Herb And Bonnie Clutter's Death In Holcomb, Kansas

Essay #5
November 15,1959 Holcomb, Kansas the night that the most horrific thing happened to the kindest family. The Clutters were brutally murdered on the night of November 15, 1959 in the comfort of their home in Holcomb, Kansas. Now you may be wondering who were the Clutters and why is their death important? Well let’s start with who the clutters were. Herb and Bonnie Clutter along with two of their children, Nancy and Kenyon Clutter were murdered in the comfort of their own home. Herb Clutter was a well respected and wealthy man, he owned River Valley Farm and hired farmhands to help him maintain it, but also hired them to help them have jobs. Herb cared for others very much and always did what he could do to help

Bonnie Clutter was 45 and suffered from crippling depression more specifically from postpartum depression, therefor she locked herself away from others most of the time. Even though she locked herself away, she still had people that cared for her, she was not a person that other people wanted to start things with, mainly because they felt bad for her. Nancy Clutter was only 16 on the night of the murders, she was a fantastic girl who had such great potential. She always went out of her way to help others, even if it was just giving a pie baking lesson or helping someone practice their instruments.Lastly we have Kenyon Clutter who was only 15 and like his sister had so much potential. He enjoyed taking things apart and putting them together again, he enjoyed working with wood and making things out of wood. Now you may be thinking these people sound like very good people who could possibly want to kill them and why? Perry Edward Smith and Richard Eugene Hickock are the two men responsible for the murder of the Clutters and they killed the Clutters because they had heard that there was a safe with money in it locked away in the Clutter house. Because of the severity of the crime I am

Nancy had been "shot in the back of the head with a shotgun held maybe two inches away. She was lying on her side, facing the wall, and the wall was covered with blood. The bedcovers were drawn up to her shoulders." "Her hands were tied behind her, and her ankles were roped together." Mrs. Clutter was found on her bed "she'd been tied, too. But differently - with her hands in front of her, in that she looked as though she were praying" "The cord around her wrists ran down to her ankles, which were bound together, and then ran on down to the bottom of the bed, where it was tied to the footboard" now something like that would definitely take some time and effort to do. "Her mouth had been taped with adhesive, but she'd been shot point-blank in the side of the head, and the blast - the impact - had ripped the tape loose." "Kenyon was over in a corner, lying on a couch. He was gagged with adhesive tape and bound hand and foot, like the mother - the same intricate process of the cord leading from the hands to the feet, and finally tied to an arm of the couch." "He'd been shot in the face, directly, head-on." "His head was propped by a couple of pillows" now why would they put pillows under him right before killing him? It doesn't really make sense, were they trying to make an easier target or what was going through their minds when doing that? Mr. Clutter had "been shot, the same as Kenyon - with the gun