always, after perhaps a minute, they drifted away. But the prisoner had convinced himself that the
young men, possibly motivated by a desire for adventure, meant to help him escape. Accordingly,
he drew a map of the Square, indicating the points at which a «getaway car» could most
advantageously be stationed. Beneath the map he wrote: I need a Hacksaw Blade. Nothing else.
But do you realize the consequences if you get caught (nod your head if you do)? It could mean a
long stretch in prison. Or you might get killed. All for someone you don’t know. YOU BETTER
THINK IT OVER!! Seriously! Besides, how do I know I can trust you? How do I know it isn’t a trick
to get me out there and gun me down? What about Hickock? All preparations must include him.
Perry kept this document on his desk, wadded and ready to drop out the window the next time the
young men appeared. But they never did; he never saw them again. Eventually, he wondered if
perhaps he had invented them (a notion that he «might not be normal, maybe insane» had
troubled him » even when I was little, and my sisters laughed because I liked moonlight. To hide
in the shadows and watch the moon»). Phantoms or not, he ceased to think of the young men.
Another method of escape, suicide, replaced them in his musings; and despite the jailer’s
precautions (no mirror, no belt or tie or shoelaces), he had devised a way to do it. For he also
was furnished with a ceiling bulb that burned eternally, but, unlike Hickock, he had in his cell a
broom, and by pressing the broom-brush against the bulb he could unscrew it. One night he
dreamed that he’d unscrewed the bulb, broken it, and with the broken glass cut his wrists and
ankles. «I felt ill breath and light leaving me,» he said, in a subsequent description of his
sensations. «The walls of the cell fell away, the sky came down, I saw the big yellow bird.»
Throughout his life — as a child, poor and meanly treated, as a foot-loose youth, as an imprisoned
man — the yellow bird, huge and parrot-faced, had soared across Perry’s dreams, an avenging
angel who savaged his enemies or, as now, rescued him in moments of mortal danger: «She lifted
me, I could have been light as a mouse, we went up, up, I could see the Square below, men
running, yelling, the sheriff shooting at us, everybody sore as hell because I was free, I was flying,
I was better than any of them»
The trial was scheduled to start on March 22, 1960. In the weeks preceding that date the defense
attorneys frequently consulted the defendants. The advisability of requesting a change of venue
was discussed, but as the elderly Mr. Fleming warned his client, «It wouldn’t matter where in
Kansas the trial was held. Sentiment’s the same all over the state. We’re probably better off in
Garden City. This is a religious community. Eleven thousand population and twenty-two
churches. And most of the ministers are opposed to capital punishment, say it’s immoral,
unchristian; even the Reverend Cowan, the Clutters’ own minister and a close friend of the family,
he’s been preaching against the death penalty in this very case. Re-member, all we can hope is
to save your lives. I think we stand as good a chance here as anywhere.»
Soon after the original arraignment of Smith and Hickock, their advocates appeared before Judge
Tate to argue a motion urging comprehensive psychiatric examinations for the accused.
Specifically, the court was asked to permit the state hospital in Larned, Kansas, a mental
institution with maximum-security facilities, to take custody of the prisoners for the purpose of
ascertaining whether either or both were «insane, imbeciles or idiots, unable to comprehend their
position and aid in their defense.»
Larned is a hundred miles east of Garden City; Hickock’s attorney, Harrison Smith, informed the
court that he had driven there the previous day and conferred with several of the hospital’s staff;
«We have no qualified psychiatrists in our own community. In fact, Larned is the only place within
a radius of two hundred and twenty-five miles where you’ll find such men — doctors trained to
make serious psychiatric evaluations. That takes time. Four to eight weeks. But the personnel
with whom I discussed the matter said they were willing to start work at once; and, of course,
being a state institution it won’t cost the county a nickel.»
