All language subtitles for The.12th.Victim.S01E01.1080p.WEB.H264-BIGDOC

[Film reel ticks]

Upbeat music

[woman vo] This is a story
that everybody has heard before.

The loner type from the
wrong side of the tracks...

Meets a younger girl.

He's the type of guy
she's been warned about.

But she lets him get
just close enough...

That they get stuck together.

It's first love...

And forbidden love.

But sometimes, when
two people mix...

The alchemy isn't right.

There's a reaction.

An explosion.

[Gunshots]

So, their story is
told over and over...

And it's made pretty or ugly...

[Gunshots]

Evil or tragic.

But it's never true.

Because the truth is
far too complicated.

And so, whatever is on a
screen will be the truth.

[TV flicks on]

This is the most terrible thing
that's ever happened in Lincoln.

Her hands were
bound in front of her,

and there was a
gag on her mouth.

[Man vo] It was the
first of its kind,

these rebels without a cause
killing people for no reason.

You could feel the fear,
just on the TV itself.

[Man vo] Charley starkweather
saw himself as James Dean.

I think he's crazy.

[Man vo] Caril always
wanted to be somebody.

She wanted to be a star.

[Woman vo] I thought, "oh, wow,
is she a hard-lookin' broad..."

[Man vo] I see,
really, a scared little girl.

[Man vo] The only two people
who witnessed what went on were

Charles
starkweather and caril fugate,

and everybody else is dead.

[TV flicks off]

[Man vo] Wowt 6 news.

The teenager who many believed
helped Charles starkweather

during his Nebraska killing
spree in the 1950s asks the

state for a pardon.

Today, the
76-year-old asked for a pardon.

A 1950s killing spree that
shook the city of Lincoln at the

time was revisited
today, as caril Ann fugate...

[Man vo] Caril Ann fugate...

[Man vo] Caril Ann fugate...

[Man vo] Asked for a pardon
for her role in the crimes.

Now, 60 years ago, fugate
accompanied her boyfriend,

Charley starkweather, on one
of the nation's most notorious

killing sprees.

[Man vo] Fugate said
that she was a hostage,

not an accomplice
to starkweather.

Lord knows that i'm
innocent and I know it.

The people who are
involved in it know it.

There's been books,
movies, and songs...

All towards this case.

We can't come in and alleviate
the burden that she feels for

this case.

[Man vo] Caril fugate, vowing
to clear her name for 60 years.

[Man vo] With nobody really
knowing her role in the crimes.

[Dead air]

Ominous music

December 1st, 1957, a body
is found along the side of the

highway, and it turns out to
be the body of a gas station

attendant, a young man
named Robert colvert.

They had first thought that he
maybe had been hit by a car or

something, and it
turned out he had been shot.

[Man vo] The body of
21-year-old Robert g colvert,

an attendant at Mitchell's
service station on the outskirts

of Lincoln, was found in
the middle of a lonely,

rural road near the city.

It was discovered by a farmer
en route to town shortly before

dawn.

The murderer took mr colvert
out and killed him and left him

in a ditch, and
stole a few dollars.

I think it was,
like, $20 or something;

it was a very
little amount of money.

And that was apparently
the motive was the money.

Any murders were
just maybe one a year,

if that.

It was so out of the
normal experience of people,

they just couldn't imagine that
something like that would happen

here.

[Man vo] Police say the
investigation will be continued

by a team of
detectives, but at the moment,

there are no clues to
the killer or killers.

[Man vo] There
was the garbage man.

He would hang around that
filling station where colvert

worked quite often.

That was Charles starkweather.

[Man vo] Charles starkweather.

[Woman vo]
Charles starkweather.

[Man vo] Several
people had pointed out,

"hey, there's this guy
going around spending change.

It's the exact same guy who had
been sleeping a lot of nights

outside the gas station."

Even his own family is
going to the police and saying,

"you need to check this out."

You know, there were plenty of
reasons to be suspicious of this

guy, and yet, they hadn't
even followed it up at all.

[Man vo] Charles starkweather
had a difficult upbringing.

He was a product
of the depression,

one of seven children.

He had a birth defect that
caused him to have bow legs,

and coupled with a
speech impediment,

fiery red hair,
and being only 5'5,

it was very, very difficult.

[Man vo] Charley
was a garbage man,

high school dropout,
and he had an IQ of,

like, 70.

He had all these issues.

Back in Nebraska in 1958, people
weren't paying attention to

sociology or anything like that.

They just wrote him
off as, you know,

"he's kind of a bad
egg and that's that."

