By Faith LeAnne
This article's account of Caril Ann Fugate's state of mind is the author's own characterisation, not a finding of any court. Fugate was fourteen, has always maintained she was held hostage, and is alive. See the editor's note at the end.
Lincoln, Nebraska...small town. In 1957 a Tornado hit,but it wasn't that that was buzzing up all the newspapers.... Charles Raymond Steakweather, had decided that year, was going to be HIS year. That it would be the year everyone remembered him, and until this day, his and Caril Ann Fugate's mass murder spree is considered the second worse thing to happen in Nebraska. It was next to only the Great Depression.
Charles Starkweather wasn't the child of a one parent home. He was not abused. He was not a child to witness abuse at the hands of anyone in his family. If anything the Starkweather's were considered very well adjusted members of the community. They weren't rich, but weren't destitute, either.
His parents, Helen and Guy, raised two children born before Charles and four more after him. He could be thought of as a middle child. This is the only thing found to perhaps make his a little out of place in his home but at that time many children came from large families who were not well to do. Neither of those factors led to what Charles would eventually do.
From an early age, Charles knew he was different. He was born bow-legged, and had a minor speech problem. Those imperfections caused lots of torment in his early years, contributing to his learning that he could be either a sheep, and get eaten by the wolf or the wolf. Charles eventually opted to be the Wolf.
Charles decided that there was no point in applying himself in school. He eventually stopped trying all together, causing him to be labeled a slow learner. He could have possibly had some other minor mental issues that were recognized by the fact that he two almost distinct and different sides of his personality could be displayed. At times Charles could be very sweet and kind, soft spoken and almost what one would call a gentle person. With the next flick of his wrist, he could unleash violence at a feverish pitch.
It didn't take those who irked him long to find out that you don't mess with Charlie Starkweather. In fact, it was better to stay out of his way completely, because he was as unpredictable as a rattlesnake.
Charles once commented that there was nothing more he hated than “those” people. Those people was anyone who had more money than he had. Those who had a better job than he had. Anyone with a chip on their shoulder were one of those people and they tended to immediately transform Charles from a sheep to a wolf. The wolf he became was done taking everyone's shit. Charles delighted in knocking all those people who put themselves up so high, right back down.
He became known as a bully and by the time he went to high school education had became a complete loss cause. Charles developed other problems beside his behavior and it is believed that something may have affected his sight. He started to believe he had no purpose in the world.
He mulled over the idea that there wasn't anything to live for, to die for? If that was true his conclusion was why be here and he felt that only James Dean, in the movies understood him. Starkweather took to Dean's character instantly. Dean understood him, Dean knew what it was like. Starkweather knew he now had a purpose. He has someone to look up to because he never really took to his father. James Dean, on the screen, was finally someone Charles could identify with. Charles understood, he was to be a rebel. But Charles, unlike Dean's character had a cause.
It was clear that Charles had no problems with his vision when it came to one thing Caril Ann Fugate. Caril, at thirteen, was instantly smitten with Charles when she met with him though a friend. Although she was much younger him, Charles felt an instant connection between the two. It seemed like Caril Ann understood him. She quickly became completely absorbed with Charles' Dean mannerisms, and if she couldn't have Dean, the teenage girl's heart throb of the day she could have Charles, and he wanted her, Caril was in love.
Caril Ann's past it mirrored Charles's in almost every way. Caril was not very bright and had never really applied herself in school. She had beauty and was well liked by her schoolmates. At home she was berated for not doing better in school and was often called stupid. When she met Charles that changed because he made her feel smart. Charles also made her feel beautiful, Charles became her world.
Charles had never felt what love was before. He had never felt close with his parents, even though there was never a reason not to. He had one close friend, but he had never known real love, until he met Caril Ann. Just as he was her world, she was his. He had never experienced love's warm feeling. In fact, had he felt anything soft, only hardness, the brashness, the torment the he believed the world had given him, but Caril gave him the greatest gift of all. Love. He felt blessed.
Caril Ann's parents weren't so accepting of the relationship They thought Charles a punk, with no direction He was not good enough for their daughter. Their blatant disregard of him only made her love him more. As their relationship grew, Charles started to see Caril Ann as the only good thing in his life. He started to love her more and more, and he hated society to an increasingly equal degree. All of humanity became Charles' enemy, and he was slowly growing tired of it.
After quitting school at sixteen, Charles shifted between jobs. He had little or no money, but this wasn't a problem for the Charles and Caril, as long as they were together, however in November Charles went into a local gas station, and wanted to purchases Caril Ann a stuffed bear. He had no money and tried getting the bear on credit. Charles was turned down. He returned to the car defeated, and the last shotgun shell fell into place in his life.
