The Murder

On November 15, 1959 the Clutter family was brutally murdered in their farm house in Holcomb, Kansas. Herb, Bonnie, Nancy, and Kenyon were all murdered on that night by two people named Perry and Dick. In the book "In Cold Blood", Capote talks about how six human lives were ended when only four people got killed. This is exactly right, because the killers ended up getting the death sentence. Capote writes, "At the time not a soul in sleeping Holcomb heard them-- four shotgun blasts that ended six human lives," (5). According to the movie "Capote", this was a robbery gone wrong. Perry was telling Truman that there was no intention of killing anyone, that they were at the house just to steal $50,000 that they had heard about then leave and drive up to Mexico and nobody in the town would know what happened. However, the killers realize that there isn't $50,000 dollars in the house, and they kill the family. This one event affected the town because of the people that it killed. From how Capote described the family, they were a good family in the town who everyone looked up to. They were good people who happened to be murdered, and the town mourned their deaths. Capote was very accurate in telling his readers that the night had ended six human lives. As a result of this one event, both Dick and Perry's lives were ruined. They ended up getting charged for murder and the rest of their life would be history because they did this militous act. So, when Capote talks about six human lives ending with four shotgun blasts, he is exactly right.