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Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood: a True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences. The Modern Library, 1992.

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Perry had a normal birth and childhood that changed when his mom got drunk and left, taking the kids with her. Eventually their dad found them in San Francisco and after she filed for divorce he got custody. He had Perry live with him, but his 3 siblings were taken by the state as their father couldn't afford to take care of them. Perry was taught to not start fights, but he fought when someone else started a fight.

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3. Textual Evidence for Perry's Childhood

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3. Textual Evidence for Perry's Childhood

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"Her drinkin and stepping out, living with a young man. I contested the divorce and was granted full custody of the children. I took Perry to my home to live with me. The other children were put in foster homes as I could not manage to take them all in my home..." Page 150

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He was a star athlete and a good student. His family did not have money so he could not afford college. He got married at 19, but that marriage did not last, although they had three kids. He remarried, but that marriage did not last either since she divorced him when he went to prison for stealing a gun. He was a car accident that gave him a concussion. His dad blames that for his bad behavior saying he wasn't the same since the accident.

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5. Textual Evidence for Richard's Background

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5. Textual Evidence for Richard's Background

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"I still think the reason he started doing stunts such as that was connected with the smash-up. After that, he wasn't the same boy. Gambling, writing bad checks. I never knew him to do those things before." Page 197

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Several summers before the Holcomb murders Perry claimed he killed a black man named King. They went on a drive and after getting out of the car Perry picked up his bicycle chain and hit King across the face repeatedly. He left him there, not knowing whether he died or not, but assuming he did.

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A year before the killings they first met and Richard thought Perry was a good guy, sentimental, and a dreamer. He liked him, but wasn't interested in spending time with him.

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8. Textual evidence for Their First Encounter

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8. Textual evidence for Their First Encounter

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"...he'd thought Perry "a good guy," if a bit "stuck on himself," "sentimental," too much "the dreamer." He had liked him but not considered him especially worth cultivating." Page 64

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Herbert "Herb" Clutter, 48 (father)

Kenyon Clutter, 15 (son)

Bonnie Clutter, 45 (mother)

Nancy Clutter, 16 (daughter)

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Floyd Wells shared a cell with Richard in June and part of July in 1959. They were discussing different jobs they had and Floyd said he had worked for Mr. Cutter. Richard had a lot of questions about Mr. Cutter's wealth, how to get to the house, etc. He mentioned how him and Perry were going to go out there and rob the home and kill all witnesses.

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"Next thing I knew, Dick was talking about killing Mr. Clutter. Said him and Perry was gonna go out there and rob the place, and they was gonna kill all witnesses - the Clutters, and anybody else that happened to be around. He described to me a dozen times how he was gonna do it." Page 192

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After waiting days and thinking about what he knew as well as the reward money, Floyd talks to an inmate who convinces him to tell authorities what he knows. Floyd tells the Warden, who calls Logan Sanford and Alvin Dewey. Detectives finally had suspects for the murders - Richard Eugene Hickock and Perry Edward Smith.

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On November 15, 1959 at night in the town of Holcomb, Kansas four members of the Clutters were shot. One of them was also cut with a knife. They all died.

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After the murders, Richard and Perry sat down and read the paper together. The paper stated that clues were few. Perry does not trust there there were no clues found.

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Agent A. A. Dewey was in a hotel room when he got a call saying Richard and Perry were in the same city he was in, Kansas City. They were found because Richard was writing checks from one side of town to the other; using his own name.

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After Kansas City, Richard and Perry drive all night out of Kansas and through Missouri, Arkansas, the Ozarks into Louisiana where car trouble stopped them for the night. They slept by the Alabama-Florida border and then headed to Miami where they stayed at the Somerset Hotel. They had been there 5 days through Christmas.

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December 30th 1959 Agent Dewey got a call that Richard and Perry had been arrested in Las Vegas. While visiting the Las Vegas Post Office to retrieve a package Perry mailed to himself from Mexico, two officers spotted their car and followed them.

