CHARLES STARKWEATHER Ep. 1 | “The Wild One”

Deputy Sheriff William Romer cruised the rolling hills of Highway 87 on his way from Douglas, Wyoming, to Casper, Wyoming. Gray skies blanketed the plains from horizon to horizon. It looked like it could start snowing at any moment, and the temperature was near freezing. It was a slow day in eastern Wyoming, crime-wise. Slow enough that the deputy had taken a long lunch in Douglas and run some errands back in Casper, where he was headquartered. The only action was a scuffle at a diner and a few over-served oilmen in the drunk tank.

But as Romer drove west, he listened to his shortwave radio and his car's AM-FM radio. They both reminded him that his neighbors to the east in Nebraska were not having a slow day at all. In fact, for the last few days, Lincoln, Nebraska, had been madness. The authorities over there were dealing with terrified citizens who were on the verge of mass hysteria. It began when three bodies were discovered in the backyard of a house in a working-class neighborhood.

It was a grisly scene. A few officers, grown men who had seen the atrocities of World War II firsthand, were sick on the spot. Then, the body of a farmer was found behind his house southeast of Lincoln. That led to the discovery of two local teenagers who were found shot and stabbed at the bottom of a storm cellar. It was total mayhem around Lincoln.

A dragnet was in effect across Nebraska for a 19-year-old troublemaker named Charles Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend, Carol Ann Fugate, whom some believed was his partner in crime. As deputy sheriff, Romer drove toward Casper, more bad news came across the radio. Three more bodies had been found, this time in the most upscale neighborhood in Lincoln. Romer shook his head and counted his blessings that it wasn't his county. He couldn't imagine what a body count of 11, with a suspect still on the loose, was doing to Lincoln.

Romer pondered that as he crested the hill and saw three cars, two on the right side of the road and one on the left, parked about a half-mile down the highway, the road dipped down and back up again, and when the cars came back into view. Romer could see two people in the middle of the road. As he closed in, he could see that the people in the road, two men, seemed to be fighting. Romer thought it was probably a scuffle over a traffic accident, but as he approached, he realized that the men were struggling for control of a weapon. Romer skidded onto the gravel of the soft shoulder of the highway.

He was 20 yards from the tussle. And at that moment, the larger of the two men yanked the weapon away from the smaller. The smaller man turned and ran toward a sleek black packard. Romer leapt from his cruiser and reached for his service revolver before he could draw the door to one of the cars that was parked along.

The highway flew open and a teenage girl jumped out. She dashed toward him and screamed, Help me. He killed a man back there, he kidnapped me. Romer caught her in his arms.

As she reached him, she clutched him tightly and he ushered her into the back of his car. As he did, the black Packard screamed by, and Romer recognized the driver. It was Charles Starkweather who may have killed 11 people if radio reports were accurate. Deputy Romer had counted his blessings too early.

The terror and chaos that had gripped Lincoln, Nebraska, did come to his county. And it wasn't done yet.

From Black Beryl Media This is infamous America. I'm your host Chris Wimmer. And this season we're telling the story of Charles Starkweather and Carol Ann Fugate and their bloody rampage through America's heartland. This is episode 1, The Wild One.

In the 1950s, America was still basking in post-World War II prosperity, affluence abounded, new industries thrived and the middle class exploded. With a population of just over 110,000, Lincoln, Nebraska, was a perfect example of the new American dream. The capital city boasted high employment rates and very little crime. Some of the largest beneficiaries of post-war America were teenagers.

They had been spared much of the despair of the Second World War. A 14-year-old in 1958 had missed the war almost entirely, and an 18-year-old was just five years old when the Japanese surrendered. Life magazine dubbed these teenagers the luckiest generation while their parents had come of age during the Great Depression and World War. The teens of this new generation lived lives filled with drive-ins, sock hops and high school football games on Friday nights. Or at least, that's the way the 1950s are remembered.

