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I got me this job one time busin' tables at a country club. So I could case all these big rich pr*cks that come in. So I pick out this guy, go in one night and do his place. He wakes up and gives me sh*t. So I killed him. Him and this tasty b*tch he was with. That's the best part. She's f*cking this pr*ck, see, this golf pro, but she's married to some other guy! Some hotshot banker. And he's the one they pinned it on!
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~ Blatch gloating about committing the crime Andy was imprisoned for.
Despite making only a brief appearance, Blatch is actually one of the story's most influential characters. Blatch is a professional criminal by trade, being a convicted robber and self-confessed murderer. It turns out that he is the real killer of Andy's wife and her lover. Since Blatch left no evidence at the scene however, Andy was wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for his crime.
A hardened criminal, Blatch is a cruel and sadistic man. He is also implied to be a narcissist, given that he brags about the various crimes that he has committed. Despite finding him irritating and not taking him seriously, Tommy Williams described Blatch as the type of cellmate "you pray you don't get", suggesting that people did nevertheless fear Blatch.
Blatch does not show any remorse for his crimes or the people whose lives he ended/ruined. On the contrary, when retelling his story (in the film), he laughed openly at both Andy's wrongful arrest and the fact that he (Blatch) had gotten away with a double murder.
Biography[]
During his time in Shawshank Prison, Andy helped newly arrived inmate Tommy with his GED's. Believing that he had failed, Tommy confided in Andy's longtime friend and fellow inmate Red, who assured Tommy that Andy is proud of him. The two men proceeded to talk about their mutual friend. Despite being part of the group, Tommy did not talk about the circumstances behind Andy's conviction. Red told him about the murder of Andy's wife and golf pro lover, at which point a look of horror spread across Tommy's face.
Meeting with Andy and Red in the library, Tommy told them about an old cellmate of his during a stint at Thomaston, Elmo Blatch. He explained that Blatch had been arrested for armed burglary and had a habit of bragging to his fellow inmates about various things, mostly the "supposed" crimes he committed, his "relationships" and the people he had "allegedly" killed. Tommy notes that whilst he originally paid little attention to these stories, one day he got fed up of Blatch's bragging. He then sarcastically asked Blatch who he had killed, only to get a chilling response.
Note: What follows is a retelling of how Blatch committed the murder which saw Andy wrongfully committed. It is based upon both Blatch's testimony and the prosecutions evidence at Andy's trial.
At one point, Blatch got a job at a unnamed country club. Whilst in his own words "busin' tables" Blatch would keep an eye on the regulars, determining which of them were worth robbing. He eventually settled upon golf pro Glenn Quinton. After finding out where he lived, Blatch broke into the house. Though his intention was just to rob the place, Blatch brought a gun with him, a .38 special revolver, just in case.
By pure coincidence, the same night that Blatch broke into the residency, was the same one in which, Andy's wife, Linda, had left him. Although a drunken Andy had intended to confront the couple, he changed his mind at the last minute, but left a broken bottle and some unused bullets from the same type of gun Blatch used, both of which had his finger prints upon them. Although Andy had left before Blatch arrived, Blatch caused enough of a commotion to wake both Glenn and Linda. When the former yelled at him, Blatch, who did not like being shouted at, he proceeded to shoot the couple dead, both to shut them up and avoid leaving any witnesses. Since Blatch had wrapped towels around the muzzle, nobody heard the gunshots, allowing him to make a clean get away.
According to Tommy at the end of the story, the laughing Blatch had told him "the best part". Blatch later found out that the woman he'd killed was in fact married to a "hotshot banker". Laughing ecstatically, the unremorseful Blatch told Tommy that same banker was the one that the cops and state blamed for the murder. Needless to say, Red (and later the other members of his group) were horrified to hear this story, as they realized that Andy had been falsely convicted and that an innocent man had spent almost 20 years of his life serving time in Shawshank State Prison for a crime that he did not commit.
Andy took this information straight to the Warden, but he refused to accept this "story" for two reasons. Firstly, he said that Blatch had more than likely already been released from Thomaston at that point and that even if confronted, would never confess. Secondly and most importantly, Andy was laundering money for him. Not only did the Warden want to keep it coming, he did not want to run the risk that Andy might betray him to the authorities. When Andy continued to protest, the Warden had Andy placed in solitary. He later had Tommy killed by Hadley to prevent him from telling anybody about his discovery, (in the book though, the Warden bribed Tommy into staying quiet).
Blatch is not mentioned after this and fate remains unknown.
Trivia[]
In the novel, his name is Elwood Blatch.
In the book, Andy does nothing to clear his name following his escape from Shawshank and a bribe from Norton kept Tommy quiet about Andy's innocence. As such, Blatch presumably got away with the crime and given that his sentence for robbery was short, he more than likely returned to the streets before Tommy's incarceration at Shawshank.
In the movie, Andy may have sent over evidence of Blatch's crimes along with the evidence used to convict both Hadley and the Warden, although this remains unconfirmed.
