Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate

Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate

Charles Starkweather was a spree killer who went through Nebraska and Wyoming for a two-month period and ended up murdering 11 people with the help of his girlfriend Caril Fugate. He was was born in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1938 to a working-class, mild-mannered family. Though his family life was enjoyable, Starkweather had a difficult time in school. As someone with a speech impediment, Genu varum, which is a disease that caused his legs to be misshapen, poor vision, and slow learning abilities, Starkweather was subjected to constant teasing. It was in gym class that he excelled and discovered his own skill for revenge. It wasn’t long before revenge escalated to him becoming a bully himself. This didn’t prevent him from developing an inferiority complex. He believed he was unable to do anything correctly and was destined to fail.

Starkweather met Caril Fugate in 1956 at the age of eighteen. She was only thirteen, but the two were instantly drawn to each other. He dropped out of Lincoln High School and sought a warehouse job near Fugate’s school. While Starkweather was teaching her to drive, she crashed the vehicle he drove, but it was owned by his father. An argument between Starkweather and his father followed and he was kicked out of the home. Soon after, he quit his job at the warehouse and became a garbage collector.

The first murder committed by Starkweather was not apart of his spree, but more a chance to hone in his skill for killing. On November 30, 1957, Starkweather entered a service station in Lincoln and robbed a cashier at gunpoint before forcing the man into the backseat of his car. At this point, Starkweather drove to a secluded location and forced the cashier out of the car. A brief struggle ensued and the cashier was shot in the knees, then Starkweather finished him off with a shot to the head. In his excited state, he told Fugate about the robbery, but not the murder. He claimed someone else must be responsible. Fugate did not believe him, but kept quiet.

It was on January 21, 1958 that Starkweather and Fugate began to leave behind their trail of murders. Starkweather visited Fugate’s home in Lincoln, despite her claiming to have dumped him 2 days prior. Regardless, Fugate was not home. It was clear her parents weren’t fans of Starkweather, so when he showed up, an argument began over Caril Fugate. They wanted him to stop seeing their daughter, but he wasn’t fond of the idea. He used his shotgun to fatally shoot both Fugate’s mother and father before he strangled and stabbed their two-year old-daughter. This is when the story gets a bit more complicated. Starkweather claims that when Caril Fugate returned home, she was a willing accomplice to helping him hide the bodies, but she claims that Starkweather told her that her family was being held captive and he would kill them if she did not comply. Either way, the three bodies were stored around the property and the pair remained in the house for 6 more days. Fugate answered the door when people showed up and claimed that the family was sick with the flu. When her grandmother threatened to call the police, the two fled and by the time the Lincoln Police Department showed up, they were gone.

Starkweather and Fugate drove to Bennet, Nebraska and arrived at the home of Starkweather’s family friend, August Meyer. The unsuspecting, seventy-year-old man opened his home to them, but he was fatally shot by Starkweather. While fleeing the scene, the car became stuck in the mud. Two local teenagers, Robert Jensen and Carol King, spotted them and offered them a ride, but Starkweather forced them to drive back towards Bennet, then took them to an abandoned storm shelter. Starkweather claims that he shot Jensen and Fugate shot King, but Fugate claims that Starkweather both raped King and then proceeded to shoot both of them. The pair took Jensen’s car and drove into a wealthy part of Lincoln searching for a place to hide. They entered the home of a prominent local industrialist C. Lauer and his wife Clara Ward along with their maid, Lillian Fencl. Starkweather admits to having thrown a knife at Ward, but stated that it was Fugate who both fatally stabbed the two and inflicted the stab wounds found across their bodies. Later that evening, Lauer arrived home and Starkweather shot him. The two filled up Lauer’s vehicle with stolen jewelry and left Nebraska. Lancaster County was thrown into an uproar as the current governor alerted Nebraska National Guard and the Lincoln Police Department’s chief of police called for a block-by-block search of the city for the pair.

Starkweather planned to drive to Washington state, but near Douglas, Wyoming, he ditched Lauer’s vehicle. He spotted a middle-aged shoe salesmans, Merle Collison sleeping in his car along the highway. This is another event in which Starkweather and Fugate have mixed perspectives. Starkweather claims that he woke Collison up, shot him, but when the shotgun jammed, Fugate finished him off. According to Starkweather, Fugate was the “most trigger happy person” he had ever met. Fugate stated that Starkweather approached the car, tapped on the window, ordered Collinson out of his car, but the man refused, so Starkweather fired several shots. Whatever is true, the pair ended in Collinson’s car, but it had a push-pedal emergency brake. Joe Sprinkle of Casper, Wyoming spotted the two cars pulled off to try and help. Starkweather asked for his help with the emergency brake, but Sprinkle spotted Collinson’s body stuffed under the dashboard.

A tall man, Sprinkle had an advantage over Starkweather, so he attempted to wrestle the shotgun away. He managed and at about the same time he won, a deputy sheriff, William Romer, drove up. Fugate bolted from the car towards the deputy yelling something along the lines of, “It’s Starkweather! He’s crazy! He’s just killed a man and he’s going to kill me!” Starkweather drove back in the direction of Douglas, Wyoming while Romer stayed behind with Fugate and radioed for help. The Douglas Police Chief, Bob Ainslie, and County Sheriff, Earl Heflin, set up a roadblock near Douglas as soon as they received the radio alert. Starkweather sped through it, so Ainslie gave chase as Heflin fired out of the window. Heflin shattered a back window and Starkweather came to an immediate halt before he surrendered. Heflin believed that Starkweather stopped because he was afraid he was bleeding to death from the broken glass nicking his ear and right hand.

The next day, January 31, 1958, Starkweather was returned to Nebraska, but his trial didn’t begin until May. Initially, he claimed that Fugate had been kidnapped and was not acting on her own accord, but rather his. His story changed several times until he testified against her at how trial and claimed that Fugate had been a willing participant. Starkweather was only tried for the murder for Robert Jensen and was found guilty and sentenced the death penalty on May 23. On the other hand, Fugate’s trial and conviction were much more complicated. She became so agitated in the Douglas jail that Heflin had to have her sedated. The next morning, she begged for her parents and wondered why she wasn’t being allowed to call them. Heflin told reporters that he truly believed she was unaware of her parents death. Upon confirming their deaths, Fugate broke down. Fugate always claimed that she had been captured and that Starkweather had been threatening to kill her family had she not participated in his killing spree, but when Romer testified that she had admitting to seeing her family dead. Heflin also claimed that Fugate had clippings in her pocket about her family’s deaths. Judge Harry A. Spencer did not believe her story, so she received a life sentence on November 21, 1958. After spending about 18 years in the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women in York, Nebraska, she was paroled in June of 1976. Fugate then moved to Lansing, Michigan, where she never married and refused interview.

Bibliography

Blanco, Juan Ignacio. "Charles Starkweather | Murderpedia, the Encyclopedia of Murderers." Charles Starkweather | Murderpedia, the Encyclopedia of Murderers. CrimeLibrary.com, Web. 13 Nov. 2016.

"The Killing Spree That Transfixed a Nation: Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate, 1958." WyoHistory.org. The Wyoming State Historical Society, 11 Nov. 2016. Web. 13 Nov. 2016.