The reality is more complicated.

For one, the luckiest generation seemed to only include a certain type of teenager, one who was white and had money. Poor white teenagers still struggled everywhere, and Black teenagers of any income level obviously weren't included in the label the luckiest generation. They, or more accurately, their parents, were in the throes of the battle for civil rights. Also forgotten in the nostalgia of the 1950s was the fear that teenagers had become wild and reckless in ways their parents never were.

Some people wrote off teenagers as merely spoiled. Birth rates dropped significantly toward the end of the Great Depression and during the war. So in the 1950s, there were fewer teenagers to enjoy a larger slice of the growing prosperity pie. Some adults saw teens as squandering their good fortune and turning anti-social because they had no civic cause to rally around. Other, more inquisitive minds speculated that teenage rebellion stemmed from a fear that another war, this time nuclear, was imminent.

In their opinion, youth revolt was just the manifestation of a belief that their world was doomed. And that speculation wasn't just a wild, baseless theory, there was some substance to this fear that American youth had gone astray. Government reports said cases of juvenile delinquency doubled between 1948 and 1957. Police departments in cities of all sizes were forming juvenile delinquency units to fight the rise of teenage crime.

Lincoln, Nebraska, had formed theirs in 1955.

But a great deal of the scare came from where it often does an establishment that was not ready to admit change and the media's willingness to make money off people's fears. Movie after Movie came out in the 1950s, portraying teenagers as lawless and lost. Two of the most famous were Blackboard Jungle, starring Sidney Poitier and Glenn Ford, where Ford plays a new teacher at an inner-city school who comes face-to-face with the violence and rebellion of teenagers. The film company hailed it as the most startling picture in years. The other film that would become the standard-bearer of angry American youth was Rebel Without A Cause, starring James Dean.

Dean plays high school student Jim Stark, who struggles to find his place in his new school. He has trouble making friends and is bullied by his classmates. There's violence and there's a tragedy. Fear of teenage rebellion was so prevalent that, by the end of the 1950s, an opinion poll reported that curtailing juvenile delinquency was third on the list of most important tasks for the U.S government.

It trailed only building a national defense and striving for world peace. Being that concerned with rebellious teenagers might seem far-fetched by today's standards, but at the end of the 1950s, America had just experienced. Charles Raymond Starkweather Starkweather would grow up to be far worse than anything Hollywood dreamed up. Like James Dean's character, he was reckless and spiteful, but unlike the fictional Jim Stark, Charles Starkweather would become one of the 20th century's worst spree killers.

Charles Starkweather was the third of seven children, and from everything we know about his childhood, Charles, or Charlie, as those close to him called him, was a loving, caring child. He was small for his size and had a head full of bright red hair and walked with a bow-legged gait as if he had been riding a horse all day, every day. Since birth, he was happy to tag along wherever his two older brothers went, and he cherished hunting trips with his father. Though Charles struggled with poor eyesight, he was a good shot with a rifle.

Charles also loved to draw and showed great promise as an artist, which was a talent that was unique in his family. His father, Guy Starkweather, worked odd jobs. He was a decent carpenter, but was limited due to debilitating arthritis that set in at a very young age. Whether it was genetic or could be attributed to poor working conditions, Guy was often too sick or too weak to provide for his family.

Charles mother, Helen, kept the family fed, clothed and off the streets. She worked often at night at a local diner. Somehow, with little help from her husband, she was able to navigate the depression years, war rationing and nine mouths to feed. She gave her children a modest life. The Starkweathers were never destitute, but barely qualified as working class.

Even with all those challenges, there was nothing about Charles Starkweather's childhood that indicated the path he would take and how short his life would be. The earliest hint at where Starkweather's hatred and lack of empathy came from can be traced back to when he first started school. From his very first day, Starkweather was bullied relentlessly. Children teased him about his small stature and his bow-legged way of walking. To make it worse, he often stuttered and he struggled with his studies.

