In Cold Blood Buchzusammenfassung - das Wichtigste aus In Cold Blood

Einleitung anhören

00:00

Zusammenfassung von In Cold Blood

Name: In Cold Blood
Rating: 4.2 (61 reviews)
Author: Truman Capote

Truman Capote

A True Account of a Multiple Murder and its Consequences

4.2 (61 Bewertungen)

19 Min.

Themen

Memoiren

Inhaltsübersicht

In Cold Blood
in 9 Kernaussagen verstehen

Audio & Text in der Blinkist App

Kernaussage 1 von 9

What’s in it for me? Step behind the scenes of a brutal murder that shook a rural Kansas town in 1959.

When American novelist and screenwriter Truman Capote first saw the news of a quadruple murder in Kansas in November 1959, he was intrigued. The murders quickly became a top news item, and Capote decided to travel to Kansas to learn more about the event firsthand.

Together with his travel companion, novelist Harper Lee, he befriended people in the small Kansas town where the gruesome murders took place.

As the investigation unfolded, Capote followed the events closely and even spoke extensively with the murderers after they had been apprehended.

So what happened that day in 1959? This is the story behind a brutal crime committed in cold blood.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

what stockings have to do with the murder of a Kansas family;
how a sleepy sheriff’s office became the center of a media frenzy; and
how a lone hitchhiker inadvertently saved the life of a traveling salesman.

In a small town in Kansas, two men went on a shopping spree and talked about the perfect crime.

Which tools would you need to execute the perfect murder?

Maybe some carefully selected drugs? Or something as blunt as a chainsaw? The two men found guilty of the murder of a Kansas family in 1959 were very straightforward in their approach to committing their heinous crime.

This is their story.

One afternoon, a 28-year-old mechanic named Dick Hickock and a 31-year-old car painter named Perry Smith, both of them ex-convicts, went on a shopping spree for some strange items in Emporia, Kansas.

First, they stopped at a store to buy rubber gloves for Perry; Dick already had a pair of his own.

Then they visited a women’s hosiery store to buy black stockings but gave up after finding the store only carried lighter shades.

After that, they sought out a shop where they could buy some sturdy rope. Perry knew a lot about ropes and knots, having been a Merchant Marine. His knowledge led him to select a white nylon cord for their purposes.

While the items these two men purchased were odd, alone they wouldn’t cause suspicion. Yet if bystanders had overheard their conversation while shopping, they might have notified the authorities.

While in the stocking store, for instance, when they discovered there were no black stockings, Dick reminded Perry again that there were to be “no witnesses.” Whether or not they wore stockings to obscure their faces was irrelevant.

Perry was still nervous. Dick reassured him that all would go off without a hitch. How could it not, when the plan was so perfectly devised?

Yet the men didn’t know how many people might be in the house they intended to invade and rob, which made purchasing the correct length of cord difficult. The men knew the parents would be there, and two children for sure. But there might also be guests.

To be safe, they purchased 100 yards of cord, enough to tie up at least 12 people.

Neighbors found a bloody scene at the house, in which family members were bound, gagged and shot.

On Sundays, the Clutter family usually drove to church, as did most of their neighbors in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas.

But on this particular Sunday in 1959, the Clutters didn’t show up. Concerned, a neighbor named Susan Kidwell phoned their house to check on the family.

State detectives took over the murder investigation, and a media frenzy followed.

In the Clutter family murder case, local law enforcement faced a dilemma, as there were no clues and no apparent motive.

Quickly the local sheriff's office was transformed from a sleepy place with a friendly, bubbly secretary who made great coffee to the focal point of a media frenzy over a quadruple murder.

A “ghost” at the scene of the crime was thought to be a key suspect but turned out to be just a drifter.

How would you react to seeing a ghost at the scene of a crime? When the Clutter’s gardener saw an apparition in the family house, surprisingly he kept his calm.

Later that December after the murders, the Clutter’s gardener, Paul Helm, was pruning trees in front of the empty Clutter home. Relatives were planning to sell the property.

A radio program reminded a prison inmate of a conversation that inspired the Kansas crime.

Luckily for the police, there was one person who could give them a clue as to what took place in the Clutter household that Sunday in 1959.

The mystery that police couldn’t seem to solve was finally unraveled from within the Kansas State Penitentiary, of all places!

Perry was a complicated person with a checkered past, whom Dick saw as a “natural killer.”

So if Dick was the one who learned of the Clutter family’s riches, how exactly did Perry become involved in the scheme?

The duo knew each other from their time as cellmates at the Kansas State Penitentiary. Initially, Dick didn’t have a particularly high opinion of Perry, but this changed when he heard how Perry had beaten a man to death with a bicycle chain.

A traveling salesman offered a ride to the two murderers in Nebraska but was saved by a twist of fate.

Being a traveling salesman isn’t necessarily an exciting job, but that depends on the people you pick up while on the road. For instance, your next hitchhiker might be an outlaw!

This is exactly what happened to Mr. Bell, a traveling salesman on his way to Omaha, Nebraska.

The murderers were finally cornered after making the mistake of returning to Kansas for a con job.

It’s often said that when hunting criminals, you just need to wait for them to make a mistake.

In December 1959, the murderous duo made the seemingly reckless move of returning to Kansas, their home state and the place where they’d committed the crime. They returned to Dick’s old habit of con jobs, which had occupied him before the Clutter murders.

Upon learning that there was no safe stashed in the Clutter home, no riches to steal, Perry started the killing spree.

So what happened on that fateful Sunday in Holcomb, Kansas?

After Dick had admitted to investigators his complicity in the killings, Perry offered an astonishingly detailed confession of the events of their killing spree.

