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Truman Capote wrote the 'non-fiction novel' from which the film is drawn, using the novelist's craft to render reality. The reality was that at two a.m. on November 15, 1959 in the rural town of Holcomb, Kansas, the four members of the Clutter family were roused from their sleep, bound and gagged, and then brutally murdered by two unknown assailants. After the latters' capture, sentencing and imprisonment prior to execution, Capote researched the case thoroughly, spent weeks talking with the prisoners, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, jurors, police, friends and neighbors, trying to unearth why such a senseless act was committed, and what society's response might have been.