It may have been that his glasses weren't good enough for him to read very well, or maybe he suffered from any of the learning impairments that were apt to go undiagnosed. In the middle of the 20th century, he scored an 86 on an IQ test, which was four points below the average range of 90 to 110. People with a low score were called at the time dull normal, and that added to the abuse from his peers.

In kindergarten, he had a particularly bad day at Saratoga Elementary School. He had told his teacher at recess that none of his classmates would include him in their games. The teacher told Charles to go inside and draw. Then she scolded the other children but did nothing else to resolve the conflict. Some of his classmates were mad at getting in trouble and they told him he better run the minute the bell rang because they'd be after him.

When the day ended and the bell rang, Charles tried to get away, but the other children overtook him with ease. They teased him about his appearance and called him names. He clutched his school bag because inside was a picture he had drawn that he dearly wanted to give to his mother. The bullies took his bag, found the picture and tore it to shreds. Charles cried, and later in life, he said, that day was the last time he ever cried.

According to Charles Starkweather, the cruelty of the bullies, coupled with the inaction of his teachers and the administration, beat the kindness out of him. He became embittered and withdrawn from his parents, especially his father. He became spiteful and resentful of those who had more than him, and he grew angry at how inconsequential he was. More than anything, Charles Starkweather longed to be important, he wanted status, and if he needed to get it by being feared rather than loved, so be it.

Charles was adamant that the hate he endured during his primary school years turned him into the man he became. By the time he reached ninth grade, Charles quit school and decided to redirect his anger back out into the world. He decided he would no longer be the victim, He became a fighter. Anyone, anywhere. Charles didn't care if his opponent was older or bigger, and he certainly didn't concern himself with the outcome.

He was fine with enduring punishment, as long as he also got to dole it out. On one occasion, a boy twice his size called him a bandy-legged or bow-legged moron, with a crowd around him. Charles lunged. The other boy had been ready for a few punches. He'd been ready to give or get a bloody nose, but he hadn't been ready for the ferocity of fifteen-year-old Charles Starkweather, Charles pummeled the boy, nearly breaking his arm.

Then, holding a handful of the boy's hair, Charles dragged the kid's face across loose gravel.

When Charles finally stopped, the boy's face looked like it had been clawed by a wild animal. The crowd was shocked, but not surprised. This was what the youth of Lincoln had come to expect from Charles Starkweather. Ironically, the few friends whom Charles had were the boys he faced off against. One was named Bob von Busch.

Bob was one of the many, significantly bigger boys whom Charles had fought without any reservation. After beating the hell out of each other until neither could catch his breath. The story is that they found a sort of schoolyard respect for each other, their friendship blossomed. Instead of going to school, the two boys worked on cars in a small garage space that Charles rented in the upscale Lincoln neighborhood, known as the Country Club. While Bob von Busch was seen as just the typical flat-topped Midwestern boy getting out his energy before he settled down, Charles reputation was that of a punk or a thug.

His peers were not the only ones who took notice of his toughness and propensity for violence. The newly formed Juvenile Delinquency Division of the Lincoln Police Department had their eyes on him, too. Charles did himself no favors by leaning entirely into the persona he was trying to project. He embellished or told outright lies to make people believe he lived a more adventurous and impressive life.

People who knew him rarely knew when he was telling the truth. And he went out of his way to craft an image that he pilfered from comic books and movies. His hair was long on top and slicked back on the sides in a style that was called a greaser. He sported a leather biker jacket, though it was too big for him. His jeans were bootcut to accommodate indigo cowboy boots that people assumed he must have stolen. He would lean against an alley wall, nonchalantly holding a filterless cigarette, with a practiced indifference that was supposed to say to the world, I don't give a damn.

