Editor's Choice
In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, what are Dewey's two crime scenarios?
Quick answer:
In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, Al Dewey, leading the investigation into the Clutter family murders, considers two scenarios. The first involves a single killer familiar with the family and their home, entering at midnight and methodically murdering them. Dewey doubts this due to potential resistance from the Clutter men. The second scenario involves a killer with an accomplice, which Dewey favors, though he questions the likelihood of two equally violent perpetrators.
Al Dewey is asked to head the investigation into the Clutter case, which Capote describes as an “intricate ... apparently motiveless, [and] all but clueless” crime. Dewey was not only qualified as a former FBI Special Agent and sheriff himself, but he knew the Clutter family personally.
Early in the investigation, Dewey comments that he has an opinion on whether the murders were committed by one or more killers but prefers not to disclose it. However, Capote notes that “at this time, on this subject, Dewey was undecided” about the single killer or multiple killer theories.
Single-killer scenario: the murderer knew the family and each family member’s habits and also had a general knowledge of the layout of the house. One thing that supports the killer knowing the family is that he would therefore have known that the Clutter's dog, Teddy, was afraid of weapons and would not have barked and alerted the family.
The killer entered the house at around midnight and immediately, after disabling the telephone, forced Mr. Clutter at gunpoint to awaken the family and tie his wife and daughter up in their bedrooms. The killer then forced Mr. Clutter to take his son, Kenyon, to the basement and tie him to the playroom couch. The killer himself then binds Mr. Clutter and proceeds to murder the family one member at a time. He then “turned out all the lights and left.”
The problem Dewey has with this scenario is that neither father nor son would have permitted harm to come to the family without putting up a fight, even if the single killer had a gun. Between the two Clutter men, they might have been able to overtake the killer in the single killer theory.
Killer and accomplice scenario: this scenario is very similar to the single killer one, but in this case, Dewey theorized that there was an accomplice who helped subdue and bind the family.
The problem Dewey has with this second scenario is that he cannot see two killers being equally as crazy and the viciousness of the crime tells Dewey that the killer or killers were crazy with rage. Capote writes that,
Dewey—and the majority of his colleagues, as well— favored the second hypothesis.
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