In Cold Blood

¶ … Truman Capote's nonfiction novel "In Cold Blood," he follows intently the murder investigation of the Clutter family. Four members of the family were killed in their home in Holcomb, Kansas in November of 1959. The two convicted murderers were put to death in 1965. "In Cold Blood" came out the following year.

Truman Capote claims that all information contained in the book is true, but he did take some creative liberties with the material - especially when he did not describe the murder scene until after the killers were caught and had confessed. The following is a detailed account of the scene of the murders of Herbert Clutter, his wife Bonnie, their daughter Nancy and their son Kenyon. Nancy Clutter is the first body to be discovered. Her room is upstairs, which is where she was killed.

The walls and her bedroom furniture are splattered with blood. She lay on her bed, her face toward the wall, with the back of her head blown away. The nature of the shotgun blast is concluded to have been at close range because of the amount of brain matter that has been damaged. She is tied up, with her wrists behind her in what would typically be how someone is handcuffed. Her ankles are also bound, with something that looks to be the cord from some type of blinds.

She is fully clothed - in a bathrobe, pajamas, and slippers. The assumption is made that she was not sexually assaulted because she is fully clothed and the body does not look as though it has been disturbed. Capote indicates in the book that Dick wanted to rape Nancy. Perry threatens him, by saying that he will kill him if he does. The next room encountered is Kenyon's, but it is empty. The men continue on to the end of the hall, where they enter the master bedroom.

Bonnie Clutter's body is found on the bed, which is across from the door. She is in a white nightgown, which makes the blood-stains even more noticeable. Her hands are tied, too, but in front of her. It almost looks like she could have been praying. This cord that is around her wrists goes down to her ankles, which are also tied together; the cord continues to the bottom of the bed, where the cord is tied to the footboard. The tying is very complicated.

Bonnie was shot also at very close range, directly into the side of her head. Her eyes are still open. The body of Kenyon and Herbert are discovered downstairs in the basement. Kenyon is the only one dressed in casual clothes, rather than pajamas. He is in a t-shirt and jeans. He is tied up similar to the intricate pattern of his mother, and then tied down to a large davenport sofa in a laying position.

He too has been shot at close range, only his face is pretty much gone from the shotgun blast. He has been moved from his original tied up position (according to Perry). Perry had first put him in the room with his father, tied up to a steam pipe that was overhead in the rafters of the furnace room. However, Perry changed his mind and actually moved Kenyon to the position where he was killed.

Herbert Clutter's body is in pajamas, and is found in the same room as the furnace. He was shot in the same manner as Kenyon - into his face, but his throat was also slit, which caused for there to be a much larger amount of blood than the other three bodies. The officers who discovered his body seem to think that he was probably tortured. His mouth is taped shut with tape that is wound all the way around his head.

His body is sprawled out in front of the furnace, on a large cardboard box. There was a cord attached to a steam pipe that was overhead, in the rafters of the ceiling. The inference is made that Herb must have been attached to the steam pipe - tied to it -.