It was all straight out of the James Dean playbook, or the model for John Travolta and his friends in the movie Grease that would come out 20 years later. The difference was even though Charles was mimicking the things he saw in movies, his anger and hopelessness were not an act. In late 1955, with education in his rear view, he took a menial job at a paper warehouse where his bosses wrote him hard. One of his foremen would later tell a reporter that Charles was the single dumbest man he had ever employed.

It was clear that Charles path through life in the real world was going to be just as demoralizing as his traumatic school days. Charles saw little chance to advance in the world, little chance to taste the finer things in life, and little chance that he might one day get out of Lincoln, Nebraska. But about a year after leaving school, Charles life finally got a little bit brighter, even if only for a short time. He met the only person in his entire life who would ever make him happy. She was a tiny wisp of a girl, just 13 years old when they went on their first double date, and her name was Carol Ann Fugate.

Velda Fugate knew she did right by her two daughters, Carol, Ann and Barbara, when she divorced their father, William. He was a world-class alcoholic who couldn't hold a job. His temper was something Velda knew about firsthand, and it had landed him in prison on assault charges more than once. There had been a variety of other arrests for a variety of other charges, such as voyeurism and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. When Velda met Marion Bartlett, she knew her daughters might not immediately warm to him.

Both girls were still under 16 and shaken by the only male authority they had ever known. But it was the right move for Velda he could provide a roof over their heads, and he held a steady job. Velda and Marion married and had a baby girl named Betty Jean. For a woman who had raised her girls mostly in the tenement houses of Lincoln, Nebraska, the situation was a marked improvement.

The Bartletts lived in a modest home on Belmont Avenue. It was nowhere near the nicest part of town, but it certainly wasn't the worst either.

Marion Bartlett struggled to relate to his two new stepdaughters, and his default mode was to be overbearing and overprotective. He bought into the hysteria of youth rebellion and juvenile delinquency, as far as he was concerned. Every boy in town was a thug, who may as well have been Marlon Brando in the wild one. So his daughters, which is how he grew to see them, were not permitted to attend sleepovers, and they were heavily restricted when it came to dating in high school. In fact, getting caught wearing lipstick in the Bartlett House might as well have been a federal offense.

Barbara navigated her new stepdad's strict rules and found a nice young man, Bob Vaughn Bush, who courted her in a way that gained Marion's approval. It was only because of his trust in Bob that Marion allowed Barbara to bring her younger sister, Carol, on a double date. Bob brought his friend, Charles Starkweather. Bob knew Charles had rough edges, but he also knew Charles could be kind and fiercely loyal to the few people he really cared about. Carol Ann Fugate became one of those people.

After just their first date, both the teens were smitten. Charles had recently turned 18, Carol was 13 and a couple months away from turning 14. The things Charles hated about himself—his red hair, his small stature, his stutter and his bowed legs. Those things endeared Carol to him. Charles was wild enough to capture Carol's imagination. But also so in need of love that she was drawn to protect and care for him.

Charles saw a meanness in the world, and Carol longed to ease his pain. They became inseparable. Carol's mother and stepfather did not necessarily embrace Charles. They knew he had dropped out of high school and had run afoul of the law, but he came from a respectable, hardworking family.

Charles kept regular work along with the paper factory, he assisted his brother Rodney on his route as a garbage man, and Bob von Busch. And Carol vouched for Charles good heart, his artistic talent and his commitment to his friends. Few, though, they were, and Charles devotion to Carol was evident. He doted on her as much as she did him.

Often, it appeared that he spent every cent he made on her, as their affection for each other grew. Some people, like Bob and Barbara, just saw two teenagers in the grips of their first crushes, but some people saw an underlying intensity in Charles and Carol's relationship. She was more caught up in the older boy than a girl should be. And Charles could be hot-headed and frighteningly jealous if he thought Carol was showing an interest in anyone else.

At times, they seemed to be more obsessed with each other than in love. It was a combustible relationship with patterns and red flags that no one would catch in time.

