| “ | Dead people are all on the same level. | ” |
— Starkweather
| ||
Charles Raymond Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate were a pair of teenage spree killers and family annihilators.
Background[]
Starkweather's parents and brother.
Barlett family, Caril to the left.
Charles Starkweather was born the third of seven children in 1938 in Lincoln, Nebraska. His father, Guy, was a carpenter who had arthritis in his hands and was often unemployed. His mother, Helen, worked as a waitress. Though the family was poor, it managed. In school, Charles was often bullied because he had bowed legs and a slight speech impediment. He was also very near-sighted, not even able to read the top letter on an eye chart, but it wasn't discovered until he was a teenager; before that, he had been thought of as a slow learner. During gym class, his physique became better, and he started exacting revenge on those who had bullied him and also became a bully himself. After watching Rebel Without a Cause, he became obsessed with actor James Dean, who had the lead role, and started dressing like his character and imitating him. At the age of 16, Charles dropped out of high school. He was introduced to his girlfriend (and later partner-in-crime), Caril Ann Fugate, through the girlfriend of his best friend, Bob von Busch. Caril was 13 at the time and he was 18. Though he was five years older than her, they were madly in love with each other. He took a job at a Western Union newspaper warehouse as a truck unloader; he chose that location because it was close to Caril's junior high school. At some point, Caril crashed his car, a 1949 Ford, while he was teaching her how to drive. Guy Starkweather, who was the legal owner of the car, paid for the damages and threw Charles out of the household, no longer willing to put up with his behavior. Charles then quit his job at the warehouse and became a garbage collector, using his route to plan bank robberies (though he never actually carried them out).
Killing Spree, Capture, and Conviction[]
Starkweather after being captured.
Fugate after being captured.
In 1957, aged 19, Starkweather committed his first murder. On November 30, he went to a gas station and tried to buy a stuffed dog toy for Fugate. When he found that he wasn't carrying enough money, the manager, Robert Colvert, refused to let him buy it on credit and threw him out. At 3:00 a.m. the next day, he returned with a shotgun. First, he entered the store twice and bought first a package of cigarettes and then a package of chewing gum. The third time, he came in dressed with a bandanna and a hat to cover his face and held him at gunpoint with the shotgun. After forcing him to open the store's safe and robbing it, he forced Colvert outside to his own car, made him drive to a nearby remote area and shot and killed him. Later that day, he told Caril about the robbery, though he left out the part when he killed Colvert. Starkweather later lost his job as a garbage collector and was evicted from where he lived because he couldn't pay his rent. On January 21, 1958, he went to Fugate's family's home with a rifle and ammunition. The details of what happened that day are sketchy, but the outcome of his visit was that Fugate's stepfather, Marion Bartlett, and mother, Velda Bartlett, were both shot to death with the rifle he brought and their baby daughter, Betty Jean, was fatally stabbed and strangled. After putting up a sign on the house's door saying the whole household was sick with the flu, they spent a few days living in the house with the bodies of Fugate's family still in there.
Police arrived on the 27th after Fugate's grandmother became suspicious and called them, by which time she and Starkweather had already gone to a farm in Bennet, Nebraska and killed the owner, August Meyer, and fled. They hitched a ride from two teenagers, Robert Jensen, and Carol King, and killed them after forcing them to drive them to a nearby abandoned storm shelter. The next day, by which time they had already left the area, the duo's old car, which had gotten stuck in the mud, was found along with the bodies of Meyer and the teenagers. Starkweather and Fugate then fled to a wealthier part of Lincoln with Jensen's car and attacked the home of a wealthy industrialist named C. Lauer Ward. Only his wife, Clara Ward, and their maid, Lillian Fencl, were home at the time. After killing Ward and one of the household's two dogs, they forced Fencl to make them breakfast. When Mr. Ward himself came home that afternoon, he was shot to death. Fencl was then tied to a bed and killed as well. They then left in the Wards' Packard. When the bodies were found, a full-scale manhunt began seriously and the police started a house-by-house search of the area and even called in the National Guard. The FBI was also brought in. The mayor of Lincoln offered a reward of $1,000. When Starkweather and Fugate realized that the Packard they were driving would attract attention, they approached a Buick owned by Merle Collison, a traveling salesman, near the highway close to Douglas, Wyoming, shot him to death, stole the vehicle and drove away.