[Man vo] Lincoln was very
peaceful coming into that.

It was assumed that the
killer was not a lincolnite.

Most people assumed it was
somebody that had come and gone,

the intruder in the night or the
guy that was passing through.

It kind of went out of
the minds of people,

and we went right back to being
what somebody called "the soda

fountain era."

Lollipop, lollipop,
oh, lolli-lolli-lolli

lollipop, lollipop, oh,
lolli-lolli-lolli...

Well, Lincoln, a city
of about 100,000 people.

A friend of mine says, "Lincoln,
Nebraska: Two degrees of

separation," 'cause
everybody knows everybody else.

[Man vo] Crime was
almost nonexistent.

The police force had one night
patrolman for the entire city.

No one gave any thought to it.

[Man vo] People
didn't lock their doors.

People weren't concerned,
weren't worried about different

things.

A lollipop

ominous music

there's no
question Charley's world

revolved around this young girl.

Caril was the only
person that cared about him,

the only sign of
love in his life.

Charles
starkweather and caril fugate,

their relationship was
boyfriend and girlfriend.

She actually
thought he was cool,

and nobody else really
thought he was cool.

[Chuckles]

She had known him
through her sister,

so she trusted him
a little bit more.

He loved caril, caril loved him.

He hated his red hair because
people used to make fun of him,

so she pulled one of his
red hairs out of his head,

and she said, "I love
every hair on your head."

She was in kind of a poor
home and things here in Lincoln.

I mean, they weren't
well-to-do or anything.

[Man vo] She came from...
People would say... the wrong

side of the tracks.

Her folks were divorced.

[Woman vo] Before her mother
left her biological father and

remarried, there was a lot of
domestic turmoil and strife.

So she just wanted to get out...

And find a better life,
and that's probably what

he promised her.

[Man vo] She thought
she was top-of-the-world,

you know?

Because somebody older
paid attention to her.

"I'm better than everybody
'cause I got an older man that's

really lookin' out, I get to
ride around in his car and all

this stuff."

She thought she was big shit!

[Woman vo] Her mother
really didn't like him.

She just didn't like his
personality and didn't think he

was right for caril.

[Man vo] They thought he
was worthless, no good.

They told him that quite often.

They wanted him to stay away
from caril and that eventually,

he would get her pregnant, if
she wasn't pregnant already.

[Woman vo] This
was taken in '57.

My mother said that this was the
last time she's seen Betty Jean

and velda.

Eerie music

January 21st, 1958, which is
about a month or so after the

colvert killing...

Velda bartlett, caril Ann
fugate's natural mother,

wanted Charles starkweather
to bring some used rugs over

to the house.

[Scrawling]

[Charles on recording] I
went down to the bartlett home

about 1:30 in the afternoon, and
me and velda got into a fight

over caril.

See, they'd been wantin' caril
to break up with me so she could

go with somebody else.

And she said for me not to
come down anymore to see caril.

And I said somethin' to
velda that she did not like,

and she hit me
about three times.

Velda got me so
mad, I hit her back.

And she let out a loud cry, and
I ran into the other room and

put a bullet in the gun.

Suspenseful music

Charley and caril kind of
settle in for the next few days.

To have these two
teenagers playing house

for a few days and
thinking through what they wanna

do next.

[Dog whining]

[Knocking]

You have several people showing
up... you have a milkman,

you have neighbors...

And they are all
greeted at the door by caril.

[Man vo] They were turned
away every time by caril.

They family was sick, you
couldn't come in to visit them,

please go, don't come back.

[Man vo] Caril puts a
note in the door that says,

"everybody's sick with the flu.

Go away."

[Woman vo] Caril's grandmother
went to the police station...

And said, "something's very,
very wrong in that house."

[Siren]

[Man vo] They
knocked on the door,

and caril came to
the door and said no,

they couldn't come
in, to stay away.

[Man vo] These police
officers took caril's word that

everything was
just fine and left.

Caril's grandmother said, "okay,

but the next time I come,
there'll be a search warrant and

we're gonna get down
to the bottom of this."

[Dead air]

Dark dramatic music

[Charles on recording] Caril's
grandmother said she was gonna

get the cops, so I
told caril to come.

We walk up to my car,
change the flat tire,

got gas, and headed
for Bennet, Nebraska.

Now, everybody told the
police, "something's wrong,

go check it out,"

and the police
were like, "ehh."

Until finally, Charley's
own brother had to crawl in,

go around, and look.

Eerie music

dramatic music

and then found the bodies.

[Siren]

[Man vo] We interrupt this
program with an emergency

news bulletin.

