Charles Starkweather
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| Charles Starkweather | |
|---|---|
| Born: | November 24, 1938 Lincoln, Nebraska, USA |
| Died: | June 25, 1959 (aged 20) |
| Cause of death: | Electric chair |
| Penalty: | Death |
| Killings | |
| Number of victims: | 11 |
| Span of killings: | December 1, 1957–January 29, 1958 |
| Country: | United States |
| State(s): | Nebraska and Wyoming |
Charles Raymond Starkweather (November 24, 1938 – June 25, 1959) was an American spree killer who murdered 11 people in Nebraska and Wyoming during a road trip with his pubescent girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate. He became a national fascination in the United States, eventually inspiring the films The Sadist, Badlands, Starkweather, Murder in the Heartland, The Frighteners and Natural Born Killers. He also inspired the Bruce Springsteen song "Nebraska", which Springsteen originally considered calling "Starkweather". Liza Ward, the granddaughter of victims C. Lauer and Clara Ward, wrote a novel, Outside Valentine, based on the events of Starkweather's killing spree.
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[edit] Early life
Starkweather was born in Lincoln, Nebraska to Guy and Helen Starkweather. He was the third of seven children, and claimed not to recall any horrid memories of his home life. The Lincoln community considered the Starkweathers to be a strong family with well-behaved children. Guy Starkweather was by all accounts a mild-mannered man; he was a carpenter who was often unemployed due to rheumatoid arthritis in his hands. During these periods, Starkweather's mother Helen supplemented the family income by working as a waitress.
In contrast to his pleasant memories of his family life, Starkweather possessed no kind remembrances of his time during schooling. Starkweather was born with Genu varum, a mild birth defect that caused his legs to be misshapen. He also suffered from a speech impediment, which caused constant teasing by classmates. He was considered a slow learner and was accused of never applying himself, although in his teens it was discovered that he suffered from severe myopia which had drastically affected his vision for most of his life.
The sole aspect of school in which Starkweather excelled was gym, wherein he found a physical outlet for his growing anger against bullies. Starkweather used his newfound physicality to begin bullying those who had bullied him, and soon his anger stretched beyond those who had been cruel to him to anyone whom he happened to dislike. Starkweather soon went from being considered one of the most well-behaved children in the community to one of the most troubled. His high school friend Bob Von Busch would later recall:
| “ | 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 mean as hell, cruel. If he saw some poor guy on the street who was bigger than he was, better looking, or better dressed, he'd try to take the poor bastard down to his size. | ” |
Along with Von Busch, Starkweather developed an obsession with James Dean, and began to groom and dress himself to look like Dean. Starkweather empathized with Dean's rebellious screen persona, believing that he had found a kindred spirit of sorts, someone who had suffered ostracism similar to his own, whom he could admire. Starkweather developed a severe inferiority complex and became self-loathing and devoid of morals, believing that he was unable to do anything correctly, and that his own inherent failures would doom him to a life of poverty and misery.
[edit] Caril Ann Fugate
In 1956, 18-year-old Charles Starkweather was introduced to 13-year-old Caril Ann Fugate. Starkweather dropped out of school shortly after he met Fugate, and became employed at a warehouse near her school so he could see her every day. Starkweather was considered a poor worker. His boss later recalled, "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."
Starkweather taught Fugate to drive, and one day she used his hotrod and crashed it into another car. Starkweather's father, as the legal owner of the vehicle, was forced to pay the damages. This caused a physical argument between Starkweather and his father. Guy Starkweather, having finally reached his breaking point with his son's behavior, kicked him out of the house.
Charles quit his job and went to work as a garbage collector for minimum wage. One of the homes on his route was the residence of future talk show host Dick Cavett, and Starkweather had a passing acquaintance with Cavett's father. Starkweather slipped back into his amoral views on society and life, believing that his current situation was the final determining factor in how he would live the rest of his life. He used the garbage route to begin plotting bank robberies, and finally found his own personal philosophy by which to live out the remainder of his life: "Dead people are all on the same level."
[edit] First murder
On November 30, 1957, Starkweather went to a Lincoln gas station where he tried to buy a stuffed toy dog for Fugate on credit. The attendant, Robert Colvert, refused, and Starkweather left, furious. At three in the morning on December 1, 1957, Charles returned to the station with a 12 gauge shotgun. Initially, he left the gun in the car, went into the station, and bought cigarettes from Colvert, who was working alone. Starkweather left, drove down the road, turned around, and returned to the station, again leaving the gun in the car. This time he purchased a pack of gum, then once again left and drove away. He parked a distance away from the gas station, put on a bandanna and hat, then walked to the station with the shotgun and a canvas bag. He held Colvert at gun point and got $100 from the cash drawer before forcing Colvert to march back to his car. Starkweather drove Colvert to an abandoned area and made him get out of the car, at which point Colvert attacked Starkweather and attempted to get hold of the shotgun. The shotgun fired in the scuffle, knocking Colvert to his knees; Starkweather then killed the stunned Colvert with a shotgun blast to the head.
Starkweather would later claim that in the aftermath of the murder he believed that he had transcended his former self to reach a new plane of existence in which he was above and outside the law. He confessed the robbery to Fugate immediately, claiming someone else had killed Colvert, which Fugate did not believe.
[edit] 1958 murder spree
On January 21, 1958, Starkweather went to visit Fugate at her dilapidated house. Not finding her at home, he argued with and shot Fugate's mother and stepfather, Velda and Marion Bartlett. After Fugate arrived at home, he fatally clubbed, strangled, and stabbed her two-year-old sister, Betty Jean. He hid the bodies at various places behind the house. The two stayed in the house for six more days, turning people away with a note taped to the door, written by Fugate, that read: "Stay a Way Every Body is sick with the Flue. [sic]" Fugate's grandmother became suspicious and called the police. When they arrived on January 27, Starkweather and Fugate had already gone.
