In Cold Blood (book)
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In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences, by American author Truman Capote, details the 1959 murders of Herbert Clutter, a wealthy farmer from Holcomb, Kansas; his wife, Bonnie; his 16-year-old daughter, Nancy; and his 15-year-old son, Kenyon, and the aftermath. Capote said that he had created a new type of book, the non-fiction novel, by applying traditional literary conventions to crime reporting. Critics have debated the degree to which Capote fabricated certain events in his book.
Capote learned of the quadruple slaying from a news article in The New York Times. He decided to go to Kansas and write about the murders, even before the killers, Richard "Dick" Eugene Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, were captured. He brought his childhood friend and fellow author Harper Lee with him. Together they interviewed the local residents and the investigators assigned to the case. Capote and Lee took thousands of pages of notes, and Capote spent years working on the book, which was serialized during 1965 in The New Yorker. After the book was published that same year, it was adapted into both a theatrical film drama and a TV movie. See In Cold Blood (film).
The film Capote (2005), based on Gerald Clarke's Capote: A Biography (1988), depicts the experiences of Truman Capote during the six years he worked on his book. The film stars Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote, Catherine Keener as Harper Lee, Mark Pellegrino as Dick Hickock, Clifton Collins Jr. as Perry Smith and Chris Cooper as Alvin Dewey. The same events are dramatized in Infamous (2006) starring Toby Jones as Capote and Sandra Bullock as Harper Lee.
Contents |
[edit] The Clutters
Capote weaves a complicated psychological story of two parolees who together commit a mass murder, an act they never would have been capable of individually. Capote's book also details the lives of the victims and the effect the crime had on the rural community where they lived.
The setting is Holcomb, a rural community in western Kansas, and home to the Clutter family. The patriarch, Herbert, was a widely respected and successful farmer. He was also a dedicated Methodist who abstained from alcohol, nicotine, caffeine and any other type of stimulant. A pillar of the community, Herb Clutter was a self-made man who had established a successful farm from modest beginnings. He employed as many as 18 farm hands, and former employees reportedly admired and respected him for his fair treatment and good wages.
His four children, three girls and a boy, were universally admired in the community. The two eldest, Eveanna and Beverly, had moved away and started their adult lives. The two younger children, Nancy (age 16), and Kenyon (age 15), were high school students and still lived at home. Clutter's wife, Bonnie, a member of the local garden club, had been incapacitated with depression and physical ailments since the births of her children, although this characterization of her has been disputed by surviving family members.
[edit] The murderers
Two ex-convicts on parole from the Kansas State Penitentiary committed the robbery and murders. They had heard from a fellow prisoner, Floyd Wells, who had once worked for the Clutters, that there was a safe at the ranch where Herb Clutter kept large amounts of cash, never less than ten thousand dollars. The information proved to be false, since Herb Clutter did not keep cash on hand, had no safe and did all his business using checks.
Richard Hickock, age 28 at the time of the crime, was a lifelong con man. Born in June 1931, he had above average intelligence, with an excellent memory and a knack for charm and persuasion. His childhood was relatively normal, with poor but stable parents, but he was nonetheless a sociopath. He subjected 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 check fraud and petty theft. He relished the act of running over dogs in the road and harbored (and acted upon) pedophilic desires for young girls, but claimed at all times to be "a normal."
Perry Edward Smith, age 31 at the time of the crime, was a son of rodeo performers. Born on October 27, 1928, he was of half Cherokee Native American and half Irish American descent. Short and dark, he was partially disabled from a motorcycle accident and in constant pain from the damage done to his legs. As a result of his accident, he became heavily addicted to aspirin, and claimed to enjoy the taste. He, too, was of above average intelligence. He was artistically and musically gifted and enjoyed playing his guitar for others. His mother took her children away from their father when Perry was six and moved to San Francisco. Perry never received a substantial education, which he regretted. In an effort to become more educated, he kept a notebook of vocabulary words and their definitions which he added to and memorized. His mother, an alcoholic, "strangled to death on her own vomit." (In Cold Blood, p. 110) Two of his three siblings had committed suicide. He had frequent nightmares of beatings at the hands of nuns (In Cold Blood, p. 275) and caregivers while in the various orphanages in which he was raised. He suffered constant rejection since childhood, although he never exhibited cruelty toward others. He did, however, blame others for his difficulties in life, and he was prone to outbursts of rage.
A combat engineer in the Korean War, and winner of the Bronze Star, he was unhappy with his lack of promotions, because, he said, his commanding officer didn't like him. He was noted by coworkers as skilled in any job that he did. By this time, however, he had begun to develop antisocial tendencies and frequently got into fights.
Smith was Hickock's opposite in many ways. Smith was quiet, shy, introverted and had a hard shell forged from a lifetime of abuse, rejection and perceived injustices. He maintained a facade of arrogance as protection for his own low self-image. He eventually entered into crime (theft and jail break) with a man who picked him up hitchhiking, eventually landing himself in Kansas State Penitentiary, where he met and was befriended by Hickock.
He suffered from enuresis (bedwetting), which, according to J. M. MacDonald, was at that time considered to be a common childhood characteristic of serial killers. There is no indication, however, that he started fires or tortured animals, the other two components of the so-called MacDonald triad.
[edit] Partners in crime
A large part of the book involves the dynamic psychological relationship of the two felons that culminated in this senseless crime. Hickock was the mastermind who recruited Smith to do the dirty work. He seems to have believed Smith to be a "natural born killer" based on a fictional prison tale told by Smith about his murder of a black man in Las Vegas. In truth, neither had committed murder before, but they competed with each other over their criminal boldness.
