1950s serial killers stole lives, innocence
Repo...@home.com
Denver
Post newspaper:
1950s serial killers stole lives, innocence
By Peter G. Chronis
Denver Post Staff Writer
June 21 - Pop history paints the 1950s as a prosperous era of
chrome-laden
autos and happy ever-afters in suburban tract homes.
This nostalgic image filters out less pleasant aspects of the decade,
such as a
bloody rampage in the heartland that heralded the twilight of American
innocence.
A Nebraska garbage hauler named Charles Starkweather, 19, and his
14-yearold
girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, scripted this horrible episode.
Starkweather was a red-haired misfit who spent hours before a mirror,
aping
James Dean's rebel sneer. But the leatherjacketed teen's war against
society
wasn't Hollywood make-believe: He left 11 bodies in his wake.
The media quickly dubbed him the "Red Dog Killer'' because of his hair
color
and propensity to kill like a mad dog. Dim-witted by most accounts,
Starkweather was just smart enough to be dangerous.
In January 1958, America was a far different place than today. Deranged
snipers
and disconnected teens hadn't yet begun spraying schools with gunfire.
Serial
killers did not roam from state to state. And madmen from the nether
strata of
politics had not begun blowing up federal buildings.
America in 1958 was different in another way: The death penalty was
carried out
swiftly. Killers didn't tarry on death row for nearly two decades
awaiting
their fate. Forty years ago this Friday, Starkweather was electrocuted
at the
Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln less than 17 months after the
rampage
ended.
Fugate escaped the death penalty and was paroled into anonymity in the
mid
1970s.
The suddenness and unpredictability with which the killer struck,
without
apparent reason and mercy, terrified much of the nation. The horror
still
lingers.
Starkweather and Fugate hit the road in a battered 1949 Ford with an
arsenal of
guns, ammunition and rage. Eight days later, on Jan. 29, 1958, the
killing
rampage ended with the couple's capture in Wyoming.
Starkweather - born Nov. 24, 1938, in Lincoln, Neb. - was a lifelong
outsider.
Schoolmates cruelly taunted him about his physical appearance and
stutter. He
got into many schoolyard fights.
Starkweather's parents, Guy and Helen Starkweather, were little help,
according
to Nebraska historian Jeff O'Donnell, who wrote the 1993 book
"Starkweather.''
"Two things were critical,'' O'Donnell said. "One was his backwardness
in
school. He couldn't see the board. ... His parents wouldn't give him
glasses.''
Another factor was "the way he looked, plus his stuttering.''
When Starkweather's sanity was questioned before trial, his parents
balked,
apparently preferring that he die a condemned murderer than be labeled
insane.
(Psychiatrists described him as severely disturbed and devoid of human
attachment, O'Donnell wrote.)
During trial, his mother revealed the family's dysfunctionality when she
testified that she had raised "six problems and one catastrophe.''
Starkweather claimed he killed in self-defense, starting with his first
slaying. When gas station attendant Robert Colvert grabbed the shotgun
barrel
after a robbery on Dec. 1, 1957, Starkweather saw it as an attack that
justified gunning down Colvert, O'Donnell said.
Starkweather worked at menial jobs and had assisted his brother, Rodney,
on a
trash truck.
Fugate's stepfather and mother lived in Lincoln's rundown Belmont
section.
Marion and Velda Bartlett disliked Starkweather. Fugate's mother accused
Starkweather of getting Caril pregnant, O'Donnell said.
After an argument Jan. 21, 1958, Starkweather shot and stabbed Marion
Bartlett
to death, shot Velda Bartlett, and bludgeoned Fugate's half-sister,
Betty Jean,
2 1/2, with a gun butt.
With the bodies hidden in a chicken coop and a privy, the two teens
spent
several days having sex and eating junk food, O'Donnell wrote.
Fugate shooed away relatives and others who came to the door - including
the
police - claiming everybody had the flu. Finally, on Jan. 27, 1958,
Fugate's
brother-in law, Bob Von Busch, and Rodney Starkweather found the bodies.
By then, Charles Starkweather and Fugate were on the road.
An all-points bulletin from the Lincoln Police Department described
Starkweather as 5-foot-5, 140 pounds, with red hair, wearing a black
leather
jacket and blue jeans, and with a reputation as a good shot.
Fugate was described as a girl "14 years old who looks like 18,''
5-foot-1, 105
pounds, and wearing black jeans and a blue parka.
