Monday, October 22, 2012

Motive for Murder

This book started off by focusing on the Clutters lives with the occasional look into Perry and Dick's lives. I feel like I should have foreseen a slight change in the focus now that the Clutters are dead, but I guess that's the immersiveness of this story. 

We are of course seeing and hearing more from the townspeople and their theories on the matter, but we are starting to see the nitty-gritty details of the crime start to surface.

Al Dewey, the head investigator for the case, is nearly as confused as everyone else is. He wonders why Mrs. Clutter and Nancy were tucked into bed after they were tied up? Why Kenyon had a pillow under his head and why Mr. Clutter's body was found on a mattress box? Dewey's main theory is so they could be more comfortable before their inevitable death. But why? Who would want to commit murder so bad, but try  so hard to make their last moments so peaceful?

The signs pointing to Dick and Perry as the murderers is pretty obvious now. Especially with Perry's mention of "do[ing] what we did". I can't help but sit back and try and be the investigator on this case myself. I see no connection between these two men and the Clutters and I see no motive for murder. I can see that they want to go to Mexico really bad and make a lot of money, but that doesn't seem to fit into the murders. As the investigators have said before, there was not a whole lot in the house that was disturbed,  which rules out robbery as a motive. If Dick and Perry wanted money, they would have taken more from the house or they would have targeted someone who actually carried cash on him, unlike Mr. Clutter. 

I've also begun to wonder why they want to go to Mexico so bad, out of all places, and whether or not that has anything to do with the murders. 

My super sleuth skills also have me questioning why they took Kenyon's radio and what I believe to be Mr. Clutter's binoculars. They kept the binoculars, but pawned the radio for a couple bucks almost immediately after. Again, if the motive for the murder was robbery, why are they selling only a few items?

Overall, these men are confident enough to think that they can escape being charged for murder and I'm curious to see the development in this conflict between them since they do end up getting caught in the end. They did a very good job of hiding the evidence. No shotgun shells left behind, few fingerprints. The only thing that Al Dewey was able to find was a footprint. 

I want to know what is going to be the clue that leads the investigators to these men since I see very few possibilities and leads. 

1 comment:

  1. I really liked your post in the sense that you're thinking about the book as a person with no background information would. Like the "Death of a Playmate" article, the author creates a sense of speculation as to whether Snider actually committed the murder, which I'm sensing is what Capote was attempting to do. As we already learned, Capote had an extremely weird/trusting relationship with the Dick and Perry, and I sense that the idea of speculation is that relationship showing. He wants us to develop a bond with the killers, and establish a sense of questioning. I love that he is writing in a way that although we know who committed the crime, we continuously have to second guess ourself.

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