In January 1958, in the town of Lincoln, Nebraska, a bowlegged 19-year-old garbageman, Charles Starkweather, brutally murdered the mother, stepfather and two-year-old half-sister of his 14-year-old girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate. According to the legend that grew up around the story, the young couple stayed in the murder house for six days drinking soda pop and watching TV before embarking on a violent killing spree that took seven more lives over the next 48 hours.
At a time when mass murders weren’t everyday occurrences, the young couple became infamous for their wanton disregard for life. The couple’s story would be retold and fictionalized in Terrence Malick’s brilliant 1973 movie Badlands, and Bruce Springsteen’s brilliantly bleak 1982 album (and even bleaker title track) Nebraska.
True crime author Harry N. MacLean, 80, has lived with the fallout from the trauma for most of his life, but he no longer believes in the legend.
The Lincoln native was 15 when the duo laid waste to his community (a gas station attendant killed weeks earlier in town was later determined to be the 11th victim). MacLean was familiar with some of the victims – his brother even had shop class with Starkweather – but it’s only in the last few years he was able to dig into the case on his own.
His new book, “Starkweather: The Untold Story of the Killing Spree That Changed America” (Counterpoint), is a revelatory work of investigation in which he details step-by-step how the 14-year-old Fugate got railroaded because authorities figured she had to be guilty of something. MacLean concludes she didn’t actively participate in any of the murders, wasn’t home when her own family was killed, and – still believing them to be alive – went along with the demands of her older manipulative sociopathic “boyfriend” in part to keep them safe.
In short: Caril Ann Fugate wasn’t an accomplice; she was the hostage of an angry man with a death wish who wanted to drag everyone to hell with him.
From his home in Colorado, MacLean explained how his two-and-a-half year immersion in the Starkweather rampage led him to Fugate’s innocence, why there was so much bloodlust for her felony murder conviction at the time, the exemplary life she lives to this day, and coming to terms with Charlie getting exactly what he wanted, worldwide notoriety as he took his final breaths in the electric chair. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: Clearly, the Starkweather killing spree has weighed on you for decades. Was the book something you always thought you would write or did it take years to confront it?
It’s both things, actually. After I got my chops writing books about other horrific crimes, I knew Charlie Starkweather was sitting right there waiting for me in broad daylight. But I also knew it was going to be a difficult situation for me personally, walking back into the Lincoln past knowing how the town and state was completely devastated by the horror. I walked up to it a couple of times, got into the research, talked to Caril’s lawyer and still veered away from it. I felt that I didn’t have the perspective I needed.
Q: What changed?
[The former] Caril Fugate getting denied a pardon in February 2020. Originally, she was only convicted on one count of felony murder, for taking money from victim Bobby Jensen’s wallet – on Charlie’s order, by her accounts – a fact lost in all the myth and rumor over the years. I came across a 1988 interview with “A Current Affair,” and I thought, this woman is innocent or she’s the greatest actress in the world. I realized nobody had ever taken a hard jurisprudential look at the evidence against her. I started this book from a point of neutrality, because had I found substantial evidence of her guilt, that would have worked for the book as well, confirming the official Lincoln story I grew up with.
Q: Laying out Fugate’s innocence is what elevates “Starkweather” from just a rehash of the killings, you make the case that her “guilt” basically boiled down to she didn’t flee or kill Charlie when she had the chance.
From the day Caril was caught, opinion was solidified against her: “We cannot let her walk out of jail a free woman.” The press in Nebraska was relentless in tying her directly to the murders, which quickly spread as the national news televised reports and subsequent trials became sensations.
I looked into all the databases I could find. Caril didn’t have an idyllic upbringing, but it was normal by some standards of the day and she wasn’t a troublemaker prior to the spree. After her conviction, she was a model prisoner who helped younger inmates handle incarceration and worked outside jobs, even as a nanny to local kids.