Lincoln police are at the scene
of a gruesome triple slaying in

the city's belmont section.

The police found three bodies
hidden in out buildings behind

the home.

A relative has identified the
victims as Marion bartlett,

his wife, velda barlett, and
the couple's three-year-old

daughter, Betty Jean barlett.

Autopsies will be performed, but
police say it appears the bodies

have been there for
approximately one week.

[Charles on recording] At the
time me and velda got into this

fight, I had my
brother's gun with me.

Marion came in.

He was just about ready to
come down with the hammer,

so I let him have it.

[Gunshot]

[Man vo] Charles gets the
gun and shoots mr bartlett.

[Gunshot]

Turns the gun
also on mrs barlett.

The child, Betty
Jean, is yelling...

[Child shrieks]

Loud enough that the
neighbors can hear.

Charles takes the butt of his
rifle and strikes this child.

[Woman vo] People
were devastated by it,

they were appalled by it.

It was something that had never
happened in Lincoln before.

It was, pfft, you know,
this unprecedented thing!

It was a pretty horrific scene.

He drug velda bartlett
out to the out house,

stuck her as far as he
could down into the toilet,

put Betty Jean
into a cardboard box,

set her on the toilet seat...

And then drug Marion bartlett
out to the chicken Coop.

Ominous music

On the day after the
bartletts' murders,

they actually mentioned the
colvert murder in the newspaper,

as it's kinda similar.

The reporting was actually
starting to question the role of

the police.

The whole situation at the
bartlett house was a total

embarrassment for the police.

A police officer came out there,
there was suspicious activity.

Up to 14 people
went to that house,

knocked on the door,
some more than once.

They were turned away.

The police, on two
separate occasions,

went to the house.

[Man vo] Police say that
part of the reason they didn't

respond or take the complaints
seriously is that this was a

home where there had
been calls more than once.

It was obviously just a shrug
that something else is going on

at the bartlett house.

Now, if that had been people
from the other side of the

tracks... the rich
side of the town...

Might the
investigation been different?

Charley was immediately
suspected at the beginning,

'cause they were actually
in that house for six days.

People were only seeing caril,
and she was acting all weird.

So when these bodies are
found, it's immediately...

"Charley probably did this"
and "where's caril Ann fugate?"

[Man on radio] Police are
seeking 19-year-old Charles r

starkweather of Lincoln
and the bartletts' daughter,

caril Ann.

Starkweather is believed to be
driving his 1949 black Ford with

a missing radiator grill.

Anyone spotting this car is
asked to contact the Lincoln

police department or your
nearest law enforcement agency.

Do not approach the suspect.

Ominous music

[woman vo] Charley was...

[Sighs]

Oh, I wanna say a weird kid.

[Man vo] He really
wanted to emulate James Dean.

He started combing his
hair in that fashion,

acting like that character.

All right, you asked
for it and you got it.

What is it?

Trouble.

He was quick to anger, he would
take something on the playground

and just literally [chuckling]
beating another kid to a pulp

and rubbing his face in the
gravel until he was bleeding

all over his face, and
then just walking away.

[Man vo] He was a violent cat.

He was filled with rage.

I mean, he hated everything.

The only thing Charley
starkweather liked was caril

fugate and guns.

There's a romantic true
crime, like a Bonnie and Clyde.

The romance was
at the key of it.

If it wasn't for caril's
parents saying "Charley,

you can't see our
daughter anymore."..

There wouldn't
have been, you know,

the starkweather murder spree.

Deep ominous music

at the bartlett house, it's
not until four o'clock in the

afternoon that the
bodies are found,

and by then, Charles and caril
are already down in Bennet.

It's January,
there's snow, dirt roads,

their car gets stuck.

[Charles on recording] We drove
into the drive and got stuck in

hard.

And we worked about two
hours, couldn't get it out.

Then, we walk up to
meyer's farmhouse.

I told him I wanted
him to pull me out,

and he said, "okay."

He walked into the house.

[Indistinct radio chatter]

[Man on radio] We have reports
of that vehicle matching the

description of
Charles starkweather's car.

[Tires screeching and siren]

[Man on radio] Nebraska highway
patrolmen and sheriff's deputies

have surrounded at Bennet
farmhouse of 79-year-old August

meyer, where 19-year-old Charles
starkweather and his female

companion, caril Ann
fugate, are believed inside.

[Man vo] Because August
meyer hadn't come and Charley is

missing, they came to
the conclusion "well,

Charley must be in there."

Threw gas bombs and
slowly went up to it,

and crashed into the house.

