The Itty Bitty... Murderer?

Welp. I caught myself having strange feelings toward Perry. No, it's not what you're thinking. I was sympathetic toward him. I know. What? This guy is the murderer!

Let me explain. We are again brought back into the lives of Dick and Perry. The men plan on heading back into the states when they can't find work that pays well. Because they are travelling, and this time without a car, Perry is basically forced to sort through the box of belongings that he kept in the back of his truck. They can only carry one suitcase and photographs and maps do not help to make the load lighter.

Perry sorts through his memorabilia and he comes across a piece his father had written about Perry himself. It goes back into his childhood where we see him as a boy who struggled in an unofficial custody battle between his parents. Because of this he moved around a lot and he was picked on in school for being a "new kid".

I could just imagine short, stocky little Perry getting picked on a beaten up by the older kids on the playground and I felt so bad. I wanted to be there defending Perry. I actually stopped for second as I was reading. I couldn't believe that I actually felt bad for him. A murderer.

It's actually pretty cool that Capote portrayed Perry in this manner. Throughout this whole book I seemed to forget that both Dick and Perry were actual people underneath the hard-boiled, murderous exterior. Since we still have no idea what the motive for the Clutter family murder was, it's really hard to comprehend and formulate a third-person type of perspective about these two men's characters. All we know is that they have committed murders, have been in prison and care very little about what crosses their path.

We can at least begin to see the inner workings of Perry's family which include the struggle and the animosity between him and his sister Barbara and the fondness he shows toward his dad.

There may not be a motive yet, (but hopefully more information will be revealed in the section titled "Answer") but we at least have a better understanding as to what has shaped Perry and his past.

I'm curious if the reader is going to get this kind of perspective with Dick as well. So far there hasn't been much of a focus on the inner-workings of Dick's character, but I wonder what Dick's position in this murder has been. I wanna know his past and I want to know what makes him tick.

Basically, I wanna know the motive. Right now. I will probably rant about that for every blog post I have to make until it happens and I'm sorry, but I just wanna know. I need to understand these characters.