In 1958, nineteen year old Charles Starkweather would take the country on a wild ride that would become one of the most infamous mass murder sprees in recent history. Charlie and his thirteen year old companion Caril Fugate embarked on a trail that horrified the country. The year of 1958 would see the fate of eleven unlucky people come to an end, as America watched in disbelief. This would later be known as “The Starkweather Homicide. ” Charles Raymond Starkwether was born in Lincoln, Nebraska on November 24, 1938 to Guy and Helen Starkwether. Starkwether was the third of seven children.
He attended Saratoga Elementary School, Irving Middle School, and Lincoln High School. Starkweather was born with genu varum, a deformity in which one or both legs are bent outward at the knee. He also suffered from a speech impediment, which caused him to be teased by his classmates and in his teens it was discovered that he suffered from severe myopia that had drastically affected his vision for most of his life. He was considered a slow learner and was accused of never applying himself. Starkwether’s best subject in school was gym. It was gym class where he’s anger started against those who bullied him.
After that Starkweather begin bullying those who had once bullied him, and soon his anger went beyond those who had bullied him to anyone who he did not like. Starkweather soon went from being considered one of the best-behaved teenagers in the community to one of the most troubled. Here is a statement from Stakwethers high school friend Bob von Busch: “He could be the kindest person you’ve ever seen. He’d do anything for you if he liked you. He was a hell of a lot of fun to be around, too. Everything was just one big joke to him, but he had this other side.
He could be as mean as hell, cruel. If he saw some poor guy on the street that was bigger than he was, better looking, or better dressed, he’d try to take the poor basterd down to his size”. In 1956, when Charles Starkweather was eighteen, he was introduced to thirteen-year-old Caril Ann Fugate. Starkweather dropped out of Lincoln High School in his senior year and got a job at a Western Union newspaper warehouse. The warehouse was located near Whittier Junior High School in Lincoln, where Caril was a student. His job allowed him to visit her every day after school.
Starkweather was considered a poor worker, and his boss later said, “Sometimes you’d have to tell him something two or three times. Of all the employees in the warehouse, he was the dumbest man we had. ” In 1957 Caril crashed Starkweathers 1949 Ford into another car. Starkweather’s father paid the damages because he was the legal owner of the vehicle, which caused problems between Starkweather and his father. His father refused to tolerate his behavior, so he kicked him out of the house. Starkweather quit his job at the warehouse and got a job as a garbage collector for minimum wage.
This is when Starkweather began believing that life had no meaning and everyone was against him. He believed that his current situation was how he would live the rest of his life and convinced himself that “dead people are all on the same level” which he believed the remainder of his life. His first murder took place on November 30, 1957. He had tried to buy a stuffed toy for his girlfriend from a gas station, but had been refused credit. He returned at three in the morning with a 12-gage shotgun, robbed $100 from the cash register and, after an argument, he shot the attendant in the head at point blank range.
After the killing he felt invincible, that he had risen above the laws of man and could do as he pleased. Two months later following an argument with Caril’s mother and stepfather at their house, he shot them and stabbed Caril’s two-year-old sister. Afterwards Starkwether and Caril prepared sandwiches and had lunch. Starkweather hid the bodies outside and they lived in the house for days. Twice relatives came by to find out why nobody from the family had been seen. Caril sent them away at the door, telling them everyone was sick. Detectives investigated Caril’s grandmother.
She said that they found a note on the front door saying: “Stay away. Everybody is sick with the flu. Miss Bartlett. ” When cops went looking they found the bodies, Caril’s stepfather Marion was found wrapped in paper in the chicken house. Caril’s mother, Velda, and baby sister Betty Jean were found in an outbuilding. Starkweather and Caril were already long gone driving across Nebraska killing and stealing. Starkwether and Caril drove to a Highway 77 service station to buy gas, a box of . 410 shotgun shells and two boxes of . 225 before heading to Bennet ,16 miles SE of Lincoln.
Starkweather knew where they could hideout, in a nice neat farmhouse owned by August Meyer, an old family friend who invited the Starkweather family to hunt on his property. In the early night, on the way to Meyers, their car got stuck in the mud. Junior Class President, Robert Jensen and his date Carol King from Bennet High School, drove by to offer help. Starkweather shot them in the head with a . 22 rifle, and made an unsuccessful attempt to rape the girl, before stuffing their bodies in an abandoned storm cellar. They drove to Meyer’s house to get more guns and ammunition.
Starkweather killed Meyer with a . 410-gauge shotgun, and then shoved his body in a washhouse before heading back to Lincoln. As a garbage collector, Starkweather knew his way around Lincoln’s southeast side. When he got into Lincoln he decided to go to the house of Clara Lauer Ward, who was president of the Capital Steel Company. He forced his way inside the house. He pushed Clara Ward and their housekeeper Lillian Fend to the second floor; he tied them to a bed, gagged, and stabbed them. At about 5:30 pm, Lauer Ward, returned from a conference with Nebraska’s Governor, Starkweather was waiting in the hall.
Lauer Ward was shot in the head and neck, and then stabbed in the back. Starkweather and Caril took his 1956 black Packard, and headed west out of Lincoln on Highway 2 to Wyoming. By this time Lincoln was gripped with terror. When Sheriff, Merle Karnopp, called for help, 100 men were deputized and armed with deer rifles, shotguns, and pistols. The National Guard were called into protect the National Bank of Commerce. Over 1,200 law enforcement officers and National Guardsmen were searching for Starkwether and Caril. Starkwether and Caril were already 500 miles away right outside of Douglas, Wyoming.
Merle Collison, a traveling shoe Salesman from Montana, pulled his new Buick off Highway 87 to sleep. Caril quietly climbed into the back seat while Starkweather opened the driver’s door, and shot Merle Collison in the head nine times. Joe Sprinkle, a geologist, thought someone needed help so he stopped to help. Starkwether shoved a rifle into his head, but he wrestled away the rifle just as Deputy Sheriff William Romer arrived. Sprinkle ran to the deputy yelling, “Its Starkweather, he’s going to kill me. ” Caril, who was still in the car, ran to the deputy screaming, they arrested her right away.
Starkweather hopped into Sprinkle’s Packard, and sped off, racing through a roadblock, at over a 100 m. p. h. until a police rifle bullet shattered his windshield and caught him. Starkwether and Caril were locked up in a Douglas, Wyoming, a four-cell jail. Neither of them looked like they regretted it after being arrested. Starkweather smiled for the media while he admitted to the killings. At first Starkweather said he held Caril captive, but when she turned against him, Starkweather admitted that Caril shared the guilt. Starkweather waived his right to a preliminary hearing on March 1, 1958, in Lancaster County Court. T. Clement Gaughan and William Matschullat were appointed to defend Starkweather. At his arraignment on March 26, 1958, he pleaded not guilty. His trial began May 5, 1958, in Lancaster District Court. On May 23rd, a jury found him guilty. On October 27, 1958, the Caril Fugate trial began. On November 21st, after ten hours of deliberation the five women and seven men jury gave her a sentence of life in prison. Starkweather was executed by electrocution in the Nebraska State Prison on June 25, 1959, giving him the distinction of being the last person to be electrocuted in Nebraska. He is buried in Wyuka Cemetery in Lincoln, Nebraska.
