Floyd Wells is Responsible

In the first page of part three of In Cold Blood, we are introduced to Floyd Wells who is in prison. We read,"Officers investigating the tragic slaying of four members of the Herbert W. Clutter family have appealed to the public for any information which might aid in solving the baffling crime,"(159) while listening to his radio. Besides the killers, he is the only person in the world that knows what has happened, and he is in jail. However, this whole crime could be blamed on him. He worked for the Clutter family when he was in his teens, and he became friends with the family. He talked to Mr. Clutter all the time, and Mr. Clutter told him about how he once spent $10,000 in one week on his farm. Then, Floyd got put in prison where Dick was in jail with him. Floyd started to talk about the one job he used to have working on the Clutter's farm. Then Dick asked if Mr. Clutter was a, "wealthy man," (161). "Yes," (161) Floyd replied. Floyd started to talk to Dick about the financial situation of the Clutter family. Then, Dick started to tell Floyd that he was going to, "kill Mr. Clutter," (161). And then Dick started to talk to Floyd in more depth about how he was going to kill and rob the Clutters. He said, "Said him and Perry was gonna go out there and rob the place, and they was gonna kill all witnesses-the Clutters, and anybody else that happened to be around," (162). Floyd did nothing to stop this crime from happening. He thought nothing of it. He never told Dick not to kill the Clutter family. He heard it all being planned and didn't try to stop it. If he would have never talked about how wealthy the Clutter family was, or just talked about them, they never would have been killed by Dick and Perry. The blame of this murder should fall on the shoulders of Floyd Wells, as well as Dick and Perry, because Floyd talked about the Clutter family to a fellow prisoner.