In Cold Blood began with a one-column story, datelined
Holcomb, Kansas, on page 39 of The NewYork Times of
November 16, 1959. Its headline read “WEALTHY FARMER, 3 OF
FAMILY SLAIN.” Two weeks later, Capote was on his way to
Kansas. “He bought a new Dior suit for the trip,” says
Phyllis Cerf Wagner, the widow of Random House
chairman Bennett Cerf. “That was the first thing he said to
the professor Bennett sent him to at the University of
Kansas: ‘Have you ever seen a man in a Dior suit?’ The
professor replied, ‘Not only have I never seen a man in a
Dior suit, I’ve never seen a woman in a Dior suit.’ ” Yet,
within a month, the New York City slicker in his Paris
wardrobe had succeeded in winning over not only the
upstanding citizens of Finney County who re-created the life
and personalities of the murdered Clutter family, but also
the killers themselves, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, who
poured out their ragtag tales of woe.
