In cold blood book report

In the book “ In Cold Blood” bny Truman Capote, Two men by the name of Dick and Perry plan, then later burglarize and kill the Clutter family. This book is the real account of Dick and Perry across the country and part of Mexico during 1959. After Dick and Perry has killed the Clutter family, they go on the road to escape conviction, Most of the book is an account of what happened during the 41 days leading up to the capture. Despite not actually being present in the story, the writer, Capote narrates the entire book. Capote believed that the key to good journalism was making the author invisible.

The two main characters in this story Perry Edward Smith, and Richard Eugene Hickock. Perry is one of the two murderers of the Clutter family. Perry was the nice one of the group despite being a murderer, at one point, Dick wanted to rape the mother, but Perry threatened him with his life if he did. He is short, with a large upper body but small legs. His legs were damaged in a motorcycle crash. He wants to be educated, and he thinks of himself as intelligent and artistic. His childhood was very lonely and disorganized. His criminal record seems to be a representation of the odd environments in which he grew up. Dick is the second murderer of the Clutter family. Dick is more of a forward man. Dick was the one more prone to violence. Also a small man, Dick lived in Kansas as a kid. Dick got married two times, and was arrested twice for passing bad checks. He is a practical man who has a lot of confidence and cruelty, but he is not as brutal as he seems.

Many people are involved in this story, some of these characters are not in the story for very long, but they are present none the less. The characters are Perry Edward Smith, Richard Eugene Hickock, Herbert Clutter, Bonnie Clutter, Nancy Clutter, Kenyon Clutter, Bobby Rupp, Alvin Dewey, Harold Nye, Roy Church, Clarence Duntz, Tex John Smith, Susan Kidwell, Willie-Jay, Floyd Wells, Lowell Lee Andrews, Mr. Helms, Alfred Stoecklein, Bess Hartman, Barbara Johnson, and Don Cullivan. Alvin, Harold, Roy, and Clarence all had a part in solving the murder. Tex John Smith and Barbara Johnson is Perry’s only living immediate family. Lowell Lee Andrews is a college student that went on a mass shooting and is one of the inmates with Perry and Dick. Floyd Wells was a former employee of Herbert Clutter; he later becomes Dick’s cellmate and tells him about the Clutter residence. The other characters not mentioned aside from Dick, Perry, and the Clutter family, are unimportant that has no significant effect on the story.

In this story, Dick and Perry are first seen getting ready for the heist on the clutter family, getting supplies and driving to the Clutter house. The morning after the attempted burglary, two schoolmates of Nancy Clutter stops by the Clutter house only to find the family dead. The next week, paranoia ensues as the Clutter family was the most well respected family in the city, because of this a few families move out. Dick and Perry are next on a boat in Mexico with a wealthy German man. Perry later flashes back to his childhood when his dad made a makeshift mobile home for his family. Dick and Perry then start hitchhiking planning to kill whoever picks them up, someone finally picks the two up, but just when Dick signals Perry to club the driver over the head, he picks up another hitchhiker. The duo then travel to Kansas-city where Dick cashes a lot of checks there. After Kansas-City, they then go from Miami to Texas to find work. Not finding work, Dick and Perry decide to go to Vegas, where they then get caught on December 30, 1959.

On November 15, 1959 Nancy Clutter’s schoolmates found the family dead. All four of the family members had been tied up and shot in different rooms, some sustaining wounds to that of torture. Several tips were offered, but few actually pertaining to the case. Very little evidence was collected at the crime scene, only some bloody foot prints and bullet casings from a shotgun. Only the bloody footprint was used to make Dick confess to the murder. Now we could have used the bullet casings to find what shotgun kind of shotgun it belonged to, and that could have sped up the time it took to figure out the killers. Since the killers used rubber gloves, no fingerprints were found at the scene of the crime.

For a while, the police didn’t know who the killers could possibly be, it is not until Dick’s old cellmate Floyd tells the cops that they know. Floyd says that he told Dick about the Clutter family and they are very wealthy. Without this evidence, the killers probably would have never been found. Because of the killing, many people became paranoid; some even left the city from shear fear. This story taught me that crime never pays; they went to the clutter house thinking to get 10k+ but ended up with only $50.

Dick and Perry were two men in their 30s who committed a gruesome murder of a four person family; they intended to get $10, 000+ but ended up with only $50. This still surprises me that this was actually a real murder. Not much evidence was found at the crime scene, only bloody foot prints, and then later bullet casings. In the end Dick and Perry had a book written about them, then later a movie.