Editing In Cold Blood (section)

== Crime ==

{{Main|Clutter family murders}}

[[Image:Clutter home Holcomb, KS March 2009.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|The former Clutter home in 2009]]
Herbert "Herb" Clutter was a prosperous farmer in western Kansas. He employed as many as 18 farmhands, who admired and respected him for his fair treatment and good wages. His two elder daughters, Eveanna and Beverly, had moved out and started their adult lives; his two younger children, daughter Nancy, 16, and son Kenyon, 15, were in high school. Clutter's wife Bonnie had reportedly been incapacitated by [[Major depressive disorder|clinical depression]] and physical ailments since the births of her children, although this was later disputed by her brother and other family members, who maintained that Bonnie's depression was not as debilitating as portrayed in the book.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/apr/04/brother_friends_object/|title=Brother, friends object to portrayal of Bonnie Clutter by Capote|access-date=April 15, 2020|archive-date=August 1, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801211456/https://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/apr/04/brother_friends_object/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Two ex-convicts recently paroled from the [[Kansas State Penitentiary]], [[Richard Hickock|Richard Eugene "Dick" Hickock]] and [[Perry Smith (murderer)|Perry Edward Smith]], robbed and murdered Herb, Bonnie, Nancy, and Kenyon in the early morning hours of November 15, 1959. A former cellmate of Hickock's, Floyd Wells, had worked for Herb Clutter and told Hickock that Clutter kept large amounts of cash in a safe. Hickock soon hatched the idea to steal the safe and start a new life in [[Mexico]]. According to Capote, Hickock described his plan as "a cinch, the perfect score." Hickock later contacted Smith, another former cellmate, about committing the robbery with him.<ref>''In Cold Blood'', p. 44.</ref> In fact, Herb Clutter had no safe and transacted essentially all of his business by check.<ref>{{Cite web|url = https://www.thepitchkc.com/my-own-cold-blood-how-the-clutter-murders-still-haunt-kansas/|title = My Own Cold Blood: How the Clutter murders still haunt Kansas|date = April 14, 2020|access-date = April 15, 2020|archive-date = April 18, 2020|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200418130653/https://www.thepitchkc.com/my-own-cold-blood-how-the-clutter-murders-still-haunt-kansas/|url-status = live}}</ref>

After driving more than 400 miles across the state of [[Kansas]] on the evening of November 14, Hickock and Smith arrived in Holcomb, located the Clutter home, and entered through an unlocked door while the family slept. Upon rousing the Clutters and discovering there was no safe, they bound and gagged the family, and continued to search for money, but found little of value in the house. Still determined to leave no witnesses, the pair briefly debated what to do; Smith, notoriously unstable and prone to violent acts in fits of rage, slit Herb Clutter's throat and then shot him in the head. Capote writes that 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."<ref>''In Cold Blood'', p. 244.</ref> Kenyon, Nancy, and then Mrs. Clutter were also murdered, each by a single shotgun blast to the head. Hickock and Smith left the crime scene with a small portable radio, a pair of binoculars, and less than $50 ({{Inflation|US|50|1959|fmt=eq}}) in cash.<ref>''In Cold Blood'', p. 246.</ref>

Smith later claimed in his oral confession that Hickock murdered the two women. When asked to sign his confession, however, Smith refused. According to Capote, he wanted to accept responsibility for all four killings because, he said, he was "sorry for Dick's mother." Smith added, "She's a real sweet person."<ref>''In Cold Blood'', p. 255.</ref> Hickock always maintained that Smith committed all four killings.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/apr/05/witness_to_execution/|title=Witness to execution|access-date=April 15, 2020|archive-date=February 9, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200209024235/http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/apr/05/witness_to_execution/|url-status=live}}</ref>