“Since I was a child I always wanted to be a criminal, but not this big of one.” ~~~ Charles Starkweather
There have been around a dozen books written about Charles Starkweather, the spree murderer responsible for the unprovoked murders of eleven innocent people. Most of the killings took place in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1958. The latest book, STARKWEATHER: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE KILLING SPREE THAT CHANGED AMERICA by Harry N. Maclean (2023; 432 pp. with eight pages of black and white photos), is one in which the author takes a slightly different approach than others. Maclean, an author of several true crime non-fiction works and one novel, was born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska. He was fifteen years old, living with his parents and brother when Charles Starkweather was nineteen and Caril Ann Fugate, an integral part of the Stark-weather story, was thirteen and the murders took place. Maclean is unabashed about the fact that his new book is a highly personal one and written in a highly distinctive way, researched in-depth but also including his personal reflections and insight into what happened in and to the city of Lincoln sixty-five years ago.
Maclean does an exceptional job of contradicting the common misrepresentation of Nebraska as a dull, geographically flat land based upon those who have only traveled across the state on I-80. He also brings to life Lincoln before, during, and after the killings. He describes the growing prairie capital city of 128,000 where people lived without locking their houses or cars, where “O” Street (the longest main street in America at the time) divided the wealthier portion of the town in the south from the north, less affluent portion of the city in almost idyllic terms. Lincoln, he declares, was “a safe place to raise a family. From 1947 to 1957, seven murders were reported in the city. All seven were eventually solved.” That all ends in 1958 with the murder spree committed by Charles Starkweather, a short youth of five foot five or four, with shockingly red hair, “slightly bowed legs,” poor eye-sight, and possibly both with a speech defect and impotent. Subsequently, he was frequently teased by his peers, easily flew into a rage, and became known as a “fighter” before he going to junior high school. He became “a garbage man” who “would never amount to much else” and “hated everybody” in “a world that had no use for him.” With Caril Ann Fugate at his side, the events in 1958 were something the likes of which the citizens of Lincoln, nor the nation, had previously experienced and for which they were totally unprepared.
One of the many fascinating as well as frustrating things about the Starkweather case are the many contradictions between accounts of the murders. “There are only two people who knew the truth of what happened from January 21, 1958, to January 29, 1958. One of them, Charles Starkweather, gave at least ten different versions of the murder. Almost every time he spoke or wrote something about the spree, his story changed on key facts” whether to protect Caril Ann, or to fulfill his fantasies of going to the electric chair a hero with Caril Ann sitting on his lap. Caril Fugate, Charlie’s on-again, off again girlfriend “gave pretty much the same story in and out of court; some of it jibed with Charlie’s, but many of the critical parts of it—who was where and who did what to whom during the spree—are diametrically opposed.” Maclean tackles this discrepancy by separating and labeling Charlie and Caril Ann’s accounts of the murders, often using the individual’s own precise words and descriptions. From documents the author makes clear what is known as fact and at times passes on to the reader his own mindful judgment on the witnesses’ accounts.
Another most intriguing piece of STARKWEATHER includes the author’s depiction of ill-prepared, amateur policework done by the Lincoln Police Department, the Safety Patrol (as it was so-named at the time), and the media, especially those news outlets with a tendency to rush to judgment without evidence or who over sensationalized their reporting. The police, Maclean declares, were always two or more murders behind Starkweather and Fugate and he details the oversights committed by the police while citizens of Lincoln were either hiding behind locked doors glued to their radios and/or TV sets, often equipping themselves with weapons, and many armed vigilantes roaming the streets of Lincoln looking for Charlie. It was a city unglued.
Charlie’s first murder is of a twenty-one-year-old gasoline service station worker to whom he delivers “two shotgun blasts to the head” on December 1, 1957—a murder committed alone and long unsolved, but one which gives Starkweather a taste for blood. The next three murders taking place on January 21, 1958, of Caril’s stepfather, mother, and baby sister in Caril Ann’s north Lincoln home, are where the contradictions in accounts begin—especially in regards to Caril Ann’s presence and actions. Equally, the ineptness by the police begins and the bodies aren’t found for days.
The killings continue with a seventy-year-old friend of Charlie’s outside of Lincoln and a young couple who innocently offer the killer a ride when Charlie gets the car he is driving mired in a muddy ditch. On January 28th, death returns to Lincoln and moves to the south end of the city to the home of two well-known, respected, and wealthy citizens: Lauer and Clara Ward, and their housekeeper, Lilyan Fencl. The brutality of the slayings, much like those of the three outside of the capital city, are only a couple of blocks from Lincoln’s Country Club and sends residents of the city truly over the edge once discovered. “Terror stalked the countryside.” As before, Charlie and Caril’s depictions of happenings differ drastically.