[Glass shattering]

And then found August
meyer's body dead there.

Been discovered near
his house outside Bennet,

Nebraska, 16 miles from Lincoln.

Authorities say the
victim, August meyer,

was killed by a shotgun blast.

And then again, it was like,

"okay, where's caril's body?"

'Cause they just kept
expecting to find her,

you know, dead somewhere.

Ominous music

[man vo] If you look at
starkweather's family,

they're not really
all that abnormal!

They had a number of
kids; They didn't do this.

I think the family did the best
they could with all of their

children, and the only one
that turned out really abnormal

was starkweather.

The other kids turned
out okay, basically.

[Glitching static]

Do you think something
just might have snapped?

I think something
may have snapped.

After the...

The first three, I would...

I didn't think much about them.

But after that, then I
thought that he had gone.

Was he... as pictured in many
of the news reports... a wild...

No.

He liked a good
fight, but that's...

Normal with boys, you know,
to get out and wrestle and...

But he took care of himself?

He would take care of himself;
He could take it and he could

dish it out.

[Film reel clicking]

Late 1950s america was
seemingly a very tranquil place,

but also, a lot of parents were
concerned about rock 'n' roll

music and, you
know, Elvis and...

In retrospect, it
all seems benign,

but it was
starting to happen then.

Moody ambient music

I believe with all of my heart
that it is a contributing factor

to our juvenile
delinquency of today.

I 100 percent believe it.

[Cheering]

Why I believe that is
because I know how it feels

when you say it.

I know what it does to you.

And I know of the evil feeling
that you feel when you sing it.

For a lot of people,
there was a sense that...

Things are going bad.

I would say, where "we are
pure and innocent and virginal"

became more part of a kind of
performative American story we

told about ourselves
and probably because...

We saw the ending coming.

And so when this little monster
appears... this little punk,

bowlegged red-headed
peckerwood appears

and kills people for
no reason... yikes!

Tense ambient music

[woman vo] He gave that
town a nervous breakdown.

I first heard about
it on the television.

You know, that
there was this murder.

[Man vo] This was the first
time that somebody who was

accused of murder was
being broadcast on television.

The press was all
over the place.

The local news station, they
literally had just gotten their

cameras in when this
murder spree began.

At the time when they first
started learning about these

murders happening, the
crew was looking over their

newly-acquired
cameras and going,

"okay, how do we
use this thing?"

You see it on the
news and they're going...

"We're all gonna die!"

You know, "they
can't catch this guy!

What are we gonna do?!"

Businesses closed,

people went and
took their kids out of school.

[Woman vo] It was very scary.

Starkweather was a garbage man,

and he was my mom
and dad's garbage man.

My dad had this '53 oldsmobile
that he liked really well.

Charles, he would come and talk
to my dad about it when he'd be

on the route, so my dad, that
was another reason he was kind

of afraid; He was afraid he'd
come there and get that car.

I remember him and my
grandfather getting their

guns out.

I'd never seen
anybody do that before.

Nebraska was genuinely
afraid... that is not overblown,

that is not exaggerated...

Because the police
are so far behind

in picking up on this
that everything that they're

learning is a couple hours...
Even a full day... behind the

killings that are taking place.

They were processing crime
scenes while a whole 'nother set

of bodies were being discovered.

[Charles on recording] I
was going to stay overnight.

I pulled into this field.

I got a feeling
something was wrong so...

I was going to get out.

I got stuck in.

We walk about four miles there.

As they're
walking, a car pulls up,

and inside are Bobby
Jensen and Carol king.

[Man vo] Jensen and king
represented the average high

school couple that were
in love, going together,

and probably on the
road to getting married.

[Charles on recording] And
these two people came in a

'54 Ford blue.

I told 'em to drive.

It turned out that the
most popular couple in Bennet,

Nebraska had just picked up the
two most wanted criminals in the

state of Nebraska.

Charley and caril
get in the car.

They ask Bobby Jensen
to turn over his wallet.

And at some point, starkweather
pulled the gun on him...

[Hammer clicks]

And drove them to that cave.

Romantic '50s pop music

[Charles on recording]
And I said for them to get out

of the car.

And they walk up to
the hole, as I said,

and begin to walk away.

Now, he come after me.

I didn't wanna shoot him or her.

Caril was listening
to the car radio.

[Gunshots]

[Male reporter
vo] Later that day,

searchers peered into an
abandoned storm cellar and

turned away sickened.

The bodies of king and Jensen
were found riddled with bullets.

Here was this
fresh-faced, innocent,

good-hearted,
good samaritan kids, right?

