The title of Truman Capote’s 1966 true crime classic “In Cold Blood” works on multiple levels. Dick and Perry murdered the Clutter family for no real reason; they killed in a purposely ruthless manner, without feeling and with cruel intent, which is the basic definition of doing something in cold blood. However, Capote wants the reader to take the title one step further. Dick and Perry are executed at the end of the novel, and there are many people in America who think that execution is a form of murder. Perhaps Capote is suggesting that the American justice system killed Dick and Perry in cold blood. And finally, there’s Holcomb, Kansas. Before the Clutter murders it was a quiet small town with traditional values and a Norman Rockwell-like innocence. The Clutter murders and the trial and execution of Dick and Perry murdered a small town’s innocence in cold blood.
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