In the fall of 1957, Charles fortunes took a turn for the worse. First, his increasingly tense relationship with his father reached a breaking point. The father and son had purchased a car together and it had been badly damaged when Charles let Carol drive it. She was now 14 years old, but of course, she didn't have a license. Guy Starkweather was fed up and threw his son out of the house.

Then Charles lost his job at the paper warehouse. Charles inconsistency and inability to get along with his co-workers then cost him his job with his brother on the garbage route. He was now homeless and jobless. He was nearly destitute and had been abandoned by his family. The only thing he had left was Carol.

But without a job or prospects, Charles was now unwelcome in Carol's home. Sometimes he was able to scratch together enough money to get a room in a run-down building, but most nights he slept in his car. And that was how he came to know an employee who worked at the Crest Service station on Highway 6, otherwise known as Cornhusker Highway.

Many of the nights, when Charles slept in his car, he parked it in the lot next to the Crest service station. He became friendly with the attendant, who often worked the night shift. The guy was good about waking Charles up in the morning. Or if a police car pulled in for gas. But on the night of November 30, 1957, the regular attendant wasn't working. A new guy named Robert Colvert was on duty.

Robert sat alone behind the counter, flipping through the Lincoln Journal Star Newspaper for the second time and listening to Buddy Holly and the Crickets on a transistor radio. It had been a slow night, especially for a Saturday. A trucker or two had stopped in. Now there were the kids from the college who bought some snacks and a quart of oil. They stood around and commiserated with Colvert about the University of Nebraska's football team, which had just finished its season with one win and nine losses.

Right around then, Colvert's only other customer walked in. It was the short, red-haired kid who walked funny. The regular attendant had told Colvert that he let the kid sleep in his car in the lot next door. The attendant said The kid was harmless.

The kid bought cigarettes, Winston's, and then drove off. The college students left as well. And then Robert Colvert was alone again at around 3 a..m. When the late shift's boredom was wearing him down, Colvert gave up on the newspaper and reached for the phone. He thought if he called home, maybe he could catch his pregnant wife. She had been sleeping less and less as the delivery date approached.

But when he stood up, Colvert looked out the front windows, over by the sign next to the street that advertised gas for 28 cents per gallon. There was an old Ford parked with the engine running. Colvert wasn't sure, but he thought it might be the red-haired kid. The car, with its headlights off, rolled closer to the front door of the service station. Colvert turned away for just an instant while he walked around the counter to get a better view.

But in that instant, the driver was out of his car through the front doors and pointing a shotgun at Robert Colvert's face. The gunman wore a hunting cap and his face was covered with a red bandana. Like an old West outlaw. He tossed Colvert a bag and gave him the few instructions he needed. Colvert immediately emptied the money from the register into the bag.

The gunman ushered Colvert back to the office and asked about the safe. Colvert told the robber that there was a safe, but he couldn't access it. The gunman was frustrated. He told Colvert to turn off the lights outside the station to make it look like the place was closed. Then he forced Colvert outside and into the Ford.

They were taking a ride. Robert Colvert never talked to his wife again. His body was found the next day by the local police, about four miles from the Crest service station. He had been shot twice at close range, once in the side and once in the back of the head. Execution style, Mr.

Colvert had the tragic distinction of being victim number one of Charles Starkweather. It would be another two months before there was another victim. But when the spree started, it happened with terrifying speed. And in 1958, America simply wasn't prepared for a killer who was armed to the teeth and seemingly had no motive.

Next time on Infamous America, Charles Starkweather is killed once, and now he loses whatever control he had left. He goes down a dark road and he brings Carol Ann Fugate along for the ride that's next week on Infamous America.

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This series was researched and written by Jamie Lyko. original music by Rob Valliere. I'm Your host and producer Chris Wimmer. Find us at our website blackbarrelmedia..com or on our social media channels. We're Black Barrel Media on Facebook and Instagram, and B Barrel Media on Twitter.

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