Why?

That's what I'm looking for too Laura. I just don't feel that Capote ever really answered that question. But then, perhaps the answer is that there isn't one.
I've been thinking a great deal over the last few days about random acts of violence. There's been a huge story in the NYTimes over the past week about the murdered family in Cheshire, Connecticut (not that far from where I was born and raised in Massachusetts). The cruelty and senselessness of the murders - an 11 year old girl was burned alive after being sexually assaulted - is beyond comprehension to most of us. The whole situation kind of mirrors the Clutter murders in that Cheshire is a sleepy little town where people still sleep with their doors unlocked at night. The murderers had no previous violent crimes to their names, though they had long records of smash and grabs and b and e's. What happens to suddenly push a petty criminal over the edge that way?
Today I was listening to the book in the car and Capote describes Dick's remorse at leaving his elderly parents to clean up after his check kiting scheme. Perry muses about how odd it is that Dick professes to actually care for his folks and even his children, though he's taken no pleasure from fatherhood.
I've always been kind of a bleeding heart, excusing criminals' behavior by believing that something askew in their past manifests itself in antisocial acts. The older I get the more I've begun to think that there are people who are simply born without a moral compass - remember Patty Duke in The Bad Seed? I don't know how else to answer the "why."