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Thanks to Truman Capote, the tragic murders of the Clutter family have been memorialized as one of America’s earliest and most enduring true crime stories, achieving a pinnacle in world literature. Against long odds, the successful solving of a multiple murder, at least as we know it from In Cold Blood, remains a case study in law enforcement, social psychology, and capital punishment.
The countless books, articles, and film treatments that have spun out of Capote’s work all relied on public access to historical materials, a great many of which have been archived in the Truman Capote Papers of The New York Public Library and are available in perpetuity to scholars seeking to shed new light on an old but still popular event and its aftermath.
We believe Harold Nye’s personal journals and his archive of official reports relating to the Clutter murder investigation add significantly to the historical record. For that reason, Ron and I have chosen to donate his father’s collection to the Manuscripts and Archives Division of The New York Public Library, allowing future scholars the opportunity to research this valuable collection, perhaps with renewed understanding based, hopefully, on revelations yet to come.
Despite the costs and intangible toll this has taken on both Ron Nye and me, it has been one of the great privileges of my life to have met and worked with Ron on this project. In the end, I hope this narrative brings some relief to him and his family, and to the memory of his father, Harold Nye.
As for what might remain of the rest of the story, I invite anyone in possession of reliable, previously unrevealed information on the Clutter murders or its investigation to come forward. Qualified individuals may do so using our secure confidential submission system at www.AndEveryWordIsTrue.com. Anonymity will be assured for all legitimate sources.
Finally, we challenge the State of Kansas to release all “protected” files from the Clutter investigation held by any of its state agencies or repositories, including that elusive audiotape of Richard Hickock and Perry Smith’s private conversation, one recorded without their knowledge. The answers to many of the lingering questions posed in this book may depend on the content of that recording, and possibly other yet-to-be found materials, being made publicly available.
As the Court determined in our case, the State’s assertions of confidentiality were baseless, since “... the killers have been captured, tried, convicted and executed.” Logically, then, there is no justifiable reason for the State of Kansas to keep buried the bones of such a high-profile literary mystery, one that may carry with it potentially explosive political implications.
Or is there?
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