All-American, apple pie...

Accosted, at random, by
their dark evil twins.

[Man vo] Those pictures
are extremely graphic.

They're just...

Breathtakingly gruesome.

A lot of people
were just aghast.

Ominous ambient music

[man vo] I have
never seen the photos.

I have never even wanted to
read the descriptions of 'em.

[Man vo] Charley
did some gruesome,

gruesome things to Carol king.

[Charles on recording]
I pulled her jeans down,

but I didn't screw her.

I tried to but...

I couldn't get to the point; It
was colder than hell that night.

And sitting there
looking at her...

I left her there...

And left.

To get a bit graphic here, he
took a knife... after shooting

her, he took a knife and he
stabbed her up the vagina

multiple times, to the point
where it went halfway up her

torso.

[Woman vo] They had found
debris and sticks and rocks

and dirt that he had
inserted into her vagina.

That was just too
horrific to even contemplate

back then in the '50s.

It was so out of the normal
experience of people that you

just couldn't imagine that
something like that would happen

here in Lincoln.

[Man vo] There was a certain
"you can't make it up" fictional

quality to it.

It's the nice teenagers who were
trying to help out who get raped

and killed by the bad teenagers.

[Applause]

[Man vo] Friends...

Many people today do not really
understand our times because

they're too close to them.

Eerie ambient music

do we understand the
signs of our times?

What do they portend?

To know, we have
to have a standard.

And the outside standard...

Is god's way of judging things.

And I wonder what he
thinks of our times.

I think he would
weep at our times.

[Clears throat]

[Guy vo] I just
can't believe he did it.

[Male interviewer vo] You
can't believe he did it?

[Guy vo] Not as
gruesome as it was, no.

[Male interviewer vo] I think
you said something about Charley

acting differently
after, uh, he met caril.

Yes, he was different.

[Male interviewer] Changed boy.

Yeah, just a little bit changed.

Sparse eerie music

caril...

Just did not get
along with... with people.

That's just the way she was.

She looked like an
angry young lady...

And couldn't care
less about anybody else.

She looked like
she'd bit through a lot,

and I thought, "oh, wow, is
she a hard-lookin' broad..."

[Man vo] Caril
always wanted to be...

She wanted to be a star.

She wanted to be somebody.

[Woman vo] She wanted to
get away from her home.

He was gonna take
her away from that,

and that's why she
did what she did.

Tense music

[siren]

[Man vo] When
they're leaving Lincoln,

they stop at Tate's conoco
station 'cause he wants to have

his tired fixed.

While he's there in
the service station,

he sends her across to bricky's
caf and told her to buy some

hamburgers.

The waitress that waited on
her was named juanita bell.

[Juanita on recording] She
was coming toward the caf

rather rapidly.

As I gave her the hamburgers,
Charley gave her a $10 bill...

[Thunder rumbling]

Tense ambient music

in Nebraska, you get these
gigantic thunderstorms that

stretch out for miles.

So when I was a little kid, my
parents would help me feel a

little better about
it by telling me,

"count from when you see the
light to when you hear the

thunder and that's how you'll
know it's getting further and

further away."

You would see the
light, then it'd be like,

"okay, count with me.

One, two, three."

[Thunder rumbles]

[Woman vo]
[Whispering] Shh, it's okay.

Shh.

And then, it's like,
"okay, wait for the next one,"

and then the
light, and then "one,

two, three, four."

[Thunder rumbles]

[Woman vo]
[Whispering] It's going away.

"See?

It's going further
and further away.

You're safe."

This crime spree had been
like these thunderstorms;

it had been getting
further and further away.

People thought, "oh, it's
going out into the countryside.

Now, it's getting to Bennet.

Now, it's going beyond that.

It's no longer something
we have to deal with."

And then, it hits the
wards and it's just like...

The lightning storm has crashed
right into the middle of them.

[Thunder rumbles]

The wards lived in a country
club neighborhood of Lincoln.

They were well-to-do.

[Man vo] He was an
executive of the steel company.

[Man vo] The wards were
a very prominent family,

and they were tied into all of
the very prominent families of

Lincoln, very
well-known, very well-liked.

He was very big
and very powerful,

making a lot of money.

He had that big, huge packard,
which very few people had then.

I knew Mike
ward, their only son.

But the thing of it was
the last year of school,

he went to private school.

So when this all happened, he
thank god... wasn't home.

Tense ambient music

[man vo] So after killing
Robert Jensen and Carol king,

instead of going
further out of town,

they went back into Lincoln.

