Perry Edward Smith (October 27, 1928 – April 14, 1965) was one of two ex-convicts who murdered four members of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas, United States on November 15, 1959, a crime made famous by Truman Capote in his 1966 non-fiction novel In Cold Blood.
Perry Edward Smith was born in Huntington, Nevada, a defunct community in Elko County. His parents, Florence Julia "Flo" Buckskin and John "Tex" Smith, were rodeo performers. Smith w...
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Perry Edward Smith (October 27, 1928 – April 14, 1965) was one of two ex-convicts who murdered four members of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas, United States on November 15, 1959, a crime made famous by Truman Capote in his 1966 non-fiction novel In Cold Blood.
Perry Edward Smith was born in Huntington, Nevada, a defunct community in Elko County. His parents, Florence Julia "Flo" Buckskin and John "Tex" Smith, were rodeo performers. Smith was of mixed Irish and Cherokee ancestry (from his father's and mother's side, respectively). The family moved to Juneau, Alaska in 1929, where the elder Smith distilled bootleg whisky for a living. Smith's father abused his wife and four children, and in 1935, his wife left him taking the children with her to San Francisco. Smith and his siblings were raised initially with their alcoholic mother. After Smith's mother died when he was thirteen, he and his siblings were placed in a Catholic orphanage, where nuns allegedly abused him physically...
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