Alvin A. Dewey

Alvin Dewey was the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) Special Agent in charge of the murder of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas which occurred on November 15, 1959.

Alvin was born September 10, 1912 in Kingman County, Kansas. He started with the Garden City Police Department in June of 1936 for a salary of $60 a month. He later attended San Jose State College in California majoring in police administration; and in 1939, he became a state trooper with the Kansas Highway Patrol. In 1940, he became a special agent with the FBI, being sent to New Orleans, Louisiana, as his first assignment. There, he met Marie Louise Bellocq, and FBI stenographer who became his wife June 28, 1942. For the next three years, Agent Dewey travelled with his family to Texas, Florida and eventually Colorado.

(From L to R) Capote, Al & Marie

In 1945, he took a year’s leave of absence from the FBI when he and Marie came back to Garden City, Kansas. Due to his father’s illness, he was temporarily helping his mother in the operation of the Blue Bird Cabin Camp. That year, he was approached by the Democratic Party to run for office of Sherriff for Finney County. He won the election, resigned from the bureau, and served in that office for nine years until becoming a Special Agent of the KBI in 1955. While Sherriff, Dewey enlisted in the Kansas National Guard.

Over the next three years, Marie gave birth to both of their sons, Al the 3^rd and Paul.

As the result of the successful investigation of the Clutter murder case, Dewey was requested by the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary to appear before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments in Washington, D.C. to discuss his opinion of the Supreme Court’s decision in the case, Miranda v. Arizona. He disagreed with the decision of the case and outlined how adversely that decision would have affected the solving of the Clutter case.

Alvin spent forty-two years in law enforcement. Due to illness, he retired from the KBI in November of 1975. He was quoted as saying that his law enforcement years were the happiest of his life. Al was also a 32^nd degree Mason, a life member of the Elks lodge #1404 in Garden City, a member of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI and belonged to the First United Methodist Church. He died November 6, 1987 and is buried in Valley View Cemetery located in Garden City, Kansas.

In his memory, Marie established the Alvin A. Dewey Memorial Scholarship Fund at Garden City Community College in the Criminal Justice Department.