Du möchtest die gesamte Zusammenfassung von In Cold Blood sehen?

Kernaussagen in In Cold Blood

Mehr Wissen in weniger Zeit

Sachbücher auf den Punkt gebracht

Kernaussagen aus Sachbüchern in ca. 15 Minuten pro Titel lesen & anhören mit den „Blinks”

Zeitsparende Empfehlungen

Titel, die dein Leben bereichern, passend zu deinen Interessen und Zielen

Podcasts in Kurzform ^Neu

Kernaussagen wichtiger Podcasts im Kurzformat mit den neuen „Shortcasts”

Worum geht es in In Cold Blood?

In Cold Blood (1966) tells the true story of a multiple murder that baffled both police and the public in 1959. These blinks recount how investigators gradually unraveled a meticulous yet simple plan devised by two criminals without scruples or remorse.

Bestes Zitat aus In Cold Blood

The only sure thing is that every one of them has got to go. – Dick Hickock

—Truman Capote

Wer In Cold Blood lesen sollte

Fans of suspense or crime novels
Anyone interested in criminal psychology
Readers curious about how the true crime genre got started

Über den Autor

Truman Capote was one of the most prominent postwar American authors. Born in New Orleans in 1924, he dropped out of school at 15 and traveled to New York, where he got a job with The New Yorker. He went on to become a celebrated writer of both fiction and nonfiction books.

Kategorien mit In Cold Blood

Geschichte

Ähnlich wie In Cold Blood

Behave

Robert Sapolsky

The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

22 min

4.5

The Beginning of Infinity

David Deutsch

Explanations That Transform the World

20 min

4.2

The Devil in the White City

Erik Larson

Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

How Religion Poisons Everything

Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee

A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

22 min

4.0

Emotional Intelligence

The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking

A Common Sense Guide to the Economy

A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

The Case For Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

A Historical Novel on the Irrationality of Human Behavior in War

17 min

4.1

The Wealth of Nations

Adam Smith

The most influential economic book of all time

11 min

4.4

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Marie Kondo

The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

A Dystopian Classic on the Dark Side of Human Nature and Survival

What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know

21 min

4.1

I Know why the Caged Bird Sings

Maya Angelou

An Autobiography of Overcoming Racism and Trauma With Literature

23 min

4.7

The ONE Thing

Gary Keller and Jay Papasan

The surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results

Create a Life You Really Love with Less Stress and More Flow

My Remarkable Life in Show Business

A Guide To Spiritual Enlightenment

19 min

4.5

All the Sinners Bleed

How the Masters of Private Equity Always Win

A Brief History of Tomorrow

20 min

4.3

When Breath Becomes Air

Paul Kalanithi

Finding hope in the face of insurmountable odds

19 min

4.2

Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Thomas Piketty

Groundbreaking Research That Unravels Economic Disparity in Our World Today

8 min

3.4

The Power of Myth

Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers

From ancient myths to Han Solo

The inspiring story of Helen Keller’s triumph over blindness and deafness

How Napoleon Conquered Europe and Changed the World

Conversations on Consciousness, Morality, and the Future of Humanity

Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End

19 min

4.5

How to Talk to Anyone

Leil Lowndes

92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships

The Secrets to Living Your Longest, Healthiest Life

The Science and Art of Longevity

20 min

4.3

The Man Who Fed the World

Leon Hesser

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Norman Borlaug and His Battle to End World Hunger

Mindful lessons on love

The feminist classic about how woman has been shaped into the “other” sex

Ten Simple Steps to Becoming Financially Whole

The Small Changes That Change Everything

22 min

4.6

The Better Angels of Our Nature

Steven Pinker

Why Violence Has Declined

The Science of Creating Heaven on Earth

20 min

2.9

The Brothers Karamazov

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A Tragic Murder Mystery on the Burden of Free Will and Morality

23 min

4.9

Meditations on First Philosophy

René Descartes

Descartes Most Famous Philosophical Classic

11 min

4.2

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind

T. Harv Eker

Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth

The 7 Things Resilient People Do Differently (And How They Can Help You Succeed in Business and Life)

How We Meet and Why It Matters

Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

20 min

4.4

❤️ für Blinkist️️️

Ines S.

Ich bin begeistert. Ich liebe Bücher aber durch zwei kleine Kinder komme ich einfach nicht zum Lesen. Und ja, viele Bücher haben viel bla bla und die Quintessenz ist eigentlich ein Bruchteil.

Genau dafür ist Blinkist total genial! Es wird auf das Wesentliche reduziert, die Blinks sind gut verständlich, gut zusammengefasst und auch hörbar! Das ist super. 80 Euro für ein ganzes Jahr klingt viel, aber dafür unbegrenzt Zugriff auf 3000 Bücher. Und dieses Wissen und die Zeitersparnis ist unbezahlbar.

Ekaterina S.

Extrem empfehlenswert. Statt sinnlos im Facebook zu scrollen höre ich jetzt täglich zwischen 3-4 "Bücher". Bei manchen wird schnelle klar, dass der Kauf unnötig ist, da schon das wichtigste zusammen gefasst wurde..bei anderen macht es Lust doch das Buch selbständig zu lesen. Wirklich toll

Nils S.

Einer der besten, bequemsten und sinnvollsten Apps die auf ein Handy gehören. Jeden morgen 15-20 Minuten für die eigene Weiterbildung/Entwicklung oder Wissen.

Julia P.

Viele tolle Bücher, auf deren Kernaussagen reduziert- präzise und ansprechend zusammengefasst. Endlich habe ich das Gefühl, Zeit für Bücher zu finden, für die ich sonst keine Zeit habe.