In Cold Blood: A Timeline

Nov. 15, 1959 — Murders of Herb, Bonnie, Kenyon and Nancy Clutter, in Holcomb.

Nov. 17, 1959 — Clutter family funeral in Garden City.

Nov. 22, 1959 — Beverly Clutter's wedding.

Nov. 15 to Dec. 30, 1959 — Killers Perry Smith and Richard Hickock on the run, fleeing to Mexico and eventually to Las Vegas.

Nov. 1959 — Truman Capote, author of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "Other Voices, Other Rooms," and a writer for the New Yorker magazine, arrives in Garden City with his childhood friend, Harper Lee, the author of "To Kill a Mockingbird" (published in July 1960). Capote visits many times, researching the crime.

Dec. 30, 1959 — Las Vegas police arrest Hickock and Smith on a Kansas warrant of passing bad checks.

Jan. 2, 1960 — Hickock, then Smith confess to the Clutter murders.

Jan. 6, 1960 — KBI agents return Hickock and Smith to the Finney County Jail in Garden City.

March 22, 1960 — Hickock and Smith's murder trial begins.

March 28, 1960 — A jury of 12 men finds Hickock and Smith guilty. They are sentenced to death.

May 13, 1960 — Original execution date, postponed.

1960-65 — Capote interviews both killers on Death Row at the Kansas penitentiary at Lansing.

1961-63 — Lawyers for Hickock and Smith appeal the case all the way to the Kansas Supreme Court. Eventually, the U.S. Supreme Court declines to review the case.

March 8, 1965 — After further legal review, the Kansas attorney general files a motion for a new execution date.

April 15, 1965 — The killers are executed shortly after midnight; Hickock first, pronounced dead at 12:43 a.m.; then Smith on the same gallows at 1:22 a.m. They are buried in unmarked graves at a nearby cemetery. Capote, the KBI agents who handled the case, and journalists Tony Jewell of KIUL radio and Bill Brown of the Garden City Telegram witness the executions.

September, October 1965 — Truman Capote's book, in serial form, is published in the New Yorker.

January 1966 — First edition of "In Cold Blood" is published.

1975 — Publication in Esquire magazine of excerpts from the book "Answered Prayers." Capote hopes this will be his masterwork, but it is received coldly.

Aug. 25, 1984 — Truman Capote dies of liver disease complicated by phlebitis, an inflammation of the veins, and multiple drug intoxication, in a guest bedroom at the house of his friend, Joanna Carson, the former wife of Johnny Carson.

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