CHARLES STARKWEATHER Ep. 5 | “Mass Hysteria”

He could be the kindest person you've ever seen. He'd do anything for you if he liked you. That was Bob Vaughn Bush's take on his boyhood friend Charles Starkweather. Bob would also admit that Charles had another side, but Bob was one of Charles only friends. And when Bob started dating a girl named Barbara Fugate, he suggested to Barbara that she bring her little sister Carol along on a double date.

Bob would bring Charles, Barbara would bring Carol, and who knew, maybe Charles and Carol would hit it off? At the time, in early 1957, Charles was 18 and Carol was 13, and they did hit it off and they became inseparable. Carol was a tiny brunette with what some called an elfish charm. She copied the style she saw in fashion magazines and liked going to the movies. And to read the cheap gossip magazines that claimed to reveal secrets about her favorite Hollywood stars.

And all of that made it even more stunning that she was connected to the growing number of heinous crimes around Lincoln, Nebraska, according to Carol's later statements. As the year 1957 progressed, she became frustrated with Charles behavior, mainly his extreme jealousy. Charles was now 19 and she was 14, and she claimed she ended their relationship in January 1958, right before all hell broke loose.

Carol's mother, stepfather and half-sister were dead, though, according to Carol, she believed they were alive and being held hostage by Charles accomplices at some unknown location. And now, she herself was a captive, and Charles was forcing her to go along with him. On his grand plan to move to the Pacific Northwest. Charles maintained the opposite that Carol was a willing participant in six murders, the murders of her three family members, a 70-year-old farmer and two high school kids. A manhunt for Charles and Carol had been underway for about 24 hours now. The Lincoln Police Department and the Lancaster County Sheriff's Department had been slow to react to the escalating crisis, but now they were actively scouring the area around Lincoln.

Meanwhile, Charles and Carol had fled the city and then turned around and driven back into the Lion's den. Now, on Tuesday afternoon, January 28, 1958, they were holed up in the upscale Country Club neighborhood of Lincoln. They were in the house of C. Lauer Ward and his wife, Clara, and they had two hostages, Clara Ward and her maid, Lillian Fensel. The morning had progressed smoothly after Clara and Lillian recovered from the shock of a home invasion by teenagers who were armed with a .22-caliber rifle and a .410 sawed-off shotgun.

Charles had told the two women that he and his girlfriend just wanted to lay low until it was dark. Then they would resume their trip to the West. For a while, it appeared as though that was exactly what would happen, but that afternoon everything changed and by nightfall, the ward house would be a crime scene.

From black barrel media, this is infamous America. I'm your host Chris Wimmer. In 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 5 Mass hysteria.

By the end of the night on Monday, January 27, 1958. Charles, possibly with Carol's help, had killed August Meyer, the farmer, and Robert Jensen and his girlfriend, Carol King, the two high school students. Charles and Carol stole Robert's car and drove for about 90 miles, then doubled back to Lincoln.

They parked the car for the remaining few hours of darkness and then cruised through the fancy Country Club neighborhood to find a house in which to hide. They chose the home of the wards because it had a garage behind the house. Charles could park the stolen car out of sight from the street, and he and Carol could settle in until nighttime to resume their journey. They parked the car, forced their way into the house, took Clara Ward and Lillian Fensel hostage and then lounged around to pass the hours until it was dark.

Carol hung out in the mansion's library, mostly napping. Charles kept watch and listened to news reports on the radio. He was fascinated by his growing celebrity status and eagerly devoured each new update. It seemed that the day might pass without incident until Clara Ward asked if she could go to her room.

Clara said her feet hurt and she wanted to change her shoes. Charles agreed and went back to listening to the news broadcasts. He got lost in time and then realized Clara had been upstairs for nearly 45 minutes. He raced to the library, woke up Carol and told her to be ready. Half-asleep and oblivious to what was happening, Carol sat up and clutched the 410 shotgun.

Charles grabbed a knife out of his leather jacket. he ran up the large staircase in the center of the house. When they arrived at the ward's home, Charles had asked Clara if there were any guns in the house. She said only a BB gun that belonged to her son, who was away at boarding school.

But according to Charles account, when he reached the top of the staircase, he discovered that was a lie. He looked down the hallway and saw Clara Ward aiming a rifle at him. She fired and then turned to run. Charles threw the knife, it sank into her back, between her shoulder blades, and she crashed to the floor.

Charles dragged Clara into her bedroom and then rushed downstairs. He told Carol to find Lillian Fensel, who was dusting in the dining room, and keep the gun on her. Lillian was deaf and would not have heard the sounds upstairs, but she might have sensed a commotion. Charles ran back upstairs and found Clara desperately spinning the wheel of a rotary phone, trying to call for help. Charles said later that he tied her up and gagged her with a piece of linen.

