Charles Starkweather
|
|
Charles Starkweather (November 24, 1938 - June 25, 1959) was a spree killer.
On December 1, 1957, he robbed a gas station, then abducted Robert Colvert, the attendant. He drove Colvert to a secluded spot and executed him with several head shots.
On January 28, 1958, he went to the house of his girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate (born in 1944). At her house, he argued with and shot Caril Ann's mother and stepfather, and strangled Caril Ann's two-year-old sister. Caril Ann got home just in time to witness all three murders.
Starkweather hid the bodies at various places outside the house. The two stayed in the house for two more days, turning people away under the pretense that everyone had the flu. Caril Ann's grandmother became suspicious and called the police.
When they arrived, Charles and Caril Ann had already left. In the week that followed, Starkweather shot or stabbed 7 people to death. Over 1,200 police officers and members of the National Guard searched for the couple, and they were finally arrested in Douglas, Wyoming. Starkweather first claimed he had held Caril Ann captive, but dropped the story when she called him a murderer. He was electrocuted in the Nebraska State Prison on June 25th, 1959. Caril Ann was sentenced to life in prison but was paroled in 1976.
Starkweather is the inspiration and subject of the song "Nebraska" by Bruce Springsteen (which was originally entitled "Starkweather"). The murders were fictionalized by Terrence Malick for his film Badlands (also the title of a song from Springsteen's "Darkness On The Edge Of Town" album). He is also mentioned in the 1989 Billy Joel hit, "We Didn't Start The Fire". The killing spree also served as part of the basis for the movies The Sadist and Natural Born Killers, was dramatized in the 1993 TV miniseries Murder in the Heartland, as well as the book Headline: Starkweather.
Starkweather is buried in Wyuka Cemetery in Lincoln, Nebraska.de:Charles Starkweather