Prosecutor: What is your relationship to Perry Smith?
Dick Hickock: Met him in the slammer after I was arrested for writing bad checks. I s'pose I became innerested in him after he told me this story. Said he killed a colored man in Vegas. Not for any reason or anything, didn't even really have a problem with the guy. Just felt like it. Now I don't know if he was telling the truth 'bout that and whattall, but back then, I says to myself, that there's a natural killer. The kind of person that'll go through with anything, no questions asked. After we got paroled and went our separate ways, I ran into Perry in Kansas. He came back in November to meet up with this Willie-Jay from the State Pen, he just got released that month and Perry worshiped the ground he walked on and all. Well, Willie-Jay was gone, and Perry ended up with me instead. We wern't friends, I don't care what Perry says. Partners, yeah. I liked him 'cause, like I said, he'd do whatever you told him, no questions asked. Honest, he was a bit of a burden to me, 'specially near the end. Complainin' all over the place and tryin' to tell me what to do. If I'd the time, I'd've got rid of him next chance I got.
Prosecutor: Did Mr. Smith have any inhibition before or remorse following the murders?
Hickock: Yeah, he did, but not that it stopped him any. Just made it a pain for me. Before, he was all saying how maybe we'd disguise ourselves and then we wouldn't have to kill 'em. He kept kinda tryin'ta back out, but he never really did. Sure, he can say all he wants that it was my idea and I made him do it, but he did it, he shot 'em all. And just because he bitched about it a little beforehand, that there's no real conscience 'cause he just went on and did it anyways. And after the killing, when we were down in Mexico, he kept whining about it, how we shouldn't'a done it and how we'd never get away with something like that. Wouldn't shut up about it, and I s'pose he was right. But that don' change the fact that he was all ready to kill all over again. Hitchhikin' our way back up here, almost got him to bash this driver's head in. Woulda too, if the lucky fuck hadn't stopped that second to pick up that kid and the old guy. So yeah, you can say he had "inhibitions" as you call it, but they were only there when he needed something to bitch about. When he wanted something from someone, they just went away.
Prosecutor: Why do you believe that Mr. Smith continued to display and act upon murderous intentions even after admitting to remorse for the Clutter murders?
Hickock: The guy's a real sick one. That's why he was such a burden to deal with, 'specially when we was on the run and all. With killing and such, you're either in or you're out. You can't just keep hangin' 'round the middle. Perry thought he was so intellectual, so sophisticated, acted like I was an animal for the crimes we done together, but he was excepted because he was too good for that, despite that he did it. But then we he got mad, or even when someone tells him to do something, he just acted like an animal. Like he'll just do anything to show the people who hate him just what he can do, or to let the people who might like him know how loyal and goddang spineless he's willing to get for them. So yeah, he regrets it for ten seconds, but when he needs your approval, he'll throw that regret right out the window because it's more important to him that he has someone to cling onto.
Prosecutor: If released in fifteen years, do you believe that it will be safe for Mr. Smith to be released back into society as a changed individual?
Hickock: A changed individual? Perry is "changing" every danged second, that's why he's so dangerous. Me, I've decided my path, and if I'm gonna hang, he should, too. Nothing more dangerous than a guy that commits a murder without even havin' the will to do it beforehand. You know what Perry says to me in Mexico, while he's all complaining about his conscience? He says that he never wanted to kill that family, but once he was in that house, he knew he would, so he didn't even try to stop himself. I should've shot him then and there. That's the thing about Perry, he's a "nice kid" as any of you people would think if you ran into him on the street. He's got a good, kind personality, more than I can brag. But for all his niceness, he could kill you, and your wives, and your kids, without even knowing he has so much of a choice in the matter. Me, I had my choice, and I made it, and at least I can own up to that. But you could release Perry Smith from prison seeming like a perfectly nice fellow, and then, five days later, BANG! you're lyin' dead on your basement floor, with the rest of your family splattered around you.