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The Murder Spree of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate
In recent years Hollywood has glamorized and romanticized Charles Starkweather and his rampage that took 11 lives at the end of 1957 and beginning of 1958, with cinematic depictions in Badlands, Natural Born Killers and Kalifornia. Rather than being some kind of hero, as the fictional film portrayals suggest, Starkweather was nothing but a cold and cruel murderer.
He was born into a working class family in Nebraska, the third of seven children. He had been born with a slight birth defect that caused his legs to be misshapen and, as a schoolchild, suffered with a speech impediment. Being teased and bullied by other children, both due to his legs and his speech impediment, caused him to harbor a tremendous amount of rage which he eventually began to unleash on those he didn’t like. Coming from a working class family, along with his diminutive size, led to an intense envy and hatred for those who had what he wanted and felt was his due.
Charlie dropped out of school during his senior year of high school and gained employment at a warehouse near Whittier Junior High School, where his new girlfriend went to school. Caril Ann Fugate was thirteen; a petite and pretty girl, her older sister had been the girlfriend of one of Charlie’s friends. Caril Ann inadvertently led to Starkweather’s being banished from his family home after she crashed his vehicle into another…