The Garden City Telegram
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Irsik boys actually first in the house
Published 11/14/2009 in Local News
By KATHY HANKS
The Hutchinson News
A small detail in the events surrounding the murder of four members of the Clutter family has gone virtually ignored for 50 years.
While Truman Capote's book, "In Cold Blood," and most accounts of Nov. 15, 1959, tell of Nancy Ewalt and Susan Kidwell as the first to enter the Clutter house after the murders, that wasn't the case.
Buried at the bottom of The Hutchinson News' second-day coverage of the murders, on Nov. 17, 1959, Vic Irsik, one of Herb Clutter's hired men, reported he had sent his sons, Bobby, 15, and Paul, 14, out to the Clutter farm to milk two cows that morning between 7:30 and 8 a.m.
As was part of the chore, the boys had gone in the house through the east kitchen door, turned to the right and put the milk in the cream separator kept in the large utility room. Once the small amount of milk was separated, they took their share and put the rest in the Clutter's icebox in the utility room.
"They left, not realizing what horror existed only a few feet away," The News reported.
One hour later -- at 9 a.m. -- Clarence Ewalt drove up to the home to drop off his daughter, Nancy, who routinely went to church with Nancy Clutter. Moments later, the four bodies of the Clutter family were discovered inside the home.
The Irsik brothers' connection to the Clutter murder story is a small detail and largely has gone unreported for 50 years until it was briefly mentioned this week in an Associated Press story. In fact, the AP story -- which misreported that the boys had gone into the kitchen instead of the utility room -- left many who have close ties to and information about the case doubting the veracity of the brothers' claims. But on Thursday, a Hutchinson News reporter uncovered the detail in the Nov. 17, 1959, edition of The News.
Bill Brown, editor of The Garden City Telegram in 1959, said he couldn't recall hearing about the Irsik boys being in the house. Neither could Finney County Sheriff Kevin Bascue, who has extensively researched the case. Bascue said he thought it odd that in hundreds of pages of investigation reports, the detail about the Irsik brothers entering the home is never mentioned.
He said the boys' actions -- though innocent -- should have warranted questioning by the investigators.
Had they snooped just a little, Brown said, the brothers could have walked down to the bottom of the basement steps, which are next to the utility room; they would have discovered Kenyon Clutter's body.
"We were taught not to snoop," said Paul Irsik, who now lives in Garden City. "We went in, did what we had to do, and got back out of the house. We didn't walk around the house."
"A private memory," is how Paul Irsik describes the moment.
"It was something we never discussed outside the family. Dad talked to the police and sheriff about it," he said.
Robert Irsik, who lives in Enterprise, Ala., backed his brother's claims.
"Dad felt he had lost his friend and boss," he said
Capote's book wrongly portrayed the brothers, stating they had walked to the farm to milk Herb Clutter's two cows.
"But, by nine, when the boys finished work -- during which they noticed nothing amiss -- the sun had risen, delivering another day of pheasant-season perfection. As they left the property and ran along the lane, they waved at an incoming car, and a girl waved back."
According to Vic Irsik's statements made to The News in 1959, the boys had driven out to the house and were gone an hour before the Ewalts' arrived.
Later that day as the boys again approached River Valley Farm to feed and doctor some of the Clutters' cattle, the tree-lined lane was blocked off.
They were stopped by a sheriff's officer.
"It was shocking," Robert Irsik said. "He told us they were all dead. He wouldn't say anything else. The only thing we could think of was that there had been a car accident."
The Irsiks returned home and learned of the murders.
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