Today it has been 60 years since the Clutter family were murdered

[raccoon]

In Holcomb KS.

I found Capote’s book IN COLD BLOOD riveting when I first read it as a teenager. I have reread it from time to time throughout the years. I still think it is very good writing, but I feel like he really made Perry Smith seem a lot more decent than he really was.

I’ve been looking for something on the Net about it being the anniversary, such as Garden City, KS news, but haven’t yet seen anything.

If you see anything, please post.

[katmondoo]

1. I read the book IN COLD BLOOD on Halloween night when it first came out.

Really gave me the chills. I don't think I could ever read it again.

[Jim__]

2. Do you think Capote made Smith seem more decent than Capote thought he was?

Here's an excerpt from the wikipedia entry on Smith:

Perry Edward Smith was born in Huntington, Nevada, a now-abandoned community in Elko County.[3] His parents, Florence Julia "Flo" Buckskin and John "Tex" Smith, were rodeo performers.[3] Smith was of mixed Irish and Cherokee ancestry (from his father's and mother's side, respectively).[3][4][5] The family moved to Juneau, Alaska, in 1929, where the elder Smith distilled bootleg whisky for a living. Smith's father abused his wife and four children, and in 1935 his wife left him, taking the children with her to San Francisco.[3]

Smith and his siblings were raised initially with their alcoholic mother. After Smith's mother died from choking on her own vomit when he was 13, he and his siblings were placed in a Catholic orphanage, where nuns allegedly[6] abused him physically and emotionally for his lifelong problem of chronic bed wetting, a result of malnutrition. He was also placed in a Salvation Army orphanage, where one of the caretakers allegedly[6] tried to drown him. In his adolescence, Smith reunited with his father and together they lived an itinerant existence across much of the western United States. He also spent time in different juvenile detention homes after joining a street gang and becoming involved in petty crime. Perry's father, Tex, moved to Cold Springs, Nevada, circa 1964–1967, where he lived to the age of 92 before committing suicide, distraught over poor health.[7]

Two of Smith's siblings also committed suicide as young adults, and the remaining sister eliminated any contact with him.[8]

Smith could have been a sociopath and manipulated Capote into believing he was a decent person. Or, Smith could have been a basically decent person who, largely due to his background, periodically committed horrible acts. Or, Capote could have made him seem sympathetic to help sell his book. It is scary to think that decent people could commit the types of atrocities that Smith did; but I also believe that history tells us it does happen, and happens much more than we would like to believe.

[raccoon]

4. I agree that Perry had a very abusive upbringing.

But sometimes, in the book, I think capote presented him as being nicer than he was. For instance when the two perps drove up in the Clutters’ yard, Capote has Perry constantly second-guessing their mission, wanting to back out. As if he really didn’t want to do it, really didn’t want to kill them. And yet he went ahead with it. And in his confession, Perry says things like, Herbert clutter would just spend a few hours tied up and in the morning somebody would free them all. Why would he be thinking that kind of thing when they have been talking about killing them, leaving no witnesses etc ?

He has Perry being kind of a grammarian, Correcting Dick’s grammar and if I recall correctly, grammar in a newspaper. Voss, who wrote a book about in cold blood, said from Perry’s confession he didn’t sound like he was too much up on grammar. That is, he made grammatical mistakes.

Both of the perps possibly had suffered a traumatic brain injury. I realize that this can make a person have real difficulties with impulse control.

[edbermac]

10. I think he empathized with him.

I think he made an analogy that they were on the same path in life until they came to a fork in the road, Capote took one, Smith took the other.

[3Hotdogs]

3. Movie on Capote was excellent.

[lunasun]

5. I wasnt around then but heard my mother talk about it . I think there was another case in our

area that got people here involved in true crime details but then this one was famously written about by capote

Posted today:
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/today-in-history/the-coldblooded-murder-that-started-our-true-crime-obsession/news-story/adf10865885a138563f37f2c3aa3f752


Why’d I say that? From the link >
It would have remained just another local crime had it not been for the fact that author Truman Capote read about it and turned it into a seminal work of “true crime”, the “nonfiction novel” titled In Cold Blood. It was a bestseller and started an American obsession with true crime

[raccoon]

6. Thanks for the link.

Good article.

However, the author said Nelle Harper Lee was Capote’s cousin. She wasn’t, just a friend.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

7. I saw that noted on Wikipedia.

I read the book in August 1969. It is the only book that I have read from cover to cover, unable to put it down other than to take bathroom breaks and maybe get some food. I was 18 at the time. I have reread the book maybe once or twice.

Clutter family murders

Location: Holcomb, Kansas
Date: November 15, 1959
Deaths: 4
Victims: Herbert Clutter (age 48)
Bonnie Clutter: (age 45)
Nancy Clutter: (age 16)
Kenyon Clutter: (age 15)
Motive: Robbery
Convicted: Perry Edward Smith, Richard Hickock

In the early morning hours of November 15, 1959, four members of the Clutter family – Herb Clutter, his wife Bonnie, and their teenage children Nancy and Kenyon – were murdered in the small farming community of Holcomb, Kansas. Two ex-convicts, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, were found guilty of the murders. Both Smith and Hickock were executed by the state of Kansas on the same day, April 14, 1965. The Clutter family murders were detailed in a 1966 non-fiction novel In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.

[Green Line]

8. I read the book when it first came out

I don't think I could read it again, it was horrifying. The other book I'll never read again is Helter Skelter, even worse than In Cold Blood.

[StarfishSaver]

12. Me, too!

[raccoon]

9. I found something. At KWCH.com.

Friday, Nov. 15, marks 60th anniversary of Clutter family murders near Holcomb

Posted: Fri 4:13 PM, Nov 15, 2019 | Updated: Fri 5:01 PM, Nov 15, 2019

FINNEY COUNTY, Kan. Sixty years ago Friday, two ex-convicts broke into a rural Holcomb family's home looking for a safe. They didn't find one, but did find all but two members of the Clutter family.

In one of the most infamous crimes in U.S. history, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock killed Herb Clutter, his wife Bonnie and two of their children, Nancy and Kenyon. Author Truman Capote immortalized the crime in his groundbreaking book, "In Cold Blood."

The Clutter home still stands in Finney County and earlier this year, was up for auction. Before it gained notoriety for being the site of a crime that shook the nation, the home was "the jewel of the small town of Holcomb," a realtor.com article about the property says.

Smith and Hickcock received the death penalty for the Clutler murders. On April 14, 1965, they died by hanging at the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing.

[Raine]

11. Thank you for the reminder

I read the book too and saw the movie, such an awful thing.