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"Absorbed in his plans, Dick did not notice a patrol car pass him, slow down, reconnoiter. Nor did Perry, descending the post office steps with the Mexican box balanced on a shoulder, observe the prowling car and the policemen in it. Officers Ocie Pigford and Francis Macauley carried in their heads pages of memorized data, including a description of a black-and-white 1956 Chevrolet bearing Kansas license plate no. Jo 16212. Neither Perry nor Dick was aware of the police vehicle trailing them as they pulled away from the post office." Page 255

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Two interrogation rooms were used to question Richard and Perry separately at the Las Vegas City Jail.

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Richard's dad hold told agents both Richard and Perry were visiting Perry's sister in Fort Scott to get money during the time surrounding the murders. Richard said that when they couldn't find her house they went to the post office for an address. However three clues say otherwise. Perry never had a sister in Fort Scott and the sister he had is dead. And the Fort Scott post office is closed on Saturday afternoons.

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21. Textual Evidence for the Interrogations

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21. Textual Evidence for the Interrogations

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"On Saturday, the second day of 1960, both rooms were booked for 2:0 P.M. - the hour that four detectives from Kansas had selected for their first confrontation of Hickock and Smith." Page 256

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Back in the confession room on what would be Nancy Clutter's 17th birthday, agents told Richard they had both of their boots that matched bloody prints at the crime scene. They said he would be charged with 4 counts of first degree murder. Hickock immediately said it was Perry who killed them all.

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A 78 page typed document of information given to Alvin Dewey and Clarence Duntz was written up, but Perry refused to sign it. This was confusing as Richard had signed his confession back in Las Vegas a month earlier. When asked about it, Perry said there were 2 details that were not accurate. Mainly that it was he that shot and killed the entire family. In Perry's statement he also gave clues to where evidence was hidden; like the empty shells, nylon cord, tape, gloves, shirts, knife, and gun.

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"K.B.I. agents, dispatched to Hickock's home, found the knife inside a fishing-tackle box and the shotgun still casually propped against a kitchen wall...Tests established that the shells had been discharged by Hickock's shotgun, and the remnants of the cord and tape were of a piece with the materials used to bind and silence the victims." Pages 305-306

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The trial was set to begin on March 22, 1960. Even though the defense tried to postpone the trial by trying to get a change of venue, pleading temporary insanity and wanted psych evaluations, saying Hickock's father was ill and was a key witness, and even that an auction at the Clutter Farm was happening that same weekend all motions were denied and the trial went on as planned.

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The jury found Richard Hickock and Perry Smith both guilty on 4 counts of first degree murder, punishable by death.

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30. Textual Evidence for "The Last Laugh?"

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30. Textual Evidence for "The Last Laugh?"

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"- and the punishment is death"; each time he came to a sentence, ... Then he dismissed the jury and the condemned men were led away. At the door, Smith said to Hickock, "No chicken-hearted jurors, they!" They both laughed loudly, and a cameraman photographed them. The picture appeared in a Kansas paper above a caption entitled: "The Last Laugh?"" Page 367

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Perry's cell was next to Richard's, but they rarely talked because Perry was cautious of other inmates hearing his private business. Perry stopped eating, not wanting to wait to die by the rope, and didn't ask for food on his own until 14 weeks later after he read a letter from his dad.

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"Eventually he had to be pinioned and fed intravenously or through a tube inserted in the nostril. Even so, over the next nine weeks his weight fell from 168 to 115 pounds, and the warden warned that force-feeding alone could not keep the patient alive indefinitely."  Page 380

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Hickock wrote many letters protesting his conviction. He claimed they did not have a fair trial. That Garden City was a hostile environment with a biased jury and that their defense attorneys were incompetent.

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Richard Eugene Hickock and Perry Edward Smith were executed on Wednesday April 14, 1965.

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"Richard Eugene Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, partners in crime, died on the gallows at the state prison early today for one of the bloodiest murders in Kansas criminal annals. Hickock, 33 years old, died first at 12:41 A.M.; Smith, 36, died at 1:19..." Page 402