Judge Blocks Auction of "In Cold Blood" Records

Says they belong to the government and shouldn't be sold for private gain

A Kansas judge has temporarily blocked the auction of some documents from the investigation of the 1959 murder case that inspired the best-selling book and movie "In Cold Blood."

Relatives of Harold Nye, one of the investigators in the brutal murders of a family in Holcomb, Kansas, planed to auction them.

But Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt last week asked a district court to block the auction and a Shawnee County judge issued a temporary restraining order, the attorney general's office said on Monday.

"The criminal investigation case materials are clearly the property of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and should not be auctioned off, particularly for personal gain," Schmidt said in a statement.