It was January in Nebraska,
it's freezing cold outside.

Cars at that time were not
exactly known for their good

heating.

So at a certain point,
Charley was just like,

"well, we have to
hole out somewhere."

So he drove along this winding
road right by the country club

where his garbage
route often was.

I picked out the one on 24.

There were two persons
there: A lady and her maid.

[Chuckles]

They about had dropped
dead when I said I was gonna

spend the day there.

They said they would be nice...

And nothing would happen
like calling the cops.

They were...

'Til about two that afternoon.

The one lady was upstairs.

Was there about 20 minutes.

I went on up to see her.

My grandmother was
in her nightgown.

She went upstairs, asked if
she could change her clothes.

Starkweather said she
took a shot at him...

But no bullet was ever found.

And then, he stabbed mrs ward.

[Woman vo] He told
caril to clean the knife,

and she did so.

Caril stood at the dining
room window waiting for my

grandfather to
come home from work.

He had stopped by the
governor's office and visited

with the governor.

[Woman vo] And when
she saw the headlights,

she yelled, "here he comes."

So when my grandfather came
in, he met starkweather and knew

exactly who he was facing,
because he had just been talking

about him with the governor.

[Siren]

[Male reporter] Police
chief Eugene masters.

Well, uh, chief masters,
can you tell us what you've

found inside this ward home?

I found the bodies of mr
and mrs ward and the maid,

uh, Lillian fencl.

Uh, mr ward's body was
laying inside the front door,

and mrs ward's body
was, uh, between,

uh, the beds in the south
bedroom on the second floor.

Uh, she was... her arms were
bound behind her and she had a

gag on her mouth.

And the maid, uh,
Lillian fencl, was in the,

uh... in the, uh,
northeast bedroom.

Her hands were bound in front
of her and her feet were bound,

and there was a
gag on her mouth.

Dark ambient music

[man vo] Both Clara ward and
her maid her stabbed multiple

times in very personal ways, and
what I mean by that is not just

simply stab-to-kill but
in very private areas,

in very aggressive ways.

[Woman vo] It was horrifying;
He kept stabbing her over and

over again.

[Man vo] When you
look at what he did,

he engaged in what's
called "overkill."

It's far beyond what is
necessary to commit the crime...

To kill the person.

Overkill shows an
enormous amount of inner rage.

The level of anger that
starkweather had goes right to

the core of his personality.

He was terribly, terribly
jealous of anybody who was

important or successful.

And he said
something interesting;

he said, "when you're
dead, everybody's equal."

That's how he saw it in his
mind: "If I kill this guy...

Look at him there; I'm
the one who killed him.

He's not such a
big-shot, look at me."

[Woman vo] Starkweather would
have these dreams of death.

And death was
nice, death was good,

death was nothing to fear.

[Thunder rumbles]

[Charles on recording]
She comes in a dream.

She told me,
"don't be in no hurry.

I won't let you forget."

One time, death comes to me with
a coffin and told me to get in.

Then, the coffin sailed away
with me in it 'til it come to a

big fire.

The coffin sorta... melted.

And I was down
there on the street,

with great flames of
fire on each side of me.

But it wasn't hot, like i'd
always thought hell would be.

[Thunder crashes]

It was more like...

Beautiful flames of gold.

And I woke up...

To see her standing
there in the window.

And all I could see would be the
part from... from the waist down.

It was kinda half
human and half bear,

only it didn't have no neck, it
didn't have no arms or no ears.

It was close and loud at first,

but it got further
and further away.

The sound became...

Mournful and sad 'til I
couldn't hear it no more.

[Thunder crashes]

For about a minute or two, I
couldn't move my arms or legs.

As I sat there in silence...

I said to myself that some
day, I'd pay them all back.

I wanted revenge
upon the world...

And this human race.

Tense ambient music

indications inside the ward
home would cause us to believe

that the girl is still
with, uh, starkweather,

or at least was still
with him in the ward home.

Uh, a jacket with the letters of
Bennet... presumably Bennet high

school and presumably a girl's
jacket were found inside the

house, and there are
other indications.

Law enforcement was initially
searching for Charley and

expecting to find caril's
body; They thought that she was

probably one of his victims,
that she was probably murdered

as well.

In the ward home, Elmer scheele
found Carol king's jacket left

behind.

Meanwhile, Clara
ward's jacket went missing.

And from that moment forward, it
went from being an investigation

of "what has Charley done?"

And looking for her body
to believing she was his

accomplice.

[Male reporter] What is the
next phase of the investigation

now, mr scheele?

