Did Perry Smith Ever Read Harper Lee's Novel

American mass murderer (1928–1965)

Perry Edward Smith
Kansas State Penitentiary - March, 1960
Built-in	(1928-10-27)Oct 27, 1928 Huntington, Nevada, U.S.
Died	Apr 14, 1965(1965-04-xiv) (aged 36) Kansas State Penitentiary, Leavenworth County, Kansas
Cause of expiry	Execution past hanging
Occupation	Criminal, seaman, soldier
Criminal status	Executed
Parent(southward)	Florence Julia Buckskin and "Tex" John Smith
Conviction(s)	First degree murder (4 counts)
Criminal penalty	Death by hanging

Perry Edward Smith (October 27, 1928 – April fourteen, 1965) was ane of ii career criminals convicted of murdering the iv members of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas, United States, on November fifteen, 1959, a criminal offence that was made famous by Truman Capote in his 1966 not-fiction novel In Cold Blood.^{[1] [2]} Along with Richard Hickock, Smith took part in the break-in and multiple murder at the Clutter family farmhouse.

Early life and family [edit]

Perry Edward Smith was born in Huntington, Nevada, a at present-abandoned customs in Elko Canton.^[3] His parents, Florence Julia "Flo" Buckskin and John "Tex" Smith, were rodeo performers.^[three] Sources conflict on whether Smith was of mixed Dutch and Shoshone beginnings (from his father'southward and female parent's side, respectively)^[four] or Irish–Cherokee.^[5] The family moved to Juneau, Alaska in 1929, where the elder Smith distilled bootleg whisky for a living. Smith's male parent abused his married woman and 4 children, and in 1935 his wife left him, taking the children with her to San Francisco, California.^[3]

Smith and his siblings were raised initially with their alcoholic mother, Flo. After Flo died from choking on her own vomit when he was 13, he and his siblings were placed in a Catholic orphanage, where nuns allegedly^[vi] abused him physically and emotionally for his lifelong problem of chronic bed wetting, a result of malnutrition. He was also placed in a Salvation Army orphanage, where one of the caretakers allegedly^[6] tried to drown him. In his boyhood, Smith reunited with his father, Tex, and together they lived an itinerant existence across much of the western U.s.. Smith also spent time in different juvenile detention homes later joining a street gang and becoming involved in niggling crime. In the mid-1960s, Tex moved to Common cold Springs, Nevada, where he lived to the age of 92 earlier committing suicide, distraught over poor health.^[seven]

Ii of Smith'south siblings also committed suicide every bit young adults, and the remaining sister eliminated whatever contact with him.^[8]

Military service and life in Washington [edit]

At age 16, Smith joined the United states Merchant Marine. He joined the The states Army in 1948, where he served in the Korean War.^[9] During his stint in the Army, Smith spent weeks at a time in the stockade for public carousing and fighting with Korean civilians and other soldiers. In spite of his record, Smith received an honorable belch in 1952 and was last stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington.^[9]

Smith stayed with an Army friend for a time in the Tacoma expanse, where he was employed as a car painter. With one of his first paychecks, Smith bought a motorcycle. While riding, he lost control of the bike due to adverse weather weather. Smith nearly died in the blow and spent half dozen months in a Bellingham hospital. Because of the severe injuries, his legs were permanently disabled^[nine] and he suffered chronic leg pains for the rest of his life. To help command the pain, Smith consumed an excessive amount of aspirin.^{[2] [9]}

The murders and life on decease row [edit]

Perry Smith and Richard Hickock first met in the Kansas Land Penitentiary in Lansing, Kansas. Smith was somewhen paroled, and the pair later resumed their acquaintance upon Hickock's release in November 1959. Hickock allegedly wrote to Smith, imploring him to violate his parole by returning to Kansas to assist Hickock with a robbery he had been planning. Smith claimed that his return was initially motivated not by meeting with Hickock, merely by the chance to reunite with some other former inmate, Willie-Jay, with whom he had developed an specially close bond while in prison; Smith soon discovered, however, that he had arrived in the Kansas Urban center area simply a few hours later on Willie-Jay had left for the east coast.

Smith met with Hickock, and almost immediately the ii fix to work carrying out Hickock's program. Driving west to Holcomb, they entered the Ataxia home through an unlocked door late in the evening of Nov 14, 1959, whereupon they murdered the four family members present: Herbert Clutter and his wife Bonnie, and their younger children, Nancy and Kenyon. Hickock later on testified that he had gotten the idea to rob the Clutters after being told past former cellmate Floyd Wells, who had worked equally a farmhand for the Clutters, that there was a safety in the family's house containing $10,000. When they invaded the house, however, they discovered that at that place was no such safe.^[2] After six weeks at big, mostly spent idly roaming the state, Smith and Hickock were captured in Las Vegas, Nevada, on December 30, 1959, following an all-encompassing manhunt which extended into Mexico.^[3]

Smith admitted to cutting the throat of the begetter, Herbert Clutter, as well as shooting both Herbert and Kenyon Ataxia in the head with a shotgun at shut range. Records show a dispute equally to which of the ii shot the women, Bonnie and Nancy Ataxia. Alvin Dewey, chief investigator of the Clutter family murders, testified at the trial that Hickock insisted in his confession that Smith performed all 4 killings; Smith, still, first confessed that Hickock killed the women, merely refused to sign his confession, and after claimed to have shot them himself. Although Smith'due south revised confession coincided with Hickock's initial statement, both Smith and Hickock refused to testify in court, leading to a lack of an official record detailing who killed the women.

