In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

In cold blood by Truman Capote

“In cold blood” by Truman Capote is a griping, true story about the mass murder of (on)? a respectful and beloved family in Northern Kansas. The lives of four people were taken on September 15th 1959 when two young men broke into their home with the intention of robbing their safe which was supposed to contain 10,000 dollars. But the source that had given them the information about the safe had been incorrect and they walked out the house with only 40 dollars and a radio, but with the responsibility of (have taken four lives). The death of the four family members was an unnecessary and brutal action by the two criminals. Capote describes in detail the persons and places involved in the murder. He also creates an intimacy between the reader and the murderers, the victims, the townspeople, and the investigators. Since this intimacy is created between the murderers and the reader, sympathy arises for the two young killers, which at times can be disturbing as you don’t want to feel sorry for someone who has committed such an awful crime. Even if you have compassion for the killers Capotes still writes objectivity which allows the reader to form its own opinion of the characters. Sometimes it is hard to follow the novel since Capote doesn’t write the story in complete chronological order and since he mention many names which at times may not have a big part or an important part to the story.

The Clutter family lives in a small town called Holcomb. Herbert Clutter is a successful farmer and a natural born leader. He is among other things chairman of Kansas Conference of Organizations and he is a widely known citizen, prominent in both Holcomb and Garden City.

His wife is invalid and has been a psychiatric patient for the last half dozen years. Even though, Mr. Clutter’s loyalty to his wife will never cease.

Mr. and Mrs. Clutter have four children, three daughters and one son. Eveanna is the eldest one and lives in northern Illinois with her baby boy and her husband. Beverly, the second eldest, is engaged and is scheduled for wedding by Christmas. Their two youngest children still lives at home, Kenyon and his one year older sister Nancy. Both Kenyon and Nancy are honour-roll, straight-A students. Nancy is president of her class, a leader in the 4-h programme and the young Methodist League, a skilled rider and an excellent musician. The Clutters being very religious goes to church regular every Sundays. The Clutters lives the perfect American life with no flaws. When they were murdered the residents of Holcomb were frightened and confused since there was no one who didn’t like the Clutters. The death of the family was uncomprehending and without motivation. Everyone knew that Mr. Clutter never kept a safe, and therefore robbery was excluded.

The Clutters killers, Perry Edward Smith and Richard Eugene Hickock (also known as Dick), comes from two very different worlds. Perry Smith’s history was violent and broken. He grew up without love and lack of concern from both his parents.

He was half Cherokee (from his mother’s side) and half Irish (his fathers side naturally). He had inherited his dark skin and hair and moist eyes from his mother; you couldn’t see much trace from his father though. He was short but with broad shoulders. He had injured his legs in a motorcycle accident which had left him with disfigured legs and an aspirin addiction. When his mother left his father she took all the children with her. But Perry missed his dad and he had on several occasions during three years run of to find his lost father. He despised his mother since she was an alcoholic and had lost her self-respect by bringing home strange men. His mother couldn’t control Perry and sent him to a Catholic orphanage where they abused him every time he wet his bed, and therefore he had an aversion to nuns, God, and religion. Perry only got to finish third grade because when his father came and found him Perry moved in with