The small town of Holcomb, Kansas never expected the Clutter family to be brutally murdered on the night of November 15, 1959. Truman Capote's, In Cold Blood was the innovation of a new literature style after being credited the first of non-fiction writing. When the novel was first published there was a lot of controversy over the credibility of the writing. This could be predictable in that time because people weren't familiar with non-fiction novels yet, but this is the beauty of non-fiction with its recreation of the truth. The story is based mostly off what the two murders, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith said. Even though Capote bonds with both men and acknowledges Dick's elaborate brain, he still favors and is bias towards Perry to have the readers feel sympathy for Perry.
Capote's bias towards Perry was for a multiple reasons. One of them was how he uses Perry's mental illness to the get the readers to feel sympathy. Since the book was written off of a lot about what Dick and Perry told him he created an extremely close bond with both the men. Capote favored Perry due to similarities in their life and Perry talked to him more willingly than Dick, which made Capote more willing to get sympathy for Perry and have him look innocent due to his mental illness. "When Mr. Smith attacked Mr. Clutter he was under a mental eclipse deep inside schizophrenia darkness." (302.) In the novel he specifically chooses to include this to show Perry wasn't at fault because he had no control over his actions even though he was responsible for killing all four of the Clutters. Opposed to Perry is how Dick is written about who is said to be ready to act and conscious of what he was doing. "He is alert to what is happening around him and he shows no sign of mental confusion or disorientation," (294). Capote doesn't really give Dick much sympathy due to him not have much of a connection with him and he didn't have a mental illness to affect his actions.