The maimed bodies of Herb Clutter, 48; his wife, Bonnie Mae, 45; their daughter Nancy Mae, 16; and son Kenyon, 15; were discovered at their ransacked farmhouse in Holcomb, Kan. They were all bound and shot to death. Herb also had his throat slashed. Terrifyingly, the killers remained at large.
“It was something that just beguiled him,” Clarke adds. “But it was generally understood in this country then that writers who could wrote fiction, and writers who couldn't wrote journalism and nonfiction. Truman changed all that.”
Capote, joined by childhood friend and fellow novelist Harper Lee, bolted for Holcomb to interview residents and law enforcement, with the intention of writing about the frightening impact the killings had on the community. But six weeks after the brutal slayings, the killers were captured, steering Capote’s writing in a different direction. In an effort to create a well-rounded retelling of the murder and its effects, Capote made a bold move and got to know the accused: 31-year-old Perry Smith and 28-year-old Richard Hickock.
“He became friends with both of the killers. It's an odd thing to say, but he found a connection with them, particularly with Perry,” Clarke says. “Not to say that he'd condoned what they had done, but they were human beings, and he understood them.”
University of Nevada, Las Vegas history professor Michael Green tells A&E Crime + Investigation he thinks Capote might’ve gotten to know Hickock and Smith “too well, certainly too well for his own good.”
“It's revolutionary in not humanizing them in a way that makes them lovable, but makes you understand them better, or at least know Capote's version,” Green says.
Capote wove in narrative techniques usually reserved for fiction novels, and he meticulously interlaced imagery, dialogue and characterization to create a poignant and compelling, yet fact-based story. By carefully implementing unique storytelling skills, he described the real-life events of the murders with gripping depth and layered detail.
“He would make people come alive in the book, which hadn’t been done before,” Clarke says. “It gave it another dimension. It made the killers become human beings. They weren't just terrible people who killed and murdered four people, in cold blood. They were human beings like everybody else, with a lot of problems and stories. And you had to have a little sympathy.”
One particular line from In Cold Blood is burned into the biographer’s memory: “I thought that Mr. Clutter was a very nice gentleman. I thought so right up to the moment that I cut his throat.”
“It just sends a chill through you when you read something like that,” Clarke confesses. “Truman would never have known that detail had he not become close to him.”
The fate of Smith and Hickock dragged on for six years, as they fought to have their cases appealed. But the court struck down their numerous attempts at a new trial, and they were subsequently put to death in April 1965.
“It was just a matter of frustration that it took so long for them to die, but at the same time, there was a certain feeling of guilt that he wanted them executed,” Clarke says. “He was torn.”
At the same time, “it scraped Truman to the marrow of his bones,” Clark adds. “It was a very traumatic experience for him. He hadn't expected anything like what happened when he started.”
As soon as they were hanged, Capote had the ending he was waiting for, and he handed in In Cold Blood to his editor. As he dealt with the turmoil of his late friends’ executions, the book exploded.
“He changed everything,” Clarke says. “He changed the perception of what true crime was. It wasn’t just for the cheap paperbacks. Truman was the first to bring it into literature.”