In Charles' mind, that gas station attendant had to die. The attendant stood between the happiness of Charles's and his girl, and no one messed with Charlies's girl. He returned later on that same night, He knew what he planned to do and he just needed enough time to work up the nerve to do it. Years of violence was one thing, putting a shotgun up to someone was something entirely different.
His thinking pumped him up. All of the things that had happened to him through the years, all the names he had been called, all the people who had picked-on him, this was their fault he decided, They made him do this. This wasn't his fault, this was all them he justified as he manifested years of hate into one act of ruthless retaliation.
Drained of remorse Charles picked up the shotgun and went inside. He didn't kill the gas station attendant there. He decided he would make too much of a scene, leave too much evidence, maybe the shot would be to loud, so instead he had the attendant drive to a deserted area. Once there Charles thought about his actions again. A hint of remorse went through his mind, but it stopped short of reversing his decision. When the attendant, Robert Colvert, realized he was going to die, he put up a fight. In the struggle, Colvert got shot. With a bullet already in the attendant, Charles simply finished the job and in execution style, putting the gun to the back of his head, Charles popped off a final shot into Robert.
Having the taste of blood, it would be only a matter of time before he would kill again, Charles decided that nothing and no one would ever boss him around again. He was now a god, untouchable. Charles told Caril Ann right away, but professed he had done this as an act to prove his love for her, the naive teen, or perhaps, unfeeling one, simply took it as an undying declaration of their bond. They knew now that there was nothing that could ever tear them apart.
On January 28th, just a month after murdering Robert Colvert, Charles went to Caril Ann's parents home, and waited for her to return. A heated argument started between Caril's stepfather and Charles. As it became more heated, her enraged stepfather told Charles that he wasn't planning on letting Charles come around anymore. Caril's mother had also had enough of the affair, and after hearing local town gossip, about how Charles supposedly had said he was going to make Caril Ann his wife, and that she was pregnant by his child. Caril Ann's stepfather struck Charles, a stupid mistake on his part.
Never parting with his twelve gauge shotgun he brought it up, and shot Caril's stepfather. Caril's mother then got up, and he used the butt end of the gun to dispatch her, hitting her over and over again. When Caril Ann arrived home, she found Charles standing over her two year old sister, and what happens next is uncertain. Caril claims that he fatally strangled the child, and he claimed she beat the child to death. Whatever the case, after her parents were dispensed, they proceeded to have there own honeymoon.
They indulged on all the minor delights the Fugate's had to offer. Watching television, and eating whatever was in the home. Caril Ann, quickly acted and put a sign up on the door written to keep away noisy neighbors, that read “Whole Family, sick with flu.” Charles and Caril took the bodies and moved them from inside the house. Cari's little sister Ann sister was put in a box. Her parents were put in the outhouse, in the back.
Charles knew it would only be a matter of time before there happy home was disrupted. He fled with Caril Ann, in an attempt to outrun the police. People got suspicious after not seeing the family for a while. They called the police and when they got there they quickly realized something was not right. A police bulletin was put out for Charles Starkweather, and Caril Ann Fugate.
The duo had driven to an unsuspecting friend of Starkweather's family. Charles and Caril murdered the friend and took shelter for the night in his farm. They soon realized that there car was going to be a big give away. Charles decided to do what must be done, and just point it out as a sacrifice for love, he left his car on the side of the road, and hid the weapons they both had on them, hitching a ride with a couple only a couple who were just a few years younger then him.
Charles didn't waste much time. Getting right to the point. While Caril Ann sat with smiles and grins, she was watching Charles dominate the scene. To her it was like a movie, and she was dating the star. Charles forced them back towards the farm where Charles and Caril had spent in the night before. He got them both out of the car, and after taking their money, he shot Robert Jensen.
Caril Ann screamed gleefully as Charles shot him, and then narrowed her eyes, as she focused on the woman. She looked cold and cruel, then she smiled, and waited for Charles to shoot her. She was so excited by Charles killing men. Her only exception until now was the killing of her mother. Caril now wanted the woman dead. She thought what if this woman wanted her Charles?
They should have run. They should have went somewhere, anywhere, far away, but instead Charles insisted, that they go back into town, not thinking that any one would be looking for them. This was a very stupid action that eventually led to their capture.
Charles had worked a lot of jobs. It made him affluent with the different areas, and it was very easy for him to know the rich part of town. Charles hated the rich people, with all their money. He came from nothing, so it was not by chance that he chose a house that he knew was upper class. He stopped with Caril Ann and entered demanding breakfast.
Before Charles and Caril left there would be three more dead woman: Clara Ward, the maid, Lillian Fencl, and the master of the house C. Lauer Ward. Caril Ann was asleep on the couch for most of this killing, but bothered to get up to complain that they were making to much noise. To please Caril Ann, Charles tied the maid to a bed violently stabbing her death, after taking care of Clara, who had the nerve to arm herself in an attempt to shoot him. Charles stabbed Clara so violently and so many times that they could not count the number of entry wounds.
