Perry Smith and Donald Cullivan’s friendship

Perry Smith and Donald Cullivan’s friendship is defined by a tension between moral distance and personal attachment. Cullivan hoped to find remorse in Perry, who denied feeling it for the Clutter family; yet Perry singled out Cullivan’s letters and his choice to call himself a friend as a kindness no religious promise had offered him. The relationship is brief in the evidence but consequential: it gives Perry a rare point of human connection as he faces confinement and execution.

How the Friendship Began

Cullivan had known Perry during their time in the Army, where he remembered him as likable. Later, Cullivan wrote to Perry in prison and signed himself “friend.” Perry told him that this gesture mattered because he had had no friends except Joe James, a young Indian logger with whom Perry had lived intermittently in the woods near Bellingham, Washington. Perry described the distance separating that earlier life from Garden City as roughly two thousand miles, making Cullivan’s correspondence a present connection across both physical and emotional distance.

Perry had also sent word to Joe James about his trouble. Joe had promised to come despite having seven children to feed, though Perry did not know whether he would arrive. That uncertainty sharpened the importance of Perry’s direct question to Cullivan: “Do you, Don?” Cullivan answered, “Yes. I like you.” The answer pleased and flustered Perry; he smiled and replied, “Then you must be some kind of nut.” The exchange turns friendship into something tested aloud: Perry asks for an affirmation, receives it, and responds with teasing disbelief rather than a conventional expression of gratitude.

Attachment Amid Moral Disagreement

The closeness between the two did not depend on Cullivan approving of Perry’s actions. Cullivan probed for contrition, expecting that the killings might have left Perry seeking divine mercy and forgiveness. Perry said he was not sorry and felt nothing about the crime, though he wished he did. He recalled that half an hour after the killings, Dick had been joking and he had laughed. He compared the murders to shooting-gallery targets and argued that he had known the Clutters for only about an hour; he imagined he might have felt differently had he known them well.

Perry resisted performing remorse to satisfy Cullivan. He asked him not to make him act like a hypocrite by claiming to be sorry or eager to pray, insisting that such language did not ring true. Instead, he credited Cullivan’s letters and the word friend with doing more for him than God ever had. The exchange reveals an important limit in their bond: Cullivan’s concern did not produce repentance, and Perry’s attachment to Cullivan did not erase his indifference toward the victims. Yet Perry was distressed by Cullivan’s silence, interpreting it as possible disapproval. His need for the friend’s acceptance coexisted with an uncompromising refusal to claim feelings he said he did not have.

After Cullivan affirmed that he liked him, Perry’s thoughts turned to dying among strangers. He picked up a broom, pressed its bristles against the light bulb, and described breaking it to cut his wrists. He wished to kill himself while someone who cared about him was still present. The moment makes the friendship’s immediate emotional weight plain without suggesting that Cullivan’s presence resolved Perry’s despair: Perry framed it as a reason he would rather not die alone among people who did not care.

Cullivan as a Character Witness

At trial, Cullivan was one of four witnesses presented by Arthur Fleming on Perry’s behalf. The group included Reverend James E. Post, Joe James, and Dr. Jones; Cullivan and Joe James were offered as character witnesses. Their efforts to describe Perry favorably were curtailed by the prosecution’s objections. Joe James testified that Perry had lived with him off and on for more than two years and described him as well liked in the neighborhood. When Cullivan said that Perry had been “a very likable fellow” during their Army acquaintance, the state stopped him too.

The courtroom testimony gave public form to the private claim Perry had made in his cell: Cullivan did like him. But the trial allowed only a narrow version of that bond to be heard, reducing Cullivan’s personal regard to a brief character assessment before the prosecution intervened. Set beside their prison conversation, his testimony shows both the persistence and the limits of the friendship: Cullivan stood up for Perry, while the court sharply restricted what that testimony could establish.