While Smith had only a grade-school education, he maintained a stiff interest in fine art, literature and music. His crude by regarding his family unit and abusive childhood led him to exist somewhat distant from people. He read extensively, and during his time on death row, wrote poems and painted pictures for other inmates from photos of their family members.^[x]

Relationship with Truman Capote [edit]

During enquiry for his novel In Cold Claret, Truman Capote extensively interviewed Smith and somewhen befriended him.^[eleven]

Execution [edit]

Smith and Hickock were executed past hanging on April 14, 1965. Smith was hanged second, dying at ane:nineteen am.^[2]

Exhumation [edit]

Nearly fifty years after the executions, the bodies of the killers were exhumed from Mount Muncie Cemetery in Lansing, as authorities hoped to solve a 53-twelvemonth-former cold case using DNA. Smith and Hickock had originally been questioned about the December 19, 1959, shooting murder in Osprey, Florida of Cliff and Christine Walker and their two young children. Evidence indicated they had spent time simply a few miles from the Walker crime scene afterwards the Ataxia murders. A polygraph administered at the time of their arrest cleared them of the murders, but by modern polygraph standards, their test results are no longer considered valid.^[12] On December nineteen, 2012, officials in Kansas exhumed the bodies of Smith and Hickock and retrieved bone fragments to compare their Deoxyribonucleic acid to semen found in the pants of Christine Walker.^{[xiii] [14] [15]}

In August 2013, the Sarasota County Sheriff's office announced they were unable to notice a friction match betwixt the Dna of Smith or Hickock and the samples in the Walker family unit murder. Only partial DNA could be retrieved, possibly due to degradation of the Dna samples over the decades or contamination in storage, making the outcome i of doubt (neither proving nor disproving the involvement of Smith and Hickock). Investigators take stated that Smith and Hickock still remain the most viable suspects.^[16]

Film portrayals [edit]

Smith was portrayed in the 1967 film version of In Common cold Blood past Robert Blake, by Eric Roberts in the 1996 Television set miniseries accommodation;^[17] by Clifton Collins Jr. in 2005's Capote;^[18] and by Daniel Craig in 2006'southward Infamous.^[19]

Song [edit]

Bastille's 2016 album Wild World includes a song entitled "Four Walls (The Carol of Perry Smith)". The lyrics draw the imprisonment and execution of Smith. "These iv walls in Holcomb" tells of how Smith has "only these 4 walls before they, in cold blood, hang you up".

Orville Peck's 2019 album Pony includes the vocal "Kansas (Remembers me Now)", written from the indicate of view of Perry Smith being questioned later the Clutter murders.

See as well [edit]

• George York and James Latham
• Capital penalty in Kansas
• List of people executed in Kansas

References [edit]

1. ^ Anatomy of a Murder, Time Magazine, Dec 22, 1967 Archived July 21, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood. New York: Random House, 1965.
3. ^ ^{a b c d} Rocha, Guy (September 2007). "In Cold Blood: The Nevada Connection". Carson City, Nevada: Nevada State Library and Archives. Archived from the original on June 12, 2008.
4. ^ Guy Rocha: 'In Cold Blood' and its connection to Nevada, Guy Rocha, Reno Gazette-Periodical, March iii, 2014
5. ^ Capote 1987, p. 621.
6. ^ ^{a b} Capote, In Cold Blood.
7. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-12-03. Retrieved 2011-10-13 . {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as championship (link)
8. ^ In Cold Claret: A Legacy Archived Jan 15, 2010, at the Wayback Machine. Lawrence Journal World. (Defunct site prior to ix/10)
9. ^ ^{a b c d} Keglovits, Sally J. In Cold Blood Revisited: A Wait Dorsum at an American Crime. The states Courts.gov. June 2004. Accessed: 2008-02-02.
10. ^ Bruntz, Michael. Witness to execution Archived April xix, 2015, at the Wayback Automobile. Lawrence Journal-World. v April 2005.
11. ^ Adam, Suzanna. Death penalization: Kansans continue to fence majuscule punishment decades later Archived September 23, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. Lawrence Journal-World. vi April 2005.
12. ^ Van Olson, Cora. "'In Cold Claret' Killers Suspected in Cold Case of Florida Family Massacre". Crime Library. Archived from the original on 30 June 2013. Retrieved 5 May 2013.
13. ^ "'In Cold Blood' Killers Exhumed, Investigators Hope to Solve 53-Year-Former Common cold Case". ABC News . Retrieved 19 December 2012.
14. ^ "'In Common cold Blood' killers' bodies exhumed in 2d murder investigation". NBC News. nineteen December 2012. Retrieved 5 May 2013.
15. ^ Sanderson, Beak (December 20, 2012). "'In Cold Blood' killers' bodies exhumed to bank check for link in 1959 Florida slaying". New York Mail . Retrieved 5 May 2013.
16. ^ Koehn, Donna (13 Baronial 2013). "No DNA link between Walker murders, 'In Cold Blood' killers". Herald Tribune . Retrieved xxx September 2013.
17. ^ In Cold Blood - Tv set at IMDb
18. ^ Capote at IMDb
19. ^ Infamous at IMDb

Books [edit]

• Capote, Truman (1987). A Capote Reader (Ghosts in Sunlight: The Filming of In Cold Blood) (1st ed.). London: Penguin Grouping. ISBN978-0-394-55647-5. OCLC 13580909.

External links [edit]

• "In Cold Claret: A Legacy". Lawrence Journal-World. Lawrence, Kansas. Apr 3–6, 2005.
• "In Common cold Claret, half a century on". The Guardian. November sixteen, 2009.
• "Inmate case file". kansasmemory.org.
• Keglovits, Sally J. (June 2004). "In Cold Blood Revisited: A Look Back at an American Offense". Federal Probation. 68 (1): 39–42. ProQuest 213980552.
• "Notorious Murders: Clutter Family". Criminal offence Library. Archived from the original on 2014-04-03.
• Perry Edward Smith at Find a Grave

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Edward_Smith

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