When C.Lauer Ward unexpectedly arrived home, he got little out of his mouth before Charles, already angry with the situation, shot him with the already loaded gun. They took Ward's car with anything that looked like it had value and stayed for a day of rest and sleep.
Starkweather & Fugate's spree was coming to a violent end. The law didn't look kindly on such a pro-dominate member of society being killed. Even the governor got involved. His orders pointed toward Charles and Caril being taken down immediately.
Charles stopped along the highway, after hearing about themselves on the radio. He knew they'd all be looking for the car that they were in. He couldn't have that. Charles saw someone who had pulled over to the side of the road and who had fallen asleep. Charles knocked on his window and told the man they were going to trade cars, When they man didn't answer and attempted to go back to sleep, Charles, shot him. Caril Ann got in the backseat with the dead body still in the car, Charles couldn't figure out how to release the emergency break.
A young man stopped on the side of the road, after seeing the young couple thinking that he may be of some help. After asking what the trouble was, Starkweather was running out of time and patients, he told the man to release the emergency break or he'd kill him. The man made like he was going to do as he said and then started an altercation with Starkweather, trying to wrestle the gun away from him. Sadly for Starkweather this was not his day, as a deputy Sheriff came by and stopped.
Immediately Caril Ann jumped out of the car, and ran towards the officer, The jig was up, and she didn't want to go down, she knew Charlie would, and she wasn't about to as well. Charles grabbed the Packard and started driving, with police chasing him. The police shot at him, and broke the glass out of the window of the back of his car, causing a bullet, or a piece of glass to whizz right by his head, Charles stopped the car, immediately.
The media ate up Starkweather. He was all they could have wanted, a serial killer, with the looks of Dean with an under aged lover. It was a case that the State was completely fascinated with but no more fascinated than they were with Starkweather himself. He was a man of few words. He had little or no remorse, for the crimes he had committed. He had no motive, only that, the more he saw people, the more he started to hate them.
Caril Ann tried in vain to save herself, saying she was a hostage of Charles and that she only did as told. For fear he'd hurt her family, she went along but the only problem was that she had watched him massacre them, leaving her little creditability, if any.
Charles Starkweather was tried on the 5th on May, 1958. It didn't take long for the jury to return with a guilty verdict in which the jury specifically asked for the death penalty. Charles Starkweather was killed in the electric chair, on the 5th of June, 1959.
Caril Ann was only fourteen when captured, and given a life sentence. Charles was less than loving when he found out that she blamed him for the whole thing and he confirmed that she could have escaped anytime if she wanted to do so. Caril was paroled in 1976 and changed her name.
What makes a serial killer? Head Trauma? Abuse? Being Bullied? What's the difference between me, you, or Charles Starkweather, and Caril Ann? I'd say it's only a loaded shotgun and a pack of shells.
Editor's note: this piece ran in Serial Killer Magazine and is published as the author wrote it, spelling and grammar included, which is why Starkweather's name is misspelled in the third sentence and the line breaks of the original manuscript have been reflowed into paragraphs without a word being changed. It is the second article on this case in the archive; the other is by Krystina Valladares. The most important correction concerns a living person. Caril Ann Fugate was fourteen during the spree. She was convicted of first degree murder in 1958 and paroled in 1976, and she has said from the day of her arrest to the present that Starkweather held her hostage and that she believed he would kill her family if she ran. She is alive. This article does not merely doubt that account, it reports her inner thoughts as fact: that she screamed gleefully, that she looked cold and cruel and smiled and waited for the next shot, that she was excited by Charles killing men, that she wondered whether the woman wanted her Charles. No court has ever found any of that, no source is given for it, and it cannot be sourced, because it is a description of what was going on inside another person's head. It is the author's characterisation and should be read only as that. Starkweather's own statements about Fugate changed repeatedly, including before and after she blamed him, which is the ordinary difficulty with using either of them as a witness against the other. On the record. Starkweather killed eleven people, one in December 1957 and ten across eight days at the end of January 1958. This archive files him as a spree killer rather than a serial killer, which is what the article's own final paragraph unintentionally concedes by having to ask the question. He was tried from May 1958 and executed in the electric chair at the Nebraska State Penitentiary on June 25, 1959, not June 5. Three victims are misdescribed. At the Ward house the dead were C. Lauer Ward, his wife Clara Ward and their maid Lillian Fencl, so the phrase “three more dead woman” is wrong on its face, and the article's apposition attaches the word maid to Clara Ward rather than to Fencl. The young woman killed with Robert Jensen was Carol King, sixteen, and she is never named here. The family friend killed at the farm was August Meyer. The last man, shot while asleep in his car, was Merle Collison. One claim in the opening is the author's and is not attributable: that the case is regarded as the second worst thing to happen in Nebraska after the Great Depression.