Fifty years ago today, the Clutter family was brutally murdered in their home by ex-convicts Perry Smith and Dick Hickock in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas.
Artist: Steve Schapiro
After driving across the state of Kansas on Saturday, November 14, 1959, Hickock and Smith located the Clutter home, entering while the family slept. After rousing the family, and discovering that there was no money to be found at the Clutters’ home, Smith, notoriously unstable and sociopathic, became enraged and slit Herb Clutter’s throat and then shot him in the 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.”Kenyon, then Nancy, and then Bonnie were murdered, each by single shotgun blasts to the head.
The next day, the New York Times published an account of the murders. A thirty-five year old eccentric writer by the name of Truman Capote read the article and was instantly intrigued by it. With his childhood friend, Harper Lee, he got on a train and traveled to Kansas to interview the locals and record the story and investigation. After the murderers were captured, Capote even interviewed them and would later witness their executions.
Capote’s account of the murders, investigation, and trial would become the 1966 bestseller known today as In Cold Blood. In began as a four part serial in the New Yorker which ran the first section in 1965. The book form was released by Random House in January 1966, nine months after the convicted were hanged.
The plot weaves a complicated psychological story of two parolees who together commit a mass murder, an act they were not capable of individually. Capote’s book also details the lives of the victims and the effect the crime had on the community where they lived. A large part of the story involves the dynamic psychological relationship of the two felons that culminated in this senseless crime. In Cold Blood is often regarded by critics as a pioneering work of true crime.
Through the years, the story itself along with Capote’s journey in conceiving it has inspired many films, Infamous being one of my favorites. Many argue it was probably Capote’s best work, and In Cold Blood definitely set the path for true crime writing today. And as they say, the rest is history…
It’s now 8pm and we’ve had eight kids come by. The streets are empty. There are no cars. Half the street has its lights out. I’m so disappointed. And so I sit here and wonder why there’s no knock on the door, awaiting the Roseanne Halloween marathon, making coffee, and wondering what the heck I’m going to do with all this candy.
