Floyd Wells

Throughout the book we learn a great deal about the inmates at the Kansas State Penitentiary. All of the characters (who are all real people) seem to break the stereotype of convicts in one way or another. Willie Jay seems to be an intellectual and compassionate man who somehow found his way into prison. Perry is a convicted murderer, yet seems to show the most sympathy for other characters in the book (we also feel the most sympathy for him), and Dick appears to have done the least wrong to get himself in prison, yet has no visible conscience.

This leads us to Floyd, the latest of the inmates. Floyd both inspires the murder, and foils the escape plan. He originally told Dick that that there was money on the Clutter and, "After that, Dick never stopped asking me about the family...Next thing I knew, Dick was talking about killing Mr. clutter"(151). Despite trying to convince Dick that he shouldn't pull it off, and not really believing he and Perry were going too anyway, Floyd can't stop the murder. What Floyd's "strange characteristic" is that despite his crime - breaking into an appliance store in order to "start a lawn mower rental service"(160) - he does the right thing when he hears that the Clutters had been murdered. It would seem that if any other convicts knew that Dick and Perry were planning on robbing the Clutters, they would have thought, "hey they actually pulled it off" and gone on with their lives. Floyd shows true character by telling the police.

Whether the appearance of all the inmates in "In Cold Blood", is just proof of the stereotypes we put on convicts or another way in which Capote tries to humanize the killers, it is nonetheless interesting.