He sliced off a bedsheet, then he left her there. He went back downstairs and wrote a note for Lillian. He showed her the piece of paper which ordered her not to go upstairs under any circumstances. It was roughly 5.30 p..m. which meant Clara's husband could return at any time.

C. Lauer Ward was the president of a steel company that his family had founded 50 years earlier. He was a multimillionaire who had connections to the highest levels of state government. He had left home that morning right before Charles and Carol arrived, and one of his errands for the day was to meet with the governor of Nebraska. His day was going badly and he had no idea how much worse it would get.

When he returned home at the house after Charles gave the warning note to Lillian Fentzel, he hurried outside and reparked his stolen car so that he and Carol could make a quick getaway if need be. On his way back into the house, he noticed that the late edition of the Lincoln Star newspaper had arrived. The front page left no doubt about how much had happened in the hours that he and Carol had been hiding at the ward's house.

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In reality, he was 15 miles up the road in Lincoln, eating a lunch of pancakes in the kitchen of Clara Ward's home. But officers believed they had him cornered, so they settled in to wait him out. They addressed the empty house over a loudspeaker, giving Charles a chance to come out. There was no response. Lancaster County Sheriff Merle Carnop didn't want to assault the farmhouse.

He had no interest in having to call the wives of his men to tell them their husbands had died in a reckless charge. Carnop also didn't want to give Charles the opportunity to go out in a blaze of glory and die in a hail of gunfire. The sheriff suspected, as many did, that Charles could also be responsible for the murder of the service station attendant, Robert Colvert, two months earlier.

After lawmen heard nothing from the house for about five minutes, their next move was tear gas. They lobbed canisters into any reachable window of the house, the canisters popped and the clouds of toxic smoke spilled out of the farmhouse. After ample time was given for anyone inside to stagger out, the order was given to move in. Lawmen covered their faces as best they could and entered the house.

It didn't take long to verify that Charles and Carol were not there. It also didn't take long to discover the frozen body of August Meyer in the backyard. And then, before the tear gas could even clear, a deputy approached Sheriff Carnop with an urgent report. After the lawmen stormed the house, a neighboring farmer sprinted a half-mile across a field to deliver some news. Between gasping breaths, he sputtered a few words.

Storm Cellar bodies, Teenagers. The mob of people at the Meyer Farmhouse, which now included reporters and residents from the nearby town of Bennett, made their way across a field to an old storm cellar. It was attached to the foundation of an ancient school that had long since been torn down.

At the bottom of the cellar stairs. The bodies of 17-year-old Robert Jensen and 16-year-old Charles were quickly identified after the discovery of the teenagers, who had been missing and were now confirmed dead. Total mayhem descended on the town of Bennett. Reports from the day stated that the sole hardware store in Bennett sold out of every rifle, every shotgun and every single round of ammunition. Then it was hunting bows, arrows and knives. More than 100 officers from the big city of Omaha and smaller towns like Grand Isle and to help with the manhunt.

Newspapers printed descriptions of Charles and Carol Charles, 5'5, 100 pounds, red hair, bow-legged, walks with a swagger, blue jeans, black leather jacket, cowboy boots. Speech impediment has trouble pronouncing R's and W's. Carol, 5'1, 105 pounds, looks 18, sometimes wears glasses, may be wearing a blue park and white baton boots. While the newspapers printed Carol's description, investigators who saw the scene of the Jensen King murders started to wonder privately if Carol Ann Fugate might be dead. She wasn't, of course.

At that moment, while more than 100 lawmen combed the state roads of Lancaster County. Carol laid calmly on the floor of the ward's house with a copy of the newspaper and a pair of scissors. She leisurely admired the pictures of herself and Charles and each of her dead family members, before cutting the faces out of each one.

At the Ward House, while Carol calmly worked on a collage downstairs, Charles was upstairs ransacking the house for valuables and trying to dye his hair with black shoe polish from C. Lauer, Ward's dresser. It was a strange juxtaposition that continued to make the truth of the events murky. Charles claimed that he had wounded Clara Ward with his knife, then tied her up and left her alone. Then he ran downstairs and told Carol to be on guard.

Even if that was true, Carol was actually very calm now. But she said she didn't hear the gunshot that Clara supposedly fired at Charles. She remained asleep in the library until Charles woke her up. When he did, she said, he was holding a bloody knife. He told her Clara was dead and he had stabbed her in the throat.

Only then did he order Carol to guard Lily and Fencel with the shotgun. Some of the truth would become known. At least what happened, if not, who did it? But not until after the final showdown with C. Lauer Ward.

