In Cold Blood
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This article is about the book and its subsequent adaptations. For the video game, see In Cold Blood (game).
In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences is a book by Truman Capote, detailing the 1959 murder of Herb Clutter, a wealthy farmer from Holcomb, Kansas; his wife, Bonnie; sixteen-year-old daughter, Nancy; and fifteen-year-old son, Kenyon, and the aftermath (ISBN 0679745580). The book broke new ground by being a non-fiction novel, and applying serious literature to crime reporting.
Capote learned of the quadruple slaying from a news article. He decided to go to Kansas and write about the murders, even before the killers were captured. He brought childhood friend and fellow author Harper Lee with him. Together they interviewed the locals and the investigators. Capote and Lee took thousands of pages of notes and Capote spent years working on the novel.
The story was originally published in serial format in The New Yorker magazine in 1965. It was published as a novel in January 1966.
The 1967 film was based on the novel. It was adapted and directed by Richard Brooks. Portions were actually filmed on location, particularly the Clutter residence, where the murders were committed. The film stars Robert Blake and John Forsythe.
The 1996 television movie was also based on the novel. It stars Anthony Edwards, Eric Roberts, and Sam Neill. Both the movie and the TV movie are faithful to the novel.
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The story
The book weaves a complicated psychological story of two parolees, who together committed a terrible crime, while by themselves never could have been capable of such evil. The book also paints a detailed picture of the rural community where the crime happened, and of the victims.
The Clutters
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The book begins with a wholesome rural community in western Kansas, and with the Clutter family. The patriarch, Herbert, was a widely respected and successful farmer; a dedicated Methodist who abstained from alcohol, nicotine and caffeine. He was a pillar of the community and built his home and business from scratch. He employed as many as eighteen farm hands, all of whom admired and respected him for his fair and moral treatment, good pay and bonuses.
His four children were universally admired in the community for their character. Two of his children had flown the coop and started their adult lives. The other two were in high school. His wife, a member of the local garden club, had been incapacitated with depression and physical ailments since the birth of her children.
On November 15, 1959, the Clutter parents and two of their children were bound, gagged, and murdered during a robbery.
The murderers
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Two ex-cons, on parole from prison, committed the murders and robbery. They had heard from a fellow prisoner, who had once worked for the Clutters, that there was a safe at the ranch that never had less than ten thousand dollars in it. This information was false, Mr. Clutter never kept cash and did all his business with checks.
Richard "Dick" Hickock (age 28)
Dick was a con man. He had above average intelligence, with an excellent memory and a flair for talking. His childhood was relatively normal, with stable but not-well-off parents. Although professing love for his parents, Dick seemed to lack a conscience; subjecting family and friends to the consequences of a lifetime of petty crimes, always returning home for acceptance, a job and another chance in life, and then repeating his criminal behavior. His forte was writing bad checks and petty theft.
He relished the act of running over dogs in the road, and had un-natural desires for young girls (which he acted on), but denied his own abnormality.
Perry Smith (age 31)
The son of rodeo performers, Perry was half Indian, short and dark. He was partially disabled from a motorcycle accident and in constant pain from poorly healed leg bones.
Perry too was of above average intelligence, artistically and musically gifted and he enjoyed performing for others. But he had a life of tragedy; a broken home with an alcoholic mother who committed suicide. A brother and sister who committed suicide. A father who was a wanderer. And nightmares of beatings at the hands of nuns and care givers while in various orphanages.
He suffered constant rejection since childhood, despite a lack of cruelty towards others. He talks of his grade school principal who stood back and watched as the school bully twice his size attacked him. And when he won the fight, the school principal spent the following months making his life miserable. The only fights he got into at that school were for defending the victims of this bully.
He was a combat engineer in the Korean War and winner of the Bronze Star, but un-happy with his lack of promotions, because, he said, his C.O. didn't like him. By this time he had formed violent tendencies and got into frequent fights. He was noted by coworkers as excelling to a high degree of skill in any job that he did.
Perry was the opposite of Dick in many ways. He was quiet, shy, introverted; and had a hard shell forged from a lifetime of abuse, rejection and perceived injustices. He had a facade of arrogance built on his self image, which didn't match what those around him saw. He eventually entered into crime with a man who picked him up hitchhiking, and this led to becoming Dick's prison buddy.
Perry suffered from enuresis, which is a very common characteristic of serial killers.
Partners in crime
A large part of the book involves the dynamic psychological relationship of the two felons that gave birth to a terrible crime. Dick was the mastermind. He recruited Perry to do the dirty work, the actual murders. He seems to have misjudged Perry, because of his made-up prison tales, as a natural born killer. In truth, neither had committed murder before, but competed with each other over their criminal boldness.
Dick's idea (hatched in prison) was to commit the robbery, leave no witnesses, and start a new life in Mexico with the proceeds. They both had dreams of fleeing wherever they were, at the time, and staring a new life elsewhere.
The parole agreement forbade the two to associate or use alcohol, which they did anyway. Shortly after their release they committed the crime. Perry did the killings, but interestingly enough, prevented Dick from raping the teenage Clutter girl. They then went on a whirlwind tour of Mexico and America.
The former Clutter employee and fellow prisoner to Dick, who had unwittingly inspired the crime, told his warden that he thought Dick was the murderer (after reading of the crime in the newspaper). The tip led to Perry's and Dick's arrest in Nevada, about six weeks after the murders.
Trial
The trial was held in Holcomb. The judge, jury and lawyers had known (or known of) the victims. The judge prevented the accused from traveling to the state mental hospital for a psychological evaluation, relying on local GP's instead.
An expert psychiatrist volunteered his skills and evaluated the accused, in addition to the local GP's. Perry and Dick were pronounced sane and that they understood the nature of their crime while committing it.
The judge denied a change of venue, noting that several ministers in the area were preaching against capital punishment in their sermons.
These points would be the basis for later (failed) appeals.
The defense was temporary insanity. The prosecution based its case on confessions prior to trial, matching boots in the custody of the accused to footprints found at the crime, and stolen items linked to the crime.
The confessions were achieved when Dick broke under questioning, and then by playing the accused against each other, while being interrogated separately.
Perry and Dick were executed by hanging for their crimes - on April 14th 1965, Richard Eugene Hickock, then 33, died first at 12:41 a.m., Perry Edward Smith, then 36, died at 1:19 a.m..
See also
External links
- Clutter Family Murders (http://www.charliemanson.com/crime/clutter.htm)
- Unofficial site of the Clutter Family Murders (http://www.geocities.com/sgurtd)es:A sangre frķa