Hump Day Horror


 On this day in 1958, two teenagers kill a husband and wife as well as their maid in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Charles Starkweather, 18/19, and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, 14.  

Charles had already murdered her parents and younger sister, of which she wasn't aware when she got in the car with him after an argument.  He threatened to kill them if she didn't cooperate.

His first kill took place on December 1, 1957, when he robbed a gas station and shot the cashier.  At the end of the crime spree, 11 people were dead.

They were depicted as a Bonnie and Clyde couple, inspiring movies such as Badlands and Natural Born Killers.  Bruce Springsteen's song "Nebraska" is sung from Starkweather's point of view.

He received the death sentence, and sat in the electric chair on June 25, 1959.  Fugate was sentenced to life in prison, but was released in 1976.  Today she is 82 years old.

A few years ago she was involved in a documentary that reviewed her trial transcripts and questioned her confession.



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