Uh, autopsies are going to be
performed immediately on the

three bodies, which we hope
will definitely establish,

uh, information that will
assist us in the investigation.

When you look at the case, I
think it's important to point

out two men that
were on it from day one:

Sheriff merle karnopp...

And Lancaster county
attorney Elmer scheele.

Typically, people
think of a prosecutor,

they think only of the person
who's in charge of the trial,

but he got involved much
earlier and was involved in the

investigation.

[Man vo] Because of
the murder of the wards,

the police were
under mounting pressure.

[Chuckling] No society
will allow the equivalent of

poor people to go to the rich
side of town and kill the most

prominent citizens, especially
one that was having lunch with

the governor that day.

One can only imagine the
governor and everybody was

saying, "why are you
not getting these guys?

You're not doing your job."

Lancaster county officials have
just discovered the ninth body,

and sheriff merle karnopp,
what have you just done, sir?

Mayor Martin and I have made
an appeal for all adjoining

counties, including Omaha, to
send all available help they can

to Lincoln.

We want to cover
Lincoln block to block.

Energetic tense music

[man vo] When that happened,
the whole city just kind of went

into a frenzy.

The schools were shut down.

The governor called
out the national guard.

Radio and television
were blasting out all day long

bulletin, bulletin, bulletin.

People were in severe lockdown
I mean real lockdown... to

the point where you moved
furniture in front of the doors.

That kind of a
criminal murderer,

who doesn't follow
any sort of a method,

is really the most
difficult to do it.

I mean, who would have thought
they'd go from her family in one

part of town, then kill a
farmer who was in his 70s,

then a couple of
young teenagers,

then come back to Lincoln and
kill one of the most prominent

families in Lincoln?

And then, then
they just disappear.

[White noise glitching]

Dark tense music

[man vo] He had stolen
lauer ward's big packard.

They had travelled clear across
the state of Nebraska and well

into Wyoming.

For the ward vehicle
that they were in,

and so Charley decided,
"okay, we're gonna switch cars."

He sees somebody stopped
along the side of the road.

This is merle collison.

[Man vo] And this guy
refused to open the door.

So he shot the man
through the window.

[Gunshot]

Sides.

[Man vo] Caril's
still in the packard.

She sees a police car, but
the police car can't see what's

happening in the
middle of the road.

[Man vo] So that's when she got
out of the car and ran to the

deputy's car.

[Man vo] And when she jumped
into the police officer's car,

the police officer had no
idea what she was saying,

he just heard this
girl completely frantic,

couldn't tell
what she was saying,

finally just understood
the word "starkweather!"

And she pointed towards him.

[Man vo] Charley sees that
a police officer sees him,

and so he runs
back to the packard,

jumps in, and drives off.

We met him, uh, five
miles west of town,

and we turned around and
chased him back through town,

caught him three miles east.

[Man vo] The officer shot
through the back window and

nicked starkweather in the ear.

Starkweather started bleeding.

That apparently scared
starkweather enough that

starkweather pulled over
and stopped and got out.

[Male reporter] Chief, at the
time that he stopped and you

pulled up to the car, what
did you fellows say to him?

Well, we stopped about
100 yards back of him,

told him to get out
with his hands up.

He stepped out and
then leaned back in,

like maybe he was
reaching for a gun or something.

So I dropped a shot
at his feet then.

He then put his hands back
up, got about halfway up to us,

and then started
tucking his shirt tail in,

so we dropped
another shot at his feet.

[Gunshot]

He just stood there
and glared at us,

so we dropped
another shot at his feet.

[Gunshot]

He then laid down and put
his hands behind his back,

and we handcuffed him and
put him in the police car.

[Film reel ticking]

[Male reporter] What's been
his attitude since his arrest?

Well, he's been very quiet;
He won't answer no questions.

[Male reporter] Does he seem
like he's a mean teenager or a

mean fellow?

Well, he's a sullen type.

I wouldn't say that he was mean;

he didn't show
that as soon as...

He didn't have the best of it.

[Male reporter] Okay.

[Male reporter]
Caril, right here, right here!

[Overlapping shouting]

[Male reporter vo] Outlaw
Charles starkweather and his

girlfriend caril
fugate are both in custody,

riding separately in a convoy
of cars bound for Lincoln.

Sheriff merle karnopp will
ensure starkweather cannot

escape justice, while sheriff
karnopp's wife gertrude will

escort fugate.

[Woman on recording] Gertrude
drove her home with caril.

Caril's family was
a terrible family.

Her parents were divorced,
and then caril just hated her

stepdad and the little girl.