As the manhunt fanned out, the fugitives were headed toward August
Meyer's
isolated farm near Bennet, Neb. Meyer, 70, had befriended Starkweather
and
allowed him to hunt on his land.
The '49 Ford got stuck on the muddy road to Meyer's farmhouse, so the
couple
walked the rest of the way. As Meyer, carrying a rifle, stepped onto the
porch,
Starkweather blasted him with a sawed-off shotgun.
Starkweather and Fugate took guns and about $100 cash from Meyer's house
and
then drove aimlessly, stopping once to buy ammunition.
That evening, the car again became stuck near Meyer's house. Robert
Jensen, 17,
of Bennet, and his girlfriend, Carol King, 16, saw the two teens walking
and
offered them a ride. Starkweather and Fugate repaid the kindness by
robbing
Jensen, executing the couple, and dumping their bodies in the cellar of
an old
school. King apparently was sexually assaulted.
The fugitives returned to Lincoln in Jensen's souped-up 1950 Ford,
brazenly
cruising past the police station before striking out for Washington,
where
another Starkweather brother lived. As they neared Hastings, Jensen's
car began
running rough, and Starkweather feared the car wouldn't make it to
Washington,
so they returned to Lincoln. Despite the manhunt, the fugitives slept
unmolested until daybreak in the stolen Ford, parked on the street,
according
to O'Donnell.
Starkweather then wheeled Jensen's car into the secluded driveway of the
C.
Lauer Ward home on the morning of Jan. 28, 1958.
When they left several hours later, Ward, a prominent businessman; his
wife,
Clara; and housekeeper Lillian Fencl were dead.
By now, the news media had reported the pair were the target of a
five-state
manhunt, so Starkweather crudely tried to dye his hair with brown liquid
shoe
polish. He and Fugate then fled in Ward's black 1956 four-door Packard.
"9 SLAIN, TEEN PAIR HUNTED'' trumpeted a banner headline in the Jan. 29,
1958,
Denver Post.
Panic gripped the country.
"It was an age of innocence that kind of died,'' said O'Donnell. "All
kinds of
people told me they had never locked their doors out on the farms. ...
The
rural people, especially, didn't know where he'd show up.''
The Nebraska National Guard, armed with machine guns, rifles and
shotguns,
patrolled the streets of Lincoln, O'Donnell recalled. Sporting goods and
hardware stores in the Nebraska capital quickly sold out of guns and
ammunition.
"The schools were letting the kids out early,'' O'Donnell said.
"Everybody was
scared. There were 'sightings' all over the place.''
As Starkweather drove into Wyoming on Jan. 29, 1958, he heard a radio
bulletin
that authorities were seeking the stolen Packard. He was in a frenzy to
steal
another car when he spotted a Buick at the side of Highway 20 near
Douglas.
Merle Collison, 37, of Great Falls, Mont., was sleeping in the car.
Starkweather woke him and demanded they swap cars. When the shoe
salesman
resisted, Starkweather shot him with a .22-caliber Winchester rifle.
But Starkweather couldn't figure out how to release the Buick's
emergency
brake.
About then, Joe Sprinkle, 29, a petroleum landman with Sinclair Oil &
Gas Co.
in Casper drove by and decided to stop.
"I came walking up,'' said Sprinkle - who now divides his time among
Denver,
Scottsdale, Ariz., and Santa Fe - in a recent interview. "Starkweather
was
leaning over into the car, and he had the rifle, and he said, 'Get your
hands
up, or I'll kill you!' - two or three times. And then he said, 'Get this
emergency brake off, or I'll kill you!' - two or three times.''
"It was just an emergency brake where you step on it with your foot and
release
it with a lever,'' Sprinkle said. "This was not that new a concept, but
he just
didn't know how to get the emergency brake off.''
Sprinkle leaned inside the Buick and saw Collison's slumped body.
"Blood was everywhere,'' Sprinkle said. "Starkweather was standing
pretty close
to me with the rifle.
"I made an instantaneous decision that I was going to have to do
something,''
Sprinkle said. So he grabbed the gun with both hands.
Sprinkle, then a muscular 6-footer, towered over Starkweather, who
finally
realized he wasn't going to get the gun away from him. "He started
hitting me
and kicking me,'' and Sprinkle ended up down in a ditch - with the gun.
Fugate had been in the back seat of the Buick, and as Sprinkle struggled
with
Starkweather, an 18-wheeler screeched to a halt, Sprinkle said.
Fugate bolted from the Buick and ran toward the rig, Sprinkle said, and
Starkweather jumped in to the black Packard and sped off.
