12-gauge Savage Model 300 shotgun

The 12-gauge Savage Model 300 shotgun changes from a costly household possession into a central object of suspicion in the investigation of the Clutter family murders. Its connection to Dick, its recent purchase, and its caliber led investigator Harold Nye to regard it as a likely murder weapon, although the available evidence did not prove that it had been used in the crime.

Appearance and Ownership

The shotgun stood propped against a wall in Walter Hickock and Mrs. Hickock’s modest home. Its handle bore a delicately etched scene of pheasants in flight, marking it as a sporting gun as well as an ordinary object in the family’s surroundings. When Nye asked about it, Mrs. Hickock explained that it belonged to Dick and that he and David sometimes went rabbit hunting.

The gun had been bought on credit for more than one hundred dollars, using the names of Dick’s parents with Walter Hickock’s permission. It was not yet a month old and had been used once, on an early-November pheasant trip to Grinnell with David. The store would not take it back, leaving the Hickocks responsible for its payments. Mrs. Hickock’s account gives the weapon a domestic consequence apart from the investigation: Dick’s purchase had become a financial burden for parents already concerned about what they could afford.

The Investigation’s Suspected Weapon

Nye asked about the gun’s history while checking Dick’s movements and his association with Perry Smith. He summarized that Perry had arrived in Kansas on November 12, that Dick had continued seeing him, and that both men disappeared on November 21. Against that timeline, the recently acquired shotgun stood out. Nye leaned it back against the wall rather than taking it away, but privately felt certain it was the weapon used to kill the Clutter family.

The suspicion had a concrete basis, but it was not the same as proof. The investigators knew the murders had involved a gun of the shotgun’s caliber, and the suspects’ movements and alleged false alibi added to their concern. Yet Alvin Adams Dewey acknowledged that, without a confession, the case lacked the courtroom evidence needed for a conviction. The investigation had uncovered two sets of boot prints, but little else that could securely connect the suspects to the crime; the weapon itself had not supplied a conclusive link.

From Household Possession to Evidence

The shotgun’s significance rests on this gap between its familiar use and its possible criminal role. At the Hickocks’ home it was a hunting gun bought on credit, used once, and left behind with a family that had to make the payments. In Nye’s assessment it was potentially the instrument of a mass killing. The same object could thus suggest an ordinary routine and a grave accusation, without resolving the uncertainty between them.

The book does not establish here that the Savage Model 300 was conclusively matched to the murders. Rather, its caliber and Dick’s ownership made it an important investigative lead at a moment when suspicion was stronger than admissible proof. Its presence in the home sharpened the case against Dick while also showing why the investigators remained cautious: a plausible connection, however compelling to Nye, was not yet a demonstrated one.