Truman Capote shows the severe impact the Clutter family murders have on the innocent people of the family-oriented town of Holcomb by showing how those in the community live in fear and anxiety or have moved away in shock and terror. Prior to the murders, Holcomb was considered a safe and quiet town. Before killed, Herb Clutter thought of Holcomb as being, “an inch more of rain and this country would be paradise—Eden on earth” (12). The Clutters along with everyone else in the community loved their hometown of Holcomb. The town of Holcomb, if known to anyone outside of Kansas thought of it as a simple-living Christian-oriented town, the last place where a murder story would arise. The town was so safe, that people did not feel the need to lock their doors at night because everyone in the town could be considered family. When Nancy, the friend who found Nancy Clutter killed in her bed recalls, “We went around to the kitchen door, and, of course, it wasn’t locked; the only person who ever locked doors around there was Mrs. Helm—the family never did” (59). After the murders, the people of Holcomb enter a state of paranoia. While enjoying a cup of coffee attempting to relax, Alvin Dewey, the detective assigned to the Clutter case is heckled by an angry resident. Dewey confirms with him that the man everyone thinks to be the killer, the man found lurking around in the Clutter house is not the murderer. In response, the man says, “Well, if he’s the wrong un, why the hell don’t you find the right un? I got a houseful of women won’t go to the bathroom alone” (150). The frustrated man along with most families in Holcomb including Dewey’s wife feel incredibly uncomfortable living their daily lives knowing that a family as perfect as the Clutters could be ruthlessly murdered. By showing the effects the murders have on the families in Holcomb, Capote establishes the extremeness of the killings.