Cop’s murder files released for new take on Capote’s In Cold Blood

A GRUESOME 55-year-old murder causes further controversy after detective’s son is given permission to publish notes.

Author Truman Capote.

THE son of a Kansas detective who investigated the 1959 killings that inspired In Cold Blood can publish his father’s field notes, which he says substantially contradict the account found in Truman Capote’s literary ­masterpiece.

In a ruling released yesterday, District Court judge Larry Hendricks said he made an error when he blocked publication of the files in 2012.

His decision means that ­Ronald Nye of Oklahoma City can use his father’s files for a book he plans about the slayings of ­farmer Herbert Clutter, his wife and two children.

The Kansas attorney-general’s office had sued Nye to keep him from publishing the files. Nye had planned to auction the records, but later decided to write a book with author Gary McAvoy.

Nye’s father, Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent Harold Nye, kept the case files at his home.

Judge Hendricks ruled Nye’s First Amendment right to publish the material outweighed the ­government’s interest in maintaining the confidentiality of its investigative records.

Nye and McAvoy would not reveal exactly what is in the files, but Nye said his father’s notebooks had “vast discrepancies” from what Capote wrote.

“Our belief is that there is no other reason (Kansas) would want the materials we have ­suppressed were it not for the information we found in them,” McAvoy said.

“That information connects to other research I’ve done and ­supports a pretty compelling new theory — one that I am reluctant to even discuss at this point.”

The state’s lawsuit also asked the court to decide legal ownership of the case files. The judge has made no ruling on that issue.

Clutter, wife Bonnie Mae Fox and their children, 15-year-old Kenyon and 16-year-old Nancy, were killed at their farmhouse. The hunt for their killers mesmerised the nation, drawing journalists from across the US to the small west Kansas town of Holcomb. Parolees Dick Hickock and Perry Smith were executed for the killings in 1965.

Capote’s book about the crime inspired a movie of the same name.

The judge wrote that Kansas had not shown a legal justification for suppressing the material or for interfering with the public’s right to know. He also rejected the state’s argument that the Clutter family’s privacy concerns justified blocking their release.

“The court is sensitive to the plaintiff’s concern about publicity and its effect on the Clutters,” Judge Hendricks wrote.

“However, publicity continues to follow this case even 55 years after its occurrence.”

O. Yale Lewis Jr, a lawyer for Nye and McAvoy, said his clients hope to have their book published in time for the 50th anniversary in September of the publication of Capote’s book.

Nye said his late father took detailed notes about the case.

He recalled that his father was so disappointed in Capote’s book that he read only about 115 pages before throwing it across the room. He said his dad walked out of the movie’s premiere after just 15 minutes.

Harold Nye worked for the Kansas bureau from 1955 until his retirement in 1975; he was its ­director from 1969 to 1971.

AP