Mr Ward was so angry as he drove home Tuesday evening, January 28th, that he could barely keep his Packard Patrician on the road. Anyone who met the 48-year-old businessman would tell you he was calm and a gentleman, but not that afternoon.

Victor Anderson at the Statehouse. And while both men were the type who could speak intelligently on most any topic, they spent most meetings talking about the state of the University of Nebraska football team. That day, they should have been debating the future of the coach, whose team had finished the 1957 season with one win and nine losses. Instead, they were talking about Charles Starkweather, word of the public outcry and hysteria in nearby Bennett.

Had reached the statehouse, governor, Anderson had authorized law enforcement from around the state to join the manhunt. And though he hadn't made it known, he had placed the National Guard on standby. Reports were that Highway 2 was jammed between Lincoln and Bennett. Bennett's citizens were leaving town out of fear.

There was little the governor could say to ease the concern of his friend and valuable constituent, Mr C. Lauer. Ward Ward left the meeting and headed home while trying to reassure himself that the governor, the county sheriff and the chief of police had the situation under control. But it wasn't working.

As he drove onto his street, there was nothing about his house that looked amiss. He pulled his car around the side driveway and cruised around the back of the house to the secluded garage. Ward either didn't see Charles stolen car in the driveway or didn't think enough of it to worry.

Charles was waiting with his.

22 caliber rifle. When Ward entered the house, Charles claimed that he calmly explained the situation. He said Clara and Lillian were tied up upstairs. As long as Ward cooperated, everyone would be fine. When it was dark, Charles and his girlfriend would be on their way in Ward's expensive car, of course.

Everyone just had to sit tight until then.

Ward did, as he was told he walked into the kitchen and put his coat and briefcase on the kitchen table. Ward asked about his wife and their maid, and Charles reassured him they were fine, and then Ward's complacency wore off. He lunged at Charles and grabbed the rifle with both hands.

Ward was taller and heavier, but he was a businessman, not a brawler, and Charles was used to fighting bigger men. The two men struggled and Charles pushed Ward toward the open door of the basement. Charles gave Ward one final shove and then let go of the rifle. Ward tumbled backward down the stairs and the rifle bounced down after him. Charles ran down the stairs.

Ward was dazed, but otherwise okay. Both men dove for the rifle. They wrestled over it again, but this time the gun ended up in Charles hands. Ward tried a mad dash up the stairs, but Charles leveled the .22 at him and shot him in the back. The bullet struck Ward, but he was able to make it to the top of the stairs and into the living room before Charles caught him.

Charles fired again and Ward fell motionless. Charles stood over Ward until he was certain that the man was dead.

As the manhunt progressed for Charles Starkweather and Carol Ann Fugate all over Lancaster County, the couple was preparing to flee. The Ward house in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Lincoln, Charles searched the house and found only seven dollars. He took ten more out of Lily and Fencel's purse. He grabbed a clean flannel shirt from Ward's wardrobe, and Carol took Clara Ward's wool winter coat. Charles and Carol left the Ward's house just after 7 p...m.

They headed west on Highway 34, toward the Wyoming-Nebraska state line. They stopped for gas in the town of Broken Bow, Nebraska. An attendant stated later that Charles seemed despondent, like he'd reached the end of his rope. But he and Carol, refueled, bought some snacks and continued west without incident. As they drove into the night. Carol fell asleep.

She was startled, awake by the feeling of the Packard swerving. She screamed when she realized that Charles had fallen asleep at the wheel. Charles's head snapped up and he yanked the steering wheel to the left, just before the car careened off the shoulder and into a ditch. Although adrenaline was now pumping through their veins and they were just a hundred miles or so from the state line, they agreed Charles needed to rest.

The national interstate system was still in its infancy, especially in sparsely populated areas like Western Nebraska. Eventually, towns would sprout up, with the singular purpose of providing food, gas and lodging to people traveling by automobile. But in 1958, it was still common to see cars parked on the side of the highway, with tired drivers sleeping inside. Charles pulled off the road and drove south. He drove on the road and slept.

A few hours after sunrise, Charles and Carol got back on the road as the workday began and the business district back in Lincoln came to life. C. Lauer, Ward's secretary at the Capitol Steel Company, was troubled. It was well after 9 a.m and her boss had not arrived.

It was unlike Ward to be late and not call. after another hour. the secretary called Ward's brother, Fred.

He agreed to go to his brother's house. Fred Ward found the house eerily quiet. His brother's black packard was gone, but there was an unfamiliar, rather slick Ford with tail fins in its place. Fred entered the home and quickly realized why the house was so silent. He found his brother dead from apparent gunshot wounds and called the police.

