. The gang bribed a doctor near Dighton to treat Royston’s wounds, then shot the doctor and rolled his car into a ravine — leaving behind a single fingerprint on a car window as evidence. The gang members then separated.

Abshier and Royston went to Minnesota before going different paths. Abshier returned to Colorado; Royston went on to California. Ralph Fleagle was captured by police in Illinois and was flown to Colorado. It was the first time a prisoner was sent from one state to another in an airplane. Jake Fleagle was the one who left the fingerprint on the stolen car’s window. It was the fingerprint that nailed the gang and was the first time the FBI used a fingerprint as evidence leading to convictions.

The Clutter case is more familiar to most Kansans.

On Nov. 15, 1959, Herb and Bonnie Clutter and their children Nancy, 16, and Kenyon, 15, were found dead in their farmhouse near Holcomb. The case was made famous by Truman Capote’s book “In Cold Blood.”

Capote described it: “Four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives.”

Perry Smith and Dick Hickock were caught after a six-week manhunt. They were executed for their crimes on April 14, 1965.

The exhibit

Other historic crime items include a Winchester repeating rifle kept by Garden City’s Fidelity State Bank and stored for decades in the bank’s vault to be used in case of robbery; career items from Sheriff Earl Robinson — the first law enforcement officer on the scene of the Clutter murders; a gown worn by Marie Dewey — wife of Alvin A. Dewey, the chief investigator of the 1959 killings, to Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball after publication of “In Cold Blood;” and an account of a late 19th century shooting at Garden City’s railroad depot involving Marshal Newton Earp, half-bother of Wyatt Earp.

Although the grand opening of the exhibit is Jan. 25, it is ready for visitors to see. The museum is open from 1 to 5 p.m. daily, with the exception of Jan. 15, when the museum will be closed for Martin Luther King Day. Admission is free. The museum is at 403 S. Fourth Street in Garden City’s Finnup Park.

This story was originally published January 14, 2018 at 3:09 PM with the headline "Want to see evidence used to solve the Clutter and Fleagle gang murders?."