In Cold Blood

On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.

Five years, four months and twenty-nine days later, on April 14, 1965, Richard Eugene Hickock, aged thirty-three, and Perry Edward Smith, aged thirty-six, were hanged from the crime on a gallows in a warehouse in the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing, Kansa.

In Cold Blood is the story of the lives and deaths of these six people. It has already been hailed as a masterpiece.

Utdrag ur boken:

I don't remember screaming. Ewalt says I did – screamed and screamed. I only remember Nancy's Teddy bear staring at me. And Nancy. And running . . .''
In the interim, Mr. Ewalt had decided that perhaps he ought not to have allowed the girls to enter the house alone. He was getting out of the car to go after them when he heard the screams, but before he could reach the house, the girls were running toward him. His daughter shouted, ''She's dead!'' and flung herself into his arms. ''It's true, Daddy! Nancy's dead!''
Susan turned on her. ''No, she isn't. And don't you say it. Don't you dare. It's only a nosebleed. She has them all the time, terrible nosebleeds, and that's all it is.''
''There's too much blood. There's blood on the walls. You didn't really look.''
''I couldn't make head or tails,'' Mr. Ewalt subsequently testified. ''I thought maybe the child was hurt. It seemed to me the first thing to do was to call an ambulance. Susan told me there was a telephone in the kitchen. I found it, right where she said. But the receiver was off the hook, and when I picked it up, I saw the line had been cut.''

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