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Literary journey helps brings murder case to life
Published 11/13/2009 in Local News
By KATHY HANKS
The Hutchinson News
Truman Capote laid out the route to the crime scene in his book.
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Photo courtesy Hooker High School yearbook staff Hooker, Okla., High School students Stormi Tally, left, Crystal Ferguson and English teacher Therese Hofferber study autopsy photos of the crime scene at the Finney County Law Enforcement Center during a field trip.
"This is it, this is it, this has to be it, there's the school, there's the garage, now we turn south." To Perry, it seemed as though Dick were muttering jubilant mumbo-jumbo. They left the highway, sped through a deserted Holcomb, and crossed the Santa Fe tracks. "The bank, that must be the bank, now we turn west -- see the trees? This is it, this has to be it."¬ The headlights disclosed a lane of Chinese elms; bundles of wind-blown thistle scurried across it. Dick doused the headlights, slowed down, and stopped until his eyes were adjusted to the moon-illuminated night. Presently, the car crept forward."
It's the same route the Hooker, Okla., school bus takes as it slowly moves down the lane toward the house.
Every fall, Truman Capote's book "In Cold Blood," is required reading in classes at Hooker High School, located in the town of Hooker, Okla., just 20 miles south of Liberal.
The book, however, becomes a sobering reality for Therese Hofferber's senior English students when she takes them to the crime scene.
Capote's book chronicles the brutal 1959 murders of Herbert Clutter, a well-to-do farmer near the Finney County town of Holcomb, and his wife and two teenaged children.
Hofferber spends nine weeks on the topic, and admits it can be a very delicate subject, which she covers with a fine-toothed comb.
Her desire to teach the book that revolutionized creative journalism came from her own interest in Capote's writing.
Living less than two hours away, the class had access to the setting of the story.
"It's something I can give them. I can make the book real to them," she said.
She hopes the students come to see and appreciate Capote's writing style. Moreover, the field trip is an opportunity for her students to learn the difference between the facts of the crime and Capote's literary license.
"The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them," Capote writes on the first page of the book.
His ability to create a sense of place is not lost on Hofferber's students as they arrive in Holcomb, a town just slightly smaller than Hooker.
"The field trip was a sobering experience," said 17-year-old Michael Wiebe. Even though he knew as he read the book that it was non-fiction, walking the ground where the Clutters once walked made it real.
While the current owners of the Clutter home don't invite the students inside, they have given them access to the property. The school bus parks in the driveway and the students explore the grounds.
Michael thought about Nancy Clutter, close to his age, walking in the same spot.
While he knows it was 50 years ago, it doesn't feel that long, Michael said, because the house and the property, while kept up well, are still basically the same as they were described in the book.
"The setting makes you think it could have just happened," Michael said.
At the Finney County Law Enforcement Center, Sheriff Kevin Bascue spends most of the day with the students on their yearly trip.
"They ask very good questions," Bascue said. "It's very obvious they are really knowledgeable about the book."
Bascue even shares evidence, including crime scene and autopsy photos.
Carlee Gilmore, 18, had a hard time putting down the book, and she admitted the photos were difficult to shake.
"I didn't want to stop looking because I wanted to make sense of them," she said.
Students also visit the courtroom where the trial took place, and then the bus drives the same path that Perry Smith and Richard Hickock drove that fateful Saturday night on Nov. 14, 1959, including going past Hurd's Phillips 66, where the killers filled up the car's gas tank.
"We were all quiet, looking forward," Tia Witt, 17, said, describing the ride down the lane.
A bonus was a visit by Bobby Rupp, Witt said.
Hofferber has been making the field trip the past seven years. But, for the first time last year, Rupp, Nancy Clutter's boyfriend and the last person to see the Clutters alive, agreed to speak to the students.
While he has never read "In Cold Blood," and shies from media attention, he spoke to the students -- offering a new element to the tour that reinforces the Clutters as real people who strived to be a good American family.
"I liked listening to Bobby Rupp," Tia said, explaining how he shared with the students his terror and heartbreak. "He made the experience more personal."
Hofferber said every year her students surprise her. They look at the book from a detective's point of view, picking up on the different clues.
Bascue said he can see the field trip through the student's perspective.
"They are reading a book in class considered to be well written and well respected," he said. "And these kids are able to jump on a bus and drive an hour and a half and see the location where the book took place. There is a historical value to it.
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