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On a routine discovery visit to examine materials which might be useful in our ownership defense, our intrepid Kansas lawyer Tai Vokins met with Assistant AG Ward Loyd in the belly of the beast, the KBI archives. Tai’s notes of the meeting paint an intriguing picture:
They had...put about a dozen boxes of various KBI files and two boxes of Clutter files on a long table. Ward was with me in the room and I went through each file, one at a time, making notes.... The last thing I looked at was the Clutter file. There were numerous documents in the file [and] three discs...with Sharpie writing [on them].
One was a digital copy of the Clutter file. I think the two other discs just said "Hickock and Smith." I was interested in what was on the discs, and Ward said it was audio recordings of [the killers’] conversations made without their knowledge, while in the Garden City Jail. I had my MacBook, but they would not let me [listen to] the disc on my computer. They made me use their computer. It was a real piece of [“surprisingly old equipment”], probably ten years outdated and barely worked.... I told him I wanted copies. He implied I would get copies (which we never received). They did not "play" anything audible when I tried in their [“shoddy”] computer.[225]
Rather than risk being found in contempt of court (once again) by having to deny us access to that material, the State chose to fold its hand—and in doing so, escaped having to disclose whatever remained unseen and unheard. That secretly taped recording of Hickock and Smith in Garden City would be of particular interest.