Once released, Caril lived a perfectly normal quiet existence. The idea that this young girl became a bloodthirsty monster for a couple weeks, but was a decent citizen the rest of her life didn’t make any sense. Especially given what we know now about PTSD, what does make sense is that she wasn’t home when Charlie murdered her family and became terrified of what he would do to them if she didn’t meet his demands.
Q: The most infuriating part of your research is how so many people took Starkweather’s version of events at face value, even though his story changed all the time. How do you account for accepting his word over Caril’s consistent story of fear?
From the minute Charlie was caught, there was no question of guilt. Sure, he had murdered and mutilated a bunch of people, but he was a James Dean character who got what he wanted, infamy, and he ate it up all the way through his execution. All of the hatred landed on Caril, which is baffling to me. She was seen as “remorseless” for not confessing. If she didn’t pay, well, then people couldn’t get on with their lives, even though originally, Charlie said she had nothing to do with the killings.
Misogyny and class prejudice played a big role. Caril was a girl from the white trash side of the tracks who was having sex, which was just not normal for good Nebraska girls. I came from the country club part of Lincoln and I asked myself while writing “Starkweather” if a girl from my neighborhood would’ve been perceived differently. I heard terrible stories about the things Caril was doing back then that didn’t make it in the book, because there was no substance to them. Every inch of the way, from initial interviews without a lawyer through the defeated pardon attempt, the presumption of innocence was never granted to Caril.
Q: It’s wild that the murders inspired two pop culture masterworks, but after reading the full scope of the grisly details, I can’t help but wonder, regardless of artistic merits, did Malick and Springsteen overly romanticize Charlie Starkweather?
“Badlands” is interesting because of Malick’s protestations that it isn’t the story of Charlie and Caril, which isn’t true because he visited Fugate in prison with her lawyer. She got a $5,000 check and an autographed Paul Newman picture! Malick changed details, like setting it in South Dakota, but he was being obtuse when he denied its inspiration. It’s a great artistic film, but, of course, it romanticizes the story. You don’t see pure evil on-screen, you see beautiful young Martin Sheen. He and Sissy Spacek are presented more as “Bonnie and Clyde” types; “Badlands” is not a horror story.
Springsteen’s “Nebraska” was inspired by Malick, but what’s different is that it’s told first-person in Charlie’s voice. There is no moral condemnation of the murders, but it wouldn’t make sense in that context. And Charlie did want Caril sitting on his lap when he got the juice, it’s the dramatic ending he craved. Bruce said he wrote “Nebraska” at a very dark time in his own life. I find it eerily, grimly effective, but it also propelled the couple to the realm of tragic anti-heroes.
Q: The epilogue is your story as it relates to the killing spree, personal loss, and how Starkweather’s shadow has haunted Nebraska for 65 years. Why did you decide to save your narrative to close out “Starkweather”?
A real question from the beginning was whether I would weave my story throughout the book, but as a reader, I find that approach annoying. It wasn’t until the editing stage that I started writing the epilogue and it was the hardest part. I knew the epilogue had an importance all its own, but I had trouble finding the voice. My wife Julya rejected the first three drafts. Julya knew best because she knew the murders were always on my mind. We were at a mall in Florida and this guy walked by and I said to her, “See how he’s bowlegged? That’s just like Charlie!” She responded, “Can’t you give it a rest for half an hour?”
I’m not alone in having connections to the killings. I recently gave talks in Nebraska and a big chunk of the audience was in their 70s. What most said they remembered was the fear in the eyes of their teachers and parents. One person recalled watching his father standing by the front door, fumbling to get a shotgun shell in the chamber, shaking with anxiety. Once the Boomers, or at least their children, pass on, the Starkweather killings will probably fade into the history books. I’m glad I wrote “Starkweather” because I was able to tell Caril firsthand what I truly believe to be the actual facts of the case.
It’s not a pardon, but I hope it’s given her a sense of relief and redemption.