Because the car had a parking brake, which Starkweather wasn't accustomed to, the car wouldn't move when he started it. A bypasser offered to help, only to be threatened by Starkweather with a knife. A nearby deputy sheriff, William Romer, noticed the exchange and called for backup, setting off a pursuit. Fugate got out of the car, crying and saying that Starkweather had killed someone, while Starkweather ran back to the Packard and started driving towards Douglas. Police picked up the chase and fired at the car, which stopped in the middle of the road; a bullet had shattered a windshield, cutting Starkweather near the ear enough to make him bleed. Thinking he had been mortally wounded, he pulled over and surrendered so he could get medical attention. Both he and Fugate were then arrested and tried in Nebraska. At first, Starkweather stated that he had forced Fugate to come with him, but then started changing his story repeatedly, finally asserting that she had been a willing accomplice who had actually committed some of the murders. Fugate maintained that she had been held hostage, though she wasn't believed. Starkweather was only tried and found guilty of the murder of Robert Jensen and sentenced to death. Because there was evidence suggesting that Fugate had had opportunities to leave Starkweather that she hadn't taken, she received a life sentence as his accomplice. At noon of June 25 the next year, Starkweather was executed by electric chair. Fugate's life sentence was commuted and she spent 17 years at the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women in York, Nebraska before being released early for good behavior. A retired medical aide, she was last known to live in Hillside, Michigan. In 2007, she married a man named Fredrick Clair. They were in a car accident together in 2013 when their SUV went off the road. Fugate survived with serious injuries, but Clair died.
Aftermath[]
The story of Starkweather and Fugate have inspired significant fiction adaptations, most notably the films Badlands and Natural Born Killers. The latter was stirred up much controversy over its reported copycat crimes and has sparked much outrage over violent media exposure to children and the effects it has on their health, psyche, and safety to themselves and others. Famed legal thriller author John Grisham lost a friend of his, William Savage, in a shooting committed by a duo of copycat murderers, directly calling out director Oliver Stone for his role in the film's production.
Modus Operandi[]
Starkweather and Fugate killed most of their victims by shooting them with a .22 rifle, a 12-gauge shotgun, a handgun or by stabbing them. Betty Jean Bartlett was also strangled. After killing their victims, the pair had a habit of stealing their cars and using them to continue traveling.
Known Victims[]
Starkweather and Fugate's fatal victims.
- December 1, 1957, Lincoln, Nebraska: Robert George "Bobby" Colvert, 21 (killed by Starkweather alone; shot once in each leg and once in the head with a shotgun)
- The 1958 killing spree:
- January 21, Lincoln, Nebraska: Fugate's family (all killed in the attack at Fugate's home)
- Marion Bartlett, 57 (Fugate's stepfather; shot in the head with a .22 rifle)
- Velda Bartlett, 36 (Fugate's mother; shot in the face and hit with a .22 rifle)
- Betty Jean Bartlett, 2 (Fugate's half-sister; stabbed and strangled)
- January 27, Bennett, Nebraska:
- August Meyer, 72 (shot with a shotgun; his dog was also killed)
- Robert Jensen and Carol King:
- Robert Jensen, 17 (shot six times in the head with a handgun; also stole his car)
- Carol King, 16 (shot once in the head, then stabbed in the abdomen and pubic area)
- January 28:
- Lincoln, Nebraska: The attack on the Ward household:
- Clara and Chester Lauer Ward:
- Clara Ward, 46 (stabbed repeatedly in the neck and chest)
- Chester Lauer Ward, 47 (shot)
- Ludmila "Lillian" Fencl, 51 (the Wards' maid; tied her to a bed and stabbed)
- Clara and Chester Lauer Ward:
- Douglas, Wyoming:
- Merle Delore Collison, 37 (was shot; also stole his car)
- Unnamed pedestrian (threatened with a knife by Starkweather)
- Lincoln, Nebraska: The attack on the Ward household:
- January 21, Lincoln, Nebraska: Fugate's family (all killed in the attack at Fugate's home)
On Criminal Minds[]
While Starkweather and Fugate were never directly mentioned or referenced on the show (or its spin-offs), they appear to have been an inspiration for the following unsubs:
- Season Three
- Owen Savage ("Elephant's Memory") - Both were teenaged spree killers who had girlfriends that played a major role in their sprees (though Savage's never participated in his crimes), were frequently bullied at school, killed their girlfriend's fathers and others present, and killed most of their victims by stabbing or shooting them with a rifle. What's also interesting to note is that Savage had a photo of James Dean's crashed car on his wall, though he doesn't have any posters of Dean himself.
- Season Six
- Raymond Donovan and Sydney Manning ("The Thirteenth Step") - All were robbing and spree killing teams (though Starkweather was the only robber on their team) formed by two lovers, killed most of their victims by shooting with shotguns and handguns, and both groups lost at least one member. What's interesting to note that Donavan and Manning's killings occurred mostly in North Dakota and Montana, which is not far from Nebraska, where Starkweather and Fugate committed most of their killings. It's also interesting to note is that the episode was inspired by the notoriously violent Oliver Stone film Natural Born Killers, which in turn was inspired by Starkweather and Fugate.
On Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders[]
- Season One
- Natalie Knox and Nick Jamison ("The Ballad of Nick & Nat") - Both were spree killer couples who did poorly in high school (which was where they met), and killed most of (all in Jamison and Knox's case) by shooting them with at least one handgun.
Sources[]
- Wikipedia:
- TruTV Crime Library articles about Starkweather and Fugate
- Find a Grave:
- Evil Beyond Belief (2008)
- 101 Crimes of the Century (2008)