This plan was opposed by the special assistant prosecuting attorney, Logan Green, who, certain
that «temporary insanity» was the defense his antagonists would attempt to sustain in the forthcoming trial, feared that the ultimate outcome of the proposal would be, as he predicted in private
conversation, the appearance on the witness stand of a «pack of head-healers» sympathetic to
the defendants («Those fellows, they’re always crying over the killers. Never a thought for the
victims»). Short, pugnacious, a Kentuckian by birth, Green began by pointing out to the court that
Kansas’ law, in regard to sanity, adheres to the M’Naghten Rule, the ancient British importation
which contends that if the accused knew the nature of his act, and knew it was wrong, then he is
mentally competent and responsible for his actions. Furthermore, said, Green, there was nothing
in the Kansas statutes indicating that the physicians chosen to determine a defendant’s mental
condition must be of any particular qualification: «Just plain doctors. Medical doctors in general
practice. That’s all the law requires. We have sanity hearings in this county every year for the
purpose of committing people to the institution. We never call anybody in from Larned or
psychiatric institutions of any kind. Our own local physicians attend to the matter. It’s no great job
to find whether a man is insane or an idiot or an imbecile … It is entirely unnecessary, a waste of
time to send the defendants to Larned.»
In rebuttal, Counsel Smith suggested that the present situation was «far graver than a simple
sanity hearing in probate court. Two lives are at stake. Whatever their crime, these men are
entitled to examination by persons of training and experience. Psychiatry,» he added, pleading
with the judge quite directly, «has matured rapidly in the past twenty years. The Federal courts are
beginning to keep in tune with this science as related to people charged with criminal offenses. It
just seems to me we have a golden opportunity to face up to the new concepts in this field.»
It was an opportunity the judge preferred to reject, for as a fellow jurist once remarked, «Tate is
what you might call a law-book lawyer, he never experiments, he goes strictly by the text»; but the
same critic also said of him, «If I were innocent, he’s the first man I’d want on the bench; if I was
guilty, the last.» Judge Tate did not entirely deny the motion; rather, he did exactly all the law
demanded by appointing a commission of three Garden City doctors and directing them to
pronounce a verdict upon the mental capacities of the prisoners. (In due course the medical trio
met the accused and, after an hour or so of conversational prying, announced that neither man
suffered from any mental disorder. When told of their diagnosis, Perry Smith said, «How would
they know? They just wanted to be entertained. Hear all the morbid details from the killer’s own
terrible lips. Oh, their eyes were shining.» Hickock’s attorney was also angry; once more he
traveled to Lamed State Hospital, where he appealed for the unpaid services of a psychiatrist
willing to go to Garden City and interview the defendants. The one man who volunteered, Dr. W.
Mitchell Jones, was exceptionally competent; not yet thirty, a sophisticated specialist in criminal
psychology and the criminally insane who had worked and studied in Europe and the United
States, he agreed to examine Smith and Hickock, and, should his findings warrant it, testify in
their behalf.)
On the morning of March 14 counsels for the defense again stood before Judge Tate, there on
this occasion to plead for a postponement of the trial, which was then eight days distant. Two
reasons were given, the first was that a «most material witness,» Hickock’s father, was at present
too ill to testify. The second was a subtler matter. During the past week a boldly lettered notice
had begun to appear in the town’s shop windows, and in banks, restaurants, and at the railroad
station; and it read: H. W. CLUTTER ESTATE AUCTION SALE 21 MARCH 1960 AT THE
CLUTTER HOMESTEAD. «Now,» said Harrison Smith, addressing the bench, «I realize it is
almost impossible to prove prejudice. But this sale, an auction of the victim’s estate, occurs one
week from today — in other words, the very day before the trial begins. Whether that’s prejudicial
to the defendants I’m not able to state. But these signs, coupled with newspaper advertisements,
and advertisements on the radio, will be a constant reminder to every citizen in the community,
among whom one hundred and fifty have been called as prospective jurors.» Judge Tate was not
impressed. He denied the motion without comment.
Earlier in the year Mr. Clutter’s Japanese neighbor, Hideo Ashida, had auctioned his farming
equipment and moved to Nebraska. The Ashida sale, which was considered a success, attracted
not quite a hundred customers. Slightly more than five thousand people attended the Clutter
auction. Holcomb’s citizenry expected an unusual turnout — the Ladies’ Circle of the Holcomb
Community Church had converted one of the Clutter barns into a cafeteria stocked with two
hundred homemade pies, two hundred and fifty pounds of hamburger meat, and sixty pounds of
sliced ham — but no one was prepared for the largest auction crowd in the history of western
Kansas. Cars converged on Holcomb from half the counties in the state, and from Oklahoma,
Colorado, Texas, Nebraska. They came bumper to bumper down the lane leading to River Valley
Farm. It was the first time the public had been permitted to visit the Clutter place since
