Author: Gary McAvoy
Publisher: Literati Books
Release Date: March 4, 2019
Page Count: 310
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
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I read Truman Capote's In Cold Blood far too young and am still haunted by Nancy Clutter, helping a friend bake an apple pie her last day of life and writing in her journal nightly, every year in a different ink color.
We all know who killed the Clutter family ... but this book asks WHY were they killed? The book repeats things over and over quite a few times, and the overall organization is somewhat strange, but here is what really struck me: After the news spread about the murder, most of the local law men (including Alvin Dewey who was a friend of Herb Clutter) felt the answer lay close to home.
Herb Clutter was not the provincial wheat farmer Capote portrays - he was the founder of the Kansas Wheat Association, had served on national agricultural boards, even had ties to the White House. And Clutter had made enemies along the way. Richard Hickok wrote of being paid $5,000 to murder Clutter, and that after the murder they only had an hour before having to meet "Roberts." And indeed, an hour after the murders, two men who fit the descriptions of Perry Smith and Hickok were seen meeting an unknown man in a diner 30 miles or so away from Garden City. Supposedly Frank Miles in prison told Hickok about the Clutter home and the safe full of money. Miles drew a map for Hickok detailing where each family member slept .... except the house the Clutters were currently living in wasn't BUILT when Miles worked on the Clutter farm.