Hickock hatched the idea in prison to commit the robbery, leave no witnesses and start a new life in Mexico with the cash from the Clutter home. Hickock described his plan as "a cinch, the Perfect score." (In Cold Blood, p. 44) They both had dreams of fleeing and starting a new life in some exotic location. Smith had delusions, for example, of finding buried treasure off the coast of Mexico.
Their parole agreement forbade the two to associate, but Hickock wrote to Smith after Hickock's release from the Kansas State Penitentiary asking Smith to return to Kansas for "the perfect score." Smith returned, violating his parole, and agreed to participate in the robbery. After driving across the state of Kansas on Saturday, November 14, 1959, they entered an unlocked side door of the Clutter's home in the early morning hours of the 15th. Herb Clutter, hearing noises, awoke to find the robbers in his home. He told them he would give them all the money he had, but that he did not keep large amounts of cash on hand. Hickcock told Smith to bind and gag the other members of the family so that the two could make a thorough search of the home at their leisure. Smith complied, being expert with rope and knots. Inexplicably, he gagged everyone but Nancy Clutter.
After much searching and subsequent debate between Hickock and Smith, the robbers became convinced that Mr. Clutter was telling the truth. Hickock had repeatedly told Smith "no witnesses." Smith, angered by Hickock's final goading, and perhaps in a blind moment of rage, slit Herb Clutter's throat. Once aware of what he had done, Smith fired a single shotgun blast to Clutter's head. As Smith recounted later, "I didn't want to harm the man. I thought he was a very nice gentleman. Soft spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat." (In Cold Blood, p. 244) What happened next is uncertain. What is certain is that first Kenyon, then Nancy, and then Bonnie were murdered, each by single shotgun blast to the head. Nancy, ungagged, pleaded for her life, "Oh, no! Oh, please. No! No! No! No! Don't! Oh, please don't! Please!"
Smith claimed, in his oral confession, that Hickock murdered the two women. When asked to sign his confession, however, Smith refused. He wanted to accept responsibility for all four killings because he said he was "sorry for Dick's mother. Said, 'She's a real sweet person.'" (In Cold Blood, p. 255) Hickock always maintained that Smith did all four killings. Although a thief, there is a belief that Hickock was not capable of murder, but, since Smith was not allowed to amend his first confession, the question of who murdered Nancy and Bonnie remains to this day.
The killers returned on the morning of the murders to the Hickock family home. A few days after returning, Hickock passed a number of bad checks in order to raise cash for a whirlwind trip by the two of them to Mexico. After spending all their money and selling Hickock's car, they returned to the U.S. Once back in the United States, they stole another car and, against Smith's objections, returned to Kansas City. Hickock again passed a series of bad checks which allowed the criminals to travel again, this time to Miami, Florida. With their funds depleted, they drove back to Las Vegas, at the insistence of Smith, in order to pick up his belongings that he had sent there care of General Delivery. Shortly after picking up his belongings, they were pulled over by Las Vegas officers who recognized the plates on their stolen car.
A major break in the case came when Hickock's former cellmate, Floyd Wells, told his warden that he thought Hickock was the murderer after Wells heard of the crime over the radio. Wells had inspired the crime when he mentioned to Hickock that Herb Clutter kept large sums of cash on hand at his home. This tip led to their arrest in Las Vegas, Nevada about six weeks after the murders, after they had traveled many thousands of miles "on the lam."
Smith and Hickock were interviewed in Las Vegas by detectives from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation who obtained their confessions, first from Hickock and then from Smith. They were returned to Garden City, Kansas to await trial.
[edit] The trial
The trial was held at the Finney County Courthouse in Garden City, Kansas from March 22 to March 29, 1960. Judge, jury and lawyers all had known (or known of) the victims. Hickock was represented by Harrison Smith. Smith was represented by Arthur Fleming. A change of venue was discussed by the defendants and their lawyers, but was not sought, as Arthur Fleming told his client that most of the ministers in the area were preaching against capital punishment in their sermons.
The prosecution, led by Logan Greene and Duane West, based its case on confessions made prior to trial, matching boots in the custody of the accused to footprints found at the crime, and stolen items linked to the crime. Interrogated separately after their arrest in Las Vegas, Hickock was the first to break down and confess. Smith eventually confessed after being told his friend had "given him up." At first, Smith failed to believe that Hickock had given him up, but after Dewey related to him about a story Smith had only told to Hickock, he believed him.
Smith and Hickock pled temporary insanity. Local GPs evaluated the accused and pronounced them sane. According to Kansas law this meant they understood right from wrong while committing their crimes. An expert psychiatrist, Dr. W. Mitchell Jones, who volunteered his expertise, testified that Hickock, in his opinion, was sane at the time of the crime, but that he was unable to form a conclusion regarding Smith's sanity at the time of the crime.
Smith and Hickock's lawyers filed appeals based on inadequate legal representation at their trial, and on the judge's denial of their transfer to the state hospital for proper psychological evaluation.
After five years on death row, Smith and Hickock were executed by hanging for their crimes just after midnight on April 14, 1965 at the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing, Kansas, (now known as Lansing Correctional Facility). A few hours earlier, they both requested and got a last meal consisting of shrimp, French fries, garlic bread, ice cream and strawberries with whipped cream. Hickock, then aged 33, died first at 12:41 a.m., and Smith, then aged 36, died at 1:19 a.m. The gallows from which they were hanged is now part of the collections of the Kansas State Historical Society.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Writing history: Capote's novel has lasting effect on journalism
- Basehor Sentinel: "In Cold Blood killers met their match" (4/14/05)
- Capote's Legacy: The Challenge of Creativity and Credibility in Literary Journalism
- Clutter family murders
- In Cold Blood, a Legacy in Photos
| Works by Truman Capote |
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| Novels: Summer Crossing · The Grass Harp · The Thanksgiving Visitor · Other Voices, Other Rooms
Breakfast at Tiffany's · Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel |
