For just two months in 1958, a 19-year-old and his 14-year-old girlfriend set off a deadly pagan park in Nebraska and Wyoming that left 11 people dead.
Their story seems unknown, we only know it. It has been sung by Bruce Springsteen in “Nebraska” and Billy Joel in “We Didn’t Start The Fire” and it was told to us by both Terence Malik in “Badlands” (1973) and Oliver Stone in “Born Killers” (1994).
What the two children did that winter of 1958 has been tried to be explained by psychiatrists and psychologists, only sometimes the vicious reality defies any interpretive scheme.
What made Charles Starkweather and his underage accomplice Caril Ann Fugate indulge in acts of such savagery? And how did he transform from a typical teenager of his day into a serial killer?
This is the only one in their history…
Problems from the first moment
Born in November 1938 in Lincoln, Nebraska, the third of Guy and Helen Starkweather’s 7 children, Charles knew the difficult face of life from an early age.
His carpenter father spent long periods of time in unemployment due to rheumatoid arthritis, and his mother worked as a waitress to make a living.
Despite having a relatively quiet family life at home, little Charles spent most of his time at school. He was crooked and stuttered, an unforgivable fact for his classmates.
The bullying he accepted was ruthless. The intimidation and the wood reached such a point that the little one started gymnastics to become stronger and to be able to fight with his tyrants.
It was from this time that the first outbursts of his rage began, as he became stronger and more and more confident in himself. His classmates later testified that it was “like a barrel of gunpowder waiting for a spark”.
He eventually became the bully of the school, beating anyone who had hurt him in previous years. One of the best and quietest children in the small community transformed into a violent teenager.
Charles saw his “Rebel Without a Cause” in 1955 James Dean and he found not just a cinematic idol, but a personality that could be completely identified: that of the outcast of society.
He leaves school and takes a job in a warehouse to pay his bills. At the age of 18, in 1956, he met 13-year-old Caril Ann Fugate (born in 1943). Charles had been with her older sister for some time.
Their relationship was of course reprehensible. Everyone was talking about seduction, since in Nebraska the age of consent was then 16 years. Any sexual contact between them was rape by law.
The young couple, however, came very close. They became inseparable. Charles stole his dad’s car to teach her to drive. In one such incident, the little one crashed, sparking a Homeric quarrel between father and son. Guy Starkweather kicked him out of the house.
Charles got a job in the municipal cleaning service. Passing through Kosmakis’ houses, he began to fantasize about burglaries. And bank robberies right after. However, his criminal record would remain blank until next year…
The crimes of Charles and Caril
The diary was written November 30, 1957 when Charles wanted to buy a teddy bear from the local gas station. The young clerk refused to give it to him and Charles threatened him with his gun.
After stealing it, he took him to the forest and shot him in the head with his carbine. This was the first of 11 victims. He would even kill the other 10 in a period of just one week, from January 21-29, 1958.
The next crimes would be more horrific and would unlock a crazy course that only his arrest was able to stop.
On the evening of January 21, 1958, the 19-year-old went to his girlfriend’s house to pick her up. He was greeted at the door by the girl’s mother and stepfather, who threatened to stay away from her.
Instead of answering, Charles killed them both. He then strangled her 2-year-old half-sister Caril. The little girl’s involvement in the triple murder was, and remains, an object of controversy.
She said she was not an accomplice, but a hostage of the killer. However, he insisted that they were together in everything. She had nothing to do with him murder of her family, Caril accompanied Charles on his murderous journey. She was present at all the killings.
The young couple remained at their paternal home for a few days, hanging a sign on the front door urging visitors not to enter because they were all “sick with the flu”.
When they felt that they had been deceived by everyone, Charles and Caril visited the house of a family friend of hers. Charles killed 70-year-old August Meyer with his shotgun, followed by his dog.
Leaving the elderly man’s farm, their car got stuck in the mud. Two teenage children in the area, a young couple, 17-year-old Robert Jensen and 16-year-old Carol King, were willing to help, taking them in their car.
Charles rewarded their good deed by shooting Robert to death. He then tried to rape Carol and when he failed, he killed her too. However, he said that it was Caril who killed the girl, a claim that the 14-year-old categorically denied.
Their next stop would be just as murderous. The couple went to the house of industrialist C. Lauer Ward, in an expensive suburb of Lincoln. They came in and Charles stabbed housekeeper Lillian Fencl. He then strangled the dog so as not to alert the owners.
When his wife Clara Ward returned home, he stabbed her. The same would happen to the rich businessman as soon as he opened the door of his house. Charles was waiting for him with the carbine in his hands.
The couple loaded the industrialist’s car with valuables and blew it up from Nebraska. But now the whole community was in turmoil and the police launched a manhunt to arrest the perpetrators of the brutal murder.
On the same day (January 27), the 14-year-old’s grandmother called the police, worried that she had not heard from the family for so many days. In the backyard of the house they found the three bodies.
Realizing that they needed another escape car, the couple fell on the Merle Collison playground. He was found sleeping in his Buick in a parking lot outside the Wyoming town. They woke him up and shot him.
Again, he accused the 14-year-old of giving Merle the shot. She continued to deny any involvement in the killings.
Buick was going to prove fatal to the couple. It had a special handbrake mechanism that Charles did not know and the car was “crawling” on the road. A passing driver stopped to help, but they were caught in the arms of the 19-year-old.
By the time Charles took her out carbine and threatened him, the county sheriff, William Romer, passed by. As soon as the policeman stopped, Caril ran over him asking for help.
Charles managed to escape, but had three patrol cars behind him. The chase would end when a bullet pierced Buick’s windshield and injured his fleeing ear.
“He believed he was going to die from the bleeding,” the police investigation wrote, “that’s why he stopped.”
One was executed, the other was imprisoned
Charles chose to be extradited to Nebraska to stand trial, believing that death penalty was out of frame, as the governor of the state was against the end of the sentences. This was true, only the governor changed his mind when he learned of Starkweather’s horrific crimes.
Even worse for him, it was the governor of Wyoming who had publicly taken a stand against the death penalty and if he was tried there, he would have saved his life.
The trial slipped into a farce, with Starkweather constantly changing his story and sometimes the 14-year-old was his victim, sometimes his accomplice. His lawyers tried to acquit him, arguing that he did not have the brakes on.
The jurors, however, had a different opinion and found him guilty of just one murder he was charged with. When he heard the verdict that sent him to electric chair, shouted that the 14-year-old should have had the same fate.
Charles Starkweather sat in an electric chair on June 25, 1959. It was the last execution in Nebraska until 1994. He was buried in his hometown municipal cemetery, where five of his victims had been buried.
He did not say anything before his execution, but sent a letter to his parents the day before, in which he wrote: “But Dad, I do not regret what I did, because for the first time Caril and I had fun.”
The story of Caril Ann Fugate ended differently. Throughout her trial, she insisted she was innocent, a kidnapping victim who was forced to follow Starkweather on his bloody journey. She said she was too scared to try to run away from him.
The jurors, however, considered that she had many opportunities in her hands to escape. She was sentenced to life in prison on November 21, 1958. He was the youngest man ever convicted of murder in his criminal record. USA.
Fugate was released from prison after 18 years for good behavior. She married and changed her name to Caril Ann Clair.
In February 2020, at the age of 77, she tried to get favor from the state of Nebraska, wanting to clear her name from the category, but her request was rejected.
Today he lives in Ohio…
Donald-43Westbrook, a distinguished contributor at worldstockmarket, is celebrated for his exceptional prowess in article writing. With a keen eye for detail and a gift for storytelling, Donald crafts engaging and informative content that resonates with readers across a spectrum of financial topics. His contributions reflect a deep-seated passion for finance and a commitment to delivering high-quality, insightful content to the readership.