Sheriff Carnop and his deputies rushed to the house. Upstairs. They found Clara Ward and Lillian Fensel tied and gagged, just as Charles had said to Mr Ward, but they were not alive. Clara Ward, in her bedroom, had a severe knife wound in her back that matched part of Charles's story, but she also had knife wounds to her throat, which were listed as her cause of death. And those matched Carol's story.

Down the hall, Lillian Fensel's body was found with knife wounds to the chest and abdomen. Additionally, there were defensive wounds on her hands, wrists and forearms. She put up quite a fight before she was overpowered. And now. The lawmen knew what had happened, but were still trying to determine who did it. Charles or Carol, or both, and they would never have a satisfactory answer. Charles claimed he tied both women up and they were alive when he and Carol left the house.

So either Carol somehow killed them without Charles knowing, or Charles was lying. Either way, the result produced the same terrified pandemonium in Lincoln that it had been the day before, except it would be tenfold worse.

The hours between 12 p.

M and 4 p...m. on Wednesday, January 29, 1958, remain to this day one of the most frantic and frenzied time periods in the history of Lincoln, Nebraska. When the bodies of the prominent ward family were found, along with their maid, Lillian Fensel. Absolute panic overtook the capital city as soon as Governor Victor Anderson heard the news, he ordered 200 national guardsmen from a nearby base.

Within two hours of the discovery, the troops were patrolling the streets in jeeps with mounted machine guns. A group of soldiers was posted at the largest bank in the city because there was a fear that a desperate Charles Starkweather might try a heist. Helicopters hit the sky to patrol the state roads and highways, and roadblocks controlled every entrance and exit to Lincoln. And all. That was just the beginning.

Even before the bloodshed at the ward's residence, Charles and Carol's killing spree was front-page news. From Boston to Los Angeles, and the federal government got involved. FBI agents from the bureau's Kansas City office assisted in the hunt for the teenagers. Lancaster County Sheriff Merle Carnop went live on local television and called for a mounted posse to meet him at the Lincoln Courthouse. In books and documentaries since the murder, Carnop's call for men has been characterized as the sheriff forming an armed mob on the spot. But that wasn't the case.

Three years earlier, the sheriff had formed a volunteer posse of local citizens who could drill on horseback. They wore denim jeans and jackets, wore 10-gallon hats and were given special badges. They were businessmen who wanted to play Ranger on the weekends and were normally used for crowd control during local parades. At worst, they might have been asked to ride the countryside looking for a lost child. They were a coordinated effort, not a vigilante group.

And now they mounted up to look for any sign of a killer. Who was responsible for nine murders over the past week and a half. But even with the unprecedented law enforcement and military response, the citizens of Lincoln didn't feel safe in a city the size of Lincoln. Officers and soldiers couldn't be everywhere.

So they turned to the killings, which meant Charles Starkweather could strike anywhere, which meant everyone was scared. Just like townsfolk in Bennett, citizens of Lincoln bought up every rifle and every round of ammunition. In the city, troops guarded schools as children were sent home early. One little boy told a reporter that with all the soldiers and the extreme fear of the adults, he was certain. The Russians must have launched their nuclear missiles and nuclear war was upon them.

The Lincoln telephone company's phone lines were so overloaded they were shut down for nearly an hour. Operators said they hadn't seen anything like it since victory in Japan had been declared to end World War II. One poor student at the university, who resembled Charles, was chased across campus by an angry mob and forced to hide in a friend's apartment. Sheriff Merle Carnop patrolled the streets and saw things he'd never seen before. People were leaving their garage doors open all over the city, with the keys in the ignition of the family car.

They hoped that if Charles Starkweather came to their house, he would just steal their car and move on without invading their homes and killing their families. But as terror gripped Lincoln, Nebraska, Charles and Carol were 500 miles to the west.

They arrived in the city of Douglas, Wyoming, where they heard the local radio broadcast about the discovery of the bodies. At the ward's house, the radio DJ described Charles and Carol and their deeds, and he alerted Douglas residents to be on the lookout. Because the murderers were still at large and armed and dangerous. Lastly, the voice over the radio gave a description of C. Lauer Ward's 1956 Black Packard Patrician. As Charles turned onto Highway 87 toward Casper, Wyoming, he knew he had to get a new car.

What he didn't know was that Deputy Sheriff William Romer had just finished a long lunch in Douglas. And would also head out Highway 87 toward Casper. They would soon meet on a desolate stretch of road in the Badlands of Wyoming.

Next time on Infamous America, the murder spree that began in Lincoln, Nebraska, ends on a lonely road in Wyoming. But then come the trials of Charles Starkweather and Carol Ann Fugate, and their stories are almost as shocking as their actions. That's next time on the season finale, here on Infamous America.

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Original music by Rob Valliere. I'm Your host and Producer Chris Wimmer.

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