And gertrude said that she was
the fire and Charley was the

match.

When caril got in the car, she
was wearing mrs ward's coat.

[Camera snaps]

And she looked over
at gertrude and said,

"isn't this a nice coat?"

Gertrude just...

"Oh my god!"

You know?

"That was somebody I
knew who's been killed,

and this is her coat!"

[Film reel ticking]

This young girl who had
just watched her mother,

her little
half-sister, the ward family,

all these people who had
been really slaughtered...

And there was no
emotion there at all,

just sort of...

You know, phased out.

[Man vo] The nature of our
judgment could be something

like this.

We've fissioned out minds; We
called it "psychoanalysis."

Instead of using synthesis
to bring our minds to unity,

to bring them to god,
we've torn them down,

reduced ourselves to
the beast, to ids,

to libidos, and to subliminal
urgings that equate us with the

animals of the fields.

Ominous theme music

[male reporter vo] In
the cattle town of Douglas,

Wyoming, end of the trail
for a smart-Alec gunman,

a three-day spree until
Charles starkweather,

19, landed behind prison bars.

With him on his 600-mile reign
of terror was caril fugate.

[Male reporter vo] The sullen
teenager... with a certain

degree of pride...
Confessed to the murders.

[Male reporter vo] Nebraska
is extraditing the pair.

Suspenseful ambient music

[woman vo] This was the
biggest thing that ever hit

Lincoln, Nebraska.

It was just a circus, and
it was on TV every night.

The press were able to get this
onto the people's minds that

it's the new Bonnie and Clyde.

Starkweather looked bad.

We seem him walking around with
the sheriffs on each side of

him, has a cigarette dangling
out of his mouth and a black

leather coat.

I don't think he looked
too remorseful at all!

[Woman vo] He
was this celebrity.

He was quoted as saying, "i
always wanted to be an outlaw."

He loved that; He
loved the attention.

I think he truly felt like the
world was supposed to know the

name "Charley starkweather,"
and on some level,

he kind of realized, "the only
way I'm gonna get the fame that

I deserve is gonna come
in the form of infamy."

Eerie ambient music

Charles starkweather was one
the early patient zero versions

of "yeah, I'm going to express
my rage and kill a bunch of

people, and it'll
make me famous.

People will now
understand my story;

they're gonna read my story."

And it's one of those reasons
that this set of crimes and

these characters stayed
in the national memory.

[Woman vo]
Americans love outlaws;

we always have.

We love guns.

We love sexuality, romance.

And we love people who just say
"fuck you" to the establishment.

[Gunshots]

[Woman vo] It's an
American disease.

We love sex and we love violence
and we love young forbidden

romance.

It was a dramatic story, but
it wasn't one of those arcs.

You know, like "oh, they were
lovers and they were on the run,

and he killed everything in
sight because he just loved her

so much."

It was none of those things, and
so it doesn't fit into our myth,

and it needs to be
undressed and torn apart.

[White noise glitching]

[Woman vo] People can drag you
in to the point where you didn't

know that they were evil
when you first met them.

And it's scary; It's very scary.

I think that's what it was
with starkweather and caril.

[Man vo] There's a remarkable
photo of caril sitting on a cot

in the county jail.

Her expression is still
stone-cold and she looks angry.

But in that photo, she
looks like a teenager.

And she just looks tiny.

You could read it
10 different ways.

You can read it as guilty or
you can read it as innocent.

But the photo itself: To see
this little girl in this big

jail cell, and
she's all alone...

And it's over for her.

[Man vo] The interesting
thing about caril was her age.

She'd just turned 14.

Charley was 18.

That's a huge gap.

She was a eighth grader
at whittier junior high

at the time.

It was a pretty difficult
situation to be in if you're a

14-year-old... to be on a
killing spree with your

boyfriend.

So the question becomes "how
much did he just pull her along,

and she just did, you know, his
bidding because he was older?"

So first thing, when they
take her into custody...

The first thing she says
is "can I call my parents?

Where are my parents?"

Which is kind of a
curious thing to say.

Ominous music

[man vo] Wasn't she there?

Didn't she know
that they were dead?

Wasn't she
involved in killing them?

[Woman vo] How could she not
not have known her parents

were dead?

I could not imagine being holed
up in a house for five days

not knowing that
your parents are dead.

And I thought,
"this isn't right."

It just didn't stack up
from what I knew about...

Girls.

How culture has taught us to
obey and agree and just go along

with stuff.

It felt like there was
something wrong with the story.

[Metronome ticking]

[Sniffles]

[Weeps]

Eerie ambient music