Dick Hickock and Walter Hickock’s father-son relationship

Dick Hickock and Walter Hickock’s father-son relationship is shaped by a stubborn faith that survives disappointment. Walter remembers a talented son whose chances were limited by poverty; later, when Dick’s life turns toward debt, bad checks, and prison, he continues to defend him and to hope he will come home changed. That loyalty becomes especially painful when Dick leaves without saying goodbye, carrying the knowledge that his parents will be left to face the consequences of his crimes.

Childhood, Promise, and Poverty

In speaking with investigator Harold Nye, Walter recalls Dick as a conspicuously successful school athlete, first-team material in basketball, baseball, and football, as well as a capable student who earned A marks in history and mechanical drawing. After graduating from high school in June 1949, Dick wanted to attend college and study engineering. The family could not afford it: Walter describes their farm as only forty-four acres, too small to provide more than a precarious living. He suspects Dick resented the lost opportunity, though he does not present that disappointment as an excuse for what followed.

Dick began working for Santa Fe Railways in Kansas City, earning seventy-five dollars a week. At nineteen, he married Carol Hickock, who was sixteen. Walter had doubted the match, but Mrs. Hickock counters his bleak recollection by pointing to their three sons and insisting Carol is not to blame. The disagreement reveals a family that can reproach Dick’s choices without treating his marriage and children as mistakes: Walter stresses the financial strain, while his wife reminds him of the affection and family life that came with it.

Debt, Changed Behavior, and Imprisonment

Walter traces a worsening pattern through Dick’s adult life. Dick and Carol rented a substantial house and bought an expensive car while remaining in debt. Although Dick later earned more as a hospital-ambulance driver and then worked as a mechanic and car painter for the Markl Buick Company in Kansas City, Walter says they continued buying things they could not afford. Dick began writing bad checks. Walter connects this change, cautiously, to a car accident in which Dick suffered a concussion, saying that his son was not the same afterward and that gambling and check-writing had not been part of his earlier behavior.

Walter also recalls Dick’s imprisonment for seventeen months after he borrowed a neighbor’s hunting rifle. He rejects the idea that Dick intended to steal it and regards the episode as a turning point: when Dick came home from Lansing, Walter says, he seemed like a stranger, difficult to talk to and convinced that the whole world was against him. During the sentence, Dick’s second wife filed for divorce. Walter’s account holds together his anger at the damage Dick has caused and his conviction that prison deepened the estrangement rather than correcting it.

By the period before Dick’s flight, Walter had seen signs of a quieter life. Dick was working at the Bob Sands Body Shop in Olathe, living with his parents, going to bed early, and, according to Walter, observing parole. Walter was ill with cancer, and Dick knew he was sick. Less than a month before leaving, Dick told him, “Dad, you’ve been a pretty good old dad to me. I’m not ever gonna do nothing more to hurt you.” Walter takes the promise seriously. He invokes Dick’s goodness on the football field and his tenderness when playing with his children, unable to reconcile those versions of his son with the person who has disappeared.

The Departure and Its Cost

During the shopping spree that preceded the escape, Dick’s thoughts turn to the people he is abandoning. After drinking three Orange Blossoms, he worries that when the checks begin to bounce his father will try to make them good, as he had before, despite being old and sick and having little money. Perry Smith offers to repay the losses once they reach Mexico and begin earning money. The exchange makes Dick’s concern for Walter concrete: he anticipates not merely the shame of being exposed but the financial burden his father may try to shoulder. Perry is touched by Dick’s professed affection for his parents, even while recognizing that sentiment does not make Dick kind.

When the old Chevrolet leaves Kansas City on November 21, Dick has not confided his plan to his family or said farewell. Walter, his mother, his brother, and his three sons remain behind; Dick does not expect to see them again. The contrast with Perry is sharp: Perry feels he is leaving no one who will wonder where he has gone, while Dick’s departure cuts across attachments he has acknowledged but does not act to preserve. His concern about his parents’ losses cannot undo the decision that exposes them to those losses.

The Family Home and Walter’s Faith

Walter’s memories retain small domestic details alongside the larger history of failure. Recalling Dick’s return from Fort Scott, he remembers him coming to dinner very hungry, piling food onto his plate before the blessing was finished, and eating pickles with an appetite familiar enough to be a family joke. Later, Dick fell asleep through a televised basketball game that Walter was watching with him and his other son, David. Walter was surprised by the uncharacteristic sleep, but the scene also records the ordinary household closeness that persisted: father and sons gathered around a game, with Walter observing Dick’s habits and remarking on them.

The family’s attachment is not presented as agreement about what Dick has become. Mrs. Hickock believes Dick’s friend is what changed him; Walter, while defending his son, repeatedly admits that he does not know what happened. His faith rests instead on remembered evidence of character: the boy who excelled in sports, the father playing with his children, and the son who once promised not to hurt him again. Set against the failed promise and the family’s silence after his flight, those memories make Walter’s loyalty both tender and helpless. Dick’s relationship with his father remains one of genuine affection, but affection cannot protect Walter from the consequences of Dick’s choices or bring the absent son back into the home.