Charles Starkweather
Charles Raymond Starkweather (November 24, 1938 – June 25, 1959)[2] was an American spree killer who murdered eleven people in Nebraska and Wyoming between November 1957 and January 1958, when he was nineteen years old.[3] He killed ten of his victims between January 21 and January 29, 1958, the date of his arrest. During his spree in 1958, Starkweather was accompanied by his fourteen-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate.[4]
Charles Starkweather
June 25, 1959 (aged 20)
Caril Ann Fugate (1956–1957; his death)
60 days
December 1, 1957 – January 29, 1958
United States
Nebraska, Wyoming
-
- Lincoln and Bennet, Nebraska
- Douglas, Wyoming
11[1]
0
January 29, 1958
Both Starkweather and Fugate were convicted on charges for their parts in the homicides; Starkweather was sentenced to death and executed seventeen months after the events. Fugate served seventeen years in prison, gaining release in 1976.[5] Starkweather's execution by electric chair in 1959 was the last execution in Nebraska until 1994, when Harold Lamont Otey was executed for murder.[6]
The Starkweather case has been analyzed by criminologists and psychologists in an attempt to understand spree killers' motivations and precipitating factors.[7][8][9] It also became notorious as one of the earlier crime scandals that reached national prominence, much like the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh's son with the media outlets covering the case at the time openly condemning Starkweather.[10][11]
First murder[edit]
Late on November 30, 1957, Starkweather became angry at Robert Colvert, a service station attendant in Lincoln, for refusing to sell him a stuffed animal on credit. He returned several times during the night to purchase small items, until finally, brandishing a shotgun, he forced Colvert to give him $100 from the till. He drove Colvert to a remote area, where they struggled over the gun, injuring Colvert before Starkweather killed him with several shots to the head.[15]
1958 murder spree[edit]
On January 21, 1958, Starkweather went to Fugate's home.[2] Fugate's mother and stepfather, Velda and Marion Bartlett, told him to stay away. He fatally shot them, then clubbed to death their two-year-old daughter Betty Jean.[15] He hid the bodies in an outhouse and chicken coop behind the house.[25]
Starkweather later said that Caril was there the entire time, but she said that when she arrived home, Starkweather met her with a gun and said that her family was being held hostage. She said Starkweather told her that if she cooperated with him, her family would be safe; otherwise, they would be killed. A note reading "Everybody is sick with the flu" was placed in the family home's window.[26] The pair remained in the house until shortly before the police, alerted by Fugate's suspicious grandmother, arrived on January 27.[15] When the police broke in, they found no one there and the house in apparent order. A few days later, Charles's brother Rodney and his friend Bob Von Busch searched the house and premises, finding the stashed bodies. The police issued an alert to pick up both Starkweather and Fugate.[27]
Starkweather and Fugate drove to the farmhouse of seventy-year-old August Meyer, one of his family's friends who lived in Bennet, Nebraska. Starkweather killed him with a shotgun blast to the head.[15] He also killed Meyer's dog.[28]
Fleeing the area, the pair drove their car into mud and abandoned the vehicle. When Robert Jensen and Carol King, two local teenagers, stopped to give them a ride, Starkweather forced them to drive back to an abandoned storm cellar in Bennet. He shot Jensen in the back of the head. He attempted to rape King, but was unable to do so.[29] He became angry with her and fatally shot her as well. Starkweather later admitted shooting Jensen, but claimed that Fugate shot King. Fugate said she had stayed in the car the entire time. The two fled Bennet in Jensen's car.[21]
Starkweather and Fugate drove to a wealthy section of Lincoln, where they entered the home of industrialist Chester Lauer Ward and his wife Clara.[15] Starkweather stabbed their maid Ludmila "Lilyan" Fencl to death, then waited for Lauer and Clara to return home. Starkweather killed the family dog by breaking its neck, to keep it from alerting the Wards. Clara arrived first alone, and was also stabbed to death. Starkweather later admitted to having thrown a knife at Clara, but insisted that Fugate had stabbed her numerous times, killing her. When Lauer Ward returned home that evening, Starkweather shot and killed him. While the Starkweather and Fugate were in the house, the Wards' newspapers arrived, and they cut out the front-page pictures of themselves and Fugate's dead family. These pictures were found on them later, casting doubt on Caril's claim that she didn't know her family was dead.[30] Starkweather and Fugate filled Ward's black 1956 Packard with stolen jewelry from the house and fled Nebraska.[23]
The murders of the Wards and Fencl caused an uproar within Lancaster County.[15] The flames of public fear were fanned by the era's ongoing panic about "juvenile delinquency."[31] Law enforcement agencies in the region sent their officers on a house-to-house search for the perpetrators. Governor Victor Emanuel Anderson contacted the Nebraska National Guard, and the Lincoln chief of police called for a block-by-block search of that city. After several sightings of Starkweather and Fugate were reported, the Lincoln Police Department was accused of incompetence for being unable to capture the pair.[7] Vigilante gangs were formed, and local sheriff Merle Karnopp started forming a posse by arming men he found in bars.[32]
Needing a new car because of Ward's Packard having been identified, the couple came upon traveling salesman Merle Collison sleeping in his Buick along the highway outside Douglas, Wyoming. After Collison was awakened, he was fatally shot. Starkweather later accused Fugate of performing a coup-de-grace after his shotgun jammed. Starkweather claimed Fugate was the "most trigger-happy person" he had ever met. Fugate denied ever having killed anyone.[3]
The salesman's car had a parking brake, which was something new to Starkweather. While he attempted to drive away, the car stalled because the brake had not been released. He tried to restart the engine, and a passing motorist, geologist Joe Sprinkle, stopped to help. Starkweather threatened him with the rifle, and an altercation ensued. At that moment, Natrona County Sheriff's Deputy William Romer arrived on the scene. Fugate ran to him, yelling something to the effect of: "It's Starkweather! He's going to kill me!"[21]
Starkweather drove off and was involved in a car chase with three officers--Romer, Douglas Police Chief Robert Ainslie, and Converse County Sheriff Earl Heflin--exceeding speeds of 100 miles per hour (160 km/h). A bullet fired by Heflin shattered the windshield and flying glass cut Starkweather deep enough to cause bleeding. He stopped, surrendered, and was captured near Douglas on January 29, 1958.[33] Heflin said, "He thought he was bleeding to death. That's why he stopped. That's the kind of yellow son of a bitch he is."[34]