Starkweather and Fugate drove to the Bennet, Nebraska farm home of August Meyer, 70, a Starkweather family friend, whom Starkweather shot in the head. Shortly thereafter, Starkweather and Fugate got stuck in the mud and abandoned their car. 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, where both were shot and killed. Starkweather admitted shooting Jensen but later claimed Fugate shot King. Starkweather and Fugate took Jensen's car.
The two drove back to Lincoln to the wealthier section of town, where they entered the home of C. Lauer and Clara Ward, a wealthy local industrialist and his wife. Both Clara Ward and Lillian Fencl, the Wards' maid, were fatally stabbed. Starkweather would later admit throwing a knife at Ward, but he denied inflicting the multiple stab wounds that were found in her body. He also denied he fatally stabbed Fencl, whose body also had multiple stab wounds. When Ward's husband came home that evening, Starkweather shot him. Starkweather and Fugate filled Lauer's black Packard with loot from the house and drove it into Wyoming.
It was at this point that the state of Nebraska went into a frenzied uproar with all law enforcement agencies in the region thrown into a house-by-house search for the killers. The governor of Nebraska called out the National Guard and the Lincoln chief of police called for a block-by-block search of the city. Specious sightings of the two fugitives poured in with concomitant charges of incompetence lodged in against the authorities for their inability to capture the pair.
Needing a new car due to the high profile of Lauer's Packard, they found traveling salesman Merle Collison sleeping in his Buick along the highway near Douglas, Wyoming. Waking Collison up, Fugate shot him, although Starkweather later claimed Fugate finished Collison off after his gun jammed. Starkweather claimed Fugate was the "most trigger happy person" he had ever seen. The salesman's car had a push-pedal emergency brake, which was something new to Starkweather. While trying to drive away, the car stalled. He tried to start the car and a passing motorist stopped to help. Starkweather threatened him with the rifle and a scuffle ensued. A deputy sheriff happened upon the scene at this moment. Fugate ran to him, yelling something to the effect of, "It's Starkweather! He's going to kill me!" Starkweather tried to evade the police, exceeding speeds of 100 miles per hour. A bullet shattered the windshield and flying glass cut Starkweather. Starkweather stopped abruptly. Sheriff Earl Heflin said, "He thought he was bleeding to death. That's why he stopped. That's the kind of yellow sonofabitch he is." Both Starkweather and Fugate were jailed in Douglas.
[edit] Trial and execution
Starkweather first claimed Fugate had nothing to do with the murders, but changed his story several times, finally testifying at her trial that she was a willing participant. Fugate has always maintained he was holding her hostage by threatening to kill her family (she maintained she did not know they were already dead). Charles Starkweather was executed in the electric chair at the Nebraska State Penitentiary on June 25, 1959. Fugate was sentenced to life in prison but was paroled in 1976. Starkweather is buried in Wyuka Cemetery in Lincoln, Nebraska, along with five of his victims: the Bartlett family and the Ward couple.
[edit] Cultural influence
Stephen King was strongly influenced by reading about the Starkweather murders when he was a youth, keeping a scrapbook about them[1] and later incorporating many variations on Starkweather in his work. For example, Starkweather is said to have been a schoolmate of Randall Flagg in The Stand. King said in later interviews that the character The Kid, who appears in the complete and uncut edition of The Stand, is meant to be a reincarnated Charles Starkweather.
The Starkweather-Fugate case inspired, among others, the films Badlands (1973, starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek) and Natural Born Killers (1994, starring Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis). The made-for-TV movie Murder in the Heartland (1993) is a biographical depiction of Starkweather with Tim Roth in the starring role, while in 1983 Stark Raving Mad, a film starring Russell Fast and Marcie Severson, provides a fictionalised account of the Starkweather-Fugate killings.
[edit] Victims
- Robert Colvert (21), gas station attendant
- Marion Bartlett, Caril Ann's stepfather
- Velda Bartlett, Caril Ann's mother
- Betty Jean Bartlett (2), Marion and Velda's daughter
- August Meyer (70), Starkweather's family friend
- Robert Jensen (17), Carol's boyfriend
- Carol King (16), Robert's girlfriend
- C. Lauer Ward (47), wealthy industrialist
- Clara Ward, C. Lauer Ward's wife
- Lillian Fencl (51), Clara Ward's maid
- Merle Collison, traveling salesman
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ The Stephen King interview, uncut and unpublished. guardian.co.uk
*Allen, William. "Starkweather: Inside the Mind of a Teenage Killer". 2004, Emmis Books, 240 pages. ISBN 9781578601516.
- Del Harding, reporter for the Lincoln, Nebr., Star, who covered the murders, the Starkweather and Fugate trials, and Starkweather's execution.
- Newton, Michael. Waste Land: The Savage Odyssey of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate. 1988, Pocket, 384 pages. ISBN 0671001981.
- O'Donnell, Jeff. "Starkweather: A Story of Mass Murder on the Great Plains". 1993, J&L Lee Co. ISBN 9780934904315.
- Murder in the Heartland at the Internet Movie Database
- Encyclopedia of American Crime
[edit] External links
- Bardsley, Marilyn. Charles Starkweather & Caril Fugate. Crime Library. Retrieved on 2007-11-17.
- Charles Starkweather at Find a Grave