From behind the semi-truck came a patrol car driven by Natrona County
sheriff's
Deputy Bill Romer. Fugate was in the back seat.
Sprinkle handed the gun over, told Romer about the fleeing black Packard
and
then told the deputy:
" 'My pants are torn, my coat's torn, and I'm a little bit dirty. I
don't have
a change of clothes because I was just going to Cheyenne overnight. I'm
going
back to Casper, and if anybody wants to talk to me about this, that's
where
I'll be.' ''
Later, in Casper, Sprinkle stopped by highway patrol headquarters. An
officer
showed him a newspaper story about Starkweather.
"This wasn't just any ordinary kid, and I started realizing that I had
been
real, real lucky. So I had me a bottle of Bourbon in the glove
compartment, and
I poured myself a couple of real big drinks.''
The fleeing Starkweather eventually was stopped by Douglas Police Chief
Robert
Ainslie and Converse County Sheriff Earl Heflin. They pursued
Starkweather at
speeds exceeding 100 mph, shooting out the rear window of the Packard
along the
way.
Nearly 50 reporters crowded the Douglas jail for a look at the "Red Dog
Killer.''
A Post article described a "caged boy'' who paced his cell in a
blood-stained
shirt, ran "grubby fingers through his thick thatch of hair'' and wolfed
down a
roast-beef sandwich. "He jammed the bread in his mouth and saved the
meat until
last. Then he ate the meat in two bites, licking his greasy, dirty
fingers.''
Wyoming Gov. Milward Simpson, an opponent of capital punishment, allowed
Starkweather to be extradited to Nebraska.
Bob Sawdon, 73, a retired Lincoln detective who helped search for
Starkweather,
knew the young man.
"When I was a street cop, I knew Starkweather as a little boy, and I had
befriended the little guy,'' Sawdon said. "He was a strange little
red-headed,
bowlegged guy with a speech impediment. The kids made fun of him.''
"I felt sorry for him, and he took a liking to me,'' Sawdon said. "He
said, 'I
want to be a cop like you, Sawdon.' ''
Starkweather always seemed fascinated by the shotgun Sawdon kept in his
police
cruiser. The boy would reach into the patrol car and try to touch it,
Sawdon
said.
Although Fugate, who now lives quietly in Michigan under a new name, has
a
collection of supporters who believe she's innocent, Sawdon isn't among
them.
"She's repeatedly denied being involved or interested in being with him
and
(said) she wanted to get away,'' Sawdon said. "Good Lord! She had dozens
of
opportunities to get away. She was getting a charge out of the
Bonnie-and-Clyde' syndrome. She held a gun on Carol King, the girl
killed in
Bennet, while Charlie was killing the boyfriend, Robert Jensen.''
For her role in the robbery and Jensen's killing, Fugate got a life
sentence
but was paroled in 1976.
Fugate never married and has no children. She has granted few
interviews, said
James McArthur, a lawyer whose father, the late John McArthur, was her
defense
attorney.
"She doesn't give any interview if she isn't paid for it,'' said
Fugate's
current attorney, Joan Lowenstein of Ann Arbor, Mich.
Despite rumors that Fugate had Starkweather's child in prison, McArthur
said
that's not true. McArthur said he's very proud of his dad for defending
Fugate,
which took courage in the Lincoln of four decades ago. "My mother lost
friends,'' McArthur said. "People didn't make any bones about it that
they
thought my father was not much better than Caril or Starkweather.
"My father put up a very strong defense because he very strongly
believed in
(Fugate's) innocence, as I do,'' McArthur said. Fugate claimed she had
been a
hostage and thought her family would be killed unless she cooperated.
She claimed she didn't know her family had been murdered. But after her
surrender, Fugate purportedly told Natrona County Deputy Romer that she
had
witnessed 10 killings. Also, newspaper clippings about the killings were
found
in her coat.
McArthur says Fugate's passing of a lie detector test on F. Lee Bailey's
TV
show "proved'' her innocence. Critics disagree, but a relative of the
Ward
family isn't certain about Fugate's degree of involvement.
Greenwood Village resident Shirley Sidles Bowman, a niece of Clara Olson
Ward,
flew immediately to Lincoln for the Wards' funerals.
Does she believe Fugate played an active role in the killings?
"I can't speak to that,'' said Bowman. "I've heard the same thing, but I
don't
know. I know she's turned her life around. A lot of people do silly
things when
they're young.''