Having stolen Lauer Ward’s car, Charles and Caril need new wheels with police searching for the Ward vehicle and a traveling salesman meets his death. The pair are finally recognized and arrested in Wyoming.
Maclean’s story of the Starkweather murders and the legal and courtroom proceedings which follow are mesmerizing. The author elucidates Nebraska law at the time and readers will find themselves in shock at how law officials casually accumulate testimony from both youths, especially an oft-times near hysterical Caril Ann Fugate.
It is with Caril Ann’s arrest where Maclean turns even greater attention on Fugate than before, giving an in-depth analysis of her treatment, statements, and widely believed complicity in the murders. The many pages devoted to the young woman who was presumed guilty by so many at the time on the weakest of evidence and Starkweather’s contradictory statements are eye-opening. Equally so, is the author’s presentation of “current brain science” and how much has advanced since the end of the 1950s, especially related to what previously was unknown, in its early conception, or merely dismissed as willful criminal behavior. Armed with this multitude of evidence and analysis the author often puts aside what would be the objectivity of most true crime writers and boldly declares his thoughts about Caril Ann’s guilt and innocence.
Maclean delivers clear and detailed information on the trials of both Starkweather and Fugate. Jurors quickly found Starkweather guilty of the murder of one of the youths who offered Charles and Caril Ann a ride, Robert Jensen (the only murder for which Charlie is put on trial), and sentenced to execution. After all, Charlie “walked in a human body [but] was not really a human being” states the author. Caril “was never evaluated by a psychologist or psychiatrist or even interviewed by a social worker or counselor prior to her trial” which didn’t take place until six months after Starkweather’s conviction which only adds to the assumption of her guilt in Nebraska and throughout the country. Caril is eventually convicted as an accomplice in Jensen’s murder and is given a life sentence.
The story of Caril’s repeated attempts to win parole and/or a pardon and release from prison is repeatedly clouded and accompanied by the very worse of legal practices and bias, including at one point by the wealthy, conservative, former governor of Nebraska, Pete Rickets. By time Maclean reaches the moment of Caril Ann’s parole, issued in June 1976 after serving seventeen-and-a-half-years, most readers will likely be filled more with remorse for the woman than relief.
Maclean gives readers a comprehensive run-down of how the Starkweather murders have entered popular culture from music, books, movies, and TV programs. “Here’s how a nobody can become a somebody.”
Harry Maclean ends STARKWEATHER: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE KILLING SPREE THAT CHANGED AMERICA on an almost unbelievable note no other writer has accomplished: finding an unrecognizable, frail, mute Caril Ann Fugate years after suffering a heart attack and stroke and later a car accident living in a nursing home in 2022. Maclean tells of his emotional visit with her.
The Starkweather story is unique in the annals of mass murder in so many ways with all the contradictions of what exactly happened during the actual murders and Charlie being “the beginning of the end of innocence when violence had a purpose, where the killer wanted something from the victim… Charlie is the precursor of what is to become almost commonplace: the violence of the common man against not one or two but many. The randomness of the selection brings an existential feel with it. You died for no reason. Therefore, you lived no reason.”
STARKWEATHER: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE KILLING SPREE THAT CHANGED AMERICA does not contain footnotes nor an index, but the author is careful to document his sources throughout the text, includes a Bibliography and Acknowledgements, and adds in an Author’s Note, “The meaning and interpretations of the facts are solely my own.” Maclean’s chronicle is well and clearly written, totally engrossing, and his personal attachment to the material makes the book invaluable reading especially for true crime readers as well as people who live or have ever lived in Lincoln and/or Nebraska, in particular, who desire to learn more about a piece of their city’s unique history.
Starkweather: The Untold Story of the Killing Spree That Changed America
4.2 | 272 ratings
Price: 26.33
Last update: 09-16-2024
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Top reviews from the United States
Eclectic Reader
“Threads”
Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2024
jaclynradke
pretty good account
Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2024M. A. Glenn
An engrossing, riveting journey
Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2023Roger J. Lederer
Interesting story, not so much the writing
Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2024Maa
Well done
Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2024Lori D
Comprehensive Read
Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2024Big Casino
Title of book should be different
Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2024