Original subtitles

Ominous music

do you believe I'll only ask you those questions that have

been reviewed?

Yes.

Did starkweather threaten to kill your family if you didn't

accompany him in January of '58?

Yes.

Did you believe your family would be killed if you didn't

accompany him?

Yes.

This test is over.

Remain still for 10 seconds, please.

Suspenseful music

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]

It's nearly 13 minutes past the hour now.

Caril fugate was released on parole yesterday after serving

18 years of a life sentence for murder.

Miss fugate had accompanied mass killer Charles starkweather on a

murder rampage some years ago.

She was held in a state prison in Nebraska,

but under terms of her parole, she'll be able to start a new

life in Clinton county, Michigan.

Sensitive ambient music

[male reporter vo] All she wants now is to live quietly,

to get married and have a family.

Just an ordinary old dumpy housewife.

I would, that's all I want to be.

Caril wanted to live a different life... a normal life.

Everyone's friendly and she'll have a good life here...

And if she wants to, you know, start out...

A new future, I don't think she'd find a better place than

St. John's.

[Woman vo] After she got out of prison,

caril was a hospital orderly in Michigan.

She lived kind of a secluded life,

working at a hospital.

She got along well with everybody.

Caused some resentment, but it seems to be directed more

against newsmen for revealing those plans than against caril

for making them.

I was looking for a nanny, someone to come in evenings and

watch two girls.

And caril answered the ad.

She says, "I'm caril fugate, and I would like to meet your

girls."

When I tell my mother, she might have dropped the phone.

I mean, it got...

And I'm like, "mom?

Mom? [Laughing] Are you still there?"

She's like, "oh, oh my god!

Don't you know who that is?!"

She just kinda threw Charles starkweather's name out there,

and I'm thinking, "oh...

No, no way.

No way."

[Static]

Monday, July the 30th, and we're secretly planning caril's

birthday party.

[Woman] Here she comes.

[All] Surprise!

Happy birthday to you

happy birthday to you

happy birthday, dear caril

happy birthday to you

what a surprise!

Did you suspect somethin'?!

[Caril] No, I didn't!

Not a thing!

I couldn't believe it!

I thought, "well, gee, someone must have went

fishing, then."

[Laughter]

[Kathy Ross vo] We didn't even tell most of the family for a

while, because we know they would have said,

"are you crazy?"

[Laughing] You know, like, "you've gotta be insane!"

But you know what?

Everybody deserves a second chance.

I can't... [laughing] I really am so surprised.

[Laughter]

Aw, isn't that...

Isn't that darling?

[Gasps]

Who's this from?

Me.

From you?

[Laughs]

I love that...

[Kathy Ross vo] She was in her 40s when she started.

She would come right from the hospital where she worked,

but she had so much energy.

When she was in prison, she missed out on a lot.

She was, like, trying to do things that,

you know, she would have loved to have had the opportunity to

do.

She taught her to ride a bike...

Water balloon fights.

[Laughter]

Catch!

[Kathy Ross vo] We invited her to all our birthday parties.

Oh, it's everybody's birthday!

Hello!

[Danielle Ross vo] I mean, I just felt like she was like a

best friend to me and I was to her.

Oooh!

Boy, yum yum!

Let's put pounds on these hips.

Oh! [Chuckles]

Hey, my favorite.

One thing I've always noticed about caril is that she loved

children.

But she didn't want to bring children into this world herself

because there still were stories about caril.

If she had children, they would have to live with this legacy.

She'd never told me details of, like,

being with him, but she wanted to share a lot.

[Daniell Ross vo] As I grew older,

I found out more about her past.

She was 14 and...

He forced her to go with him.

She was kidnapped.

She was taken.

Now, my granddaughter's 14.

My oldest is 14.

[Danielle] Woo!

Hi, I'm riding my new first bike and it's pretty!

Woo!

Tender ambient music

once the media realized where she was living at,

I can't tell you how many people have wanted to talk to her or

get her story.

Dark music

she got off of work one time and the local media caught her in

the parking lot...

Put the lights on her and started to question her.

She went into a panic mode because...

She wanted to forget all that stuff.

Because for some reason, this captured the people's

imagination.

It seems like about once every three months or so,

there was a segment on Charley and caril.

People just treated her horrible at the hospital,

whispering and making comments.

There were certain people that would refuse to get in the

elevator with her.

This story just kept coming up and kept coming up and kept

being told over and over.

Even if you can just imagine what it'd be like having gone

through such a horrible traumatic event,

(and a) Nobody believes you, and b) They're saying that you're

guilty, that you were one of the reasons why all of this horrible

stuff happened.

I think she's guilty.

I'm pretty convinced that she is guilty.

I think she's guilty.

Well, I think she was guilty.

She was right along with him; I'm sure of that.

[Man vo] I think caril has always been concerned about the

narrative, that it's going to last long beyond her.

She wanted people to believe her,

that what she was saying was the truth,

and so she wanted at least the facts to come out and for people

to see what really the truth was.

I'm f Lee Bailey, your host on 'lie detector.'

if you've been falsely accused and would like to take a lie

detector test on national television,

call me on our hotline: 1-800-lie-test.

[Static]

[Man vo] F Lee Bailey had started this show on which he

invited people who thought they had been wrongly convicted to

come on 'lie detector test.'

caril had refused many, many, many interviews.

She thought if she could pass this lie detector test,

it would actually show the world that she was innocent and give

her credibility.

She decided to go on sort of this truth tour,

if you will, trying publicly to show everybody,

"look, I'm innocent, I didn't do these things that you think that

I did."

Energetic '80s theme music

[male announcer vo] With almost half her life spent behind bars,

caril fugate wants to prove once and for all that she was not

Charles starkweather's willing accomplice in the Nebraska

killings, but instead, a frightened and threatened

hostage.

Caril, you are presenting us with an extremely difficult

issue on the polygraph.

Let me explain to you: We're willing to try...

To develop the fact that you believe...

Or did believe... You now, of course,

know much better...

[Caril] Yes.

At the time that you went with him...

[Caril] Right.

[Bailey] That your parents were still alive,

number one...

That you had nothing to do with their death,

number two, and number three, if it hadn't been for his threat to

kill them, you would have somehow escaped,

disassociated yourself from him.

Right, absolutely.

We'll take a crack at whether or not you knew your parents

were dead when you went off on this trip.

Okay.

Ominous music

did starkweather threaten to kill your family if you didn't

accompany him in January of '58?

Yes.

Did you know your family had already been killed when Charles

asked you to go with him in January of '58?

No.

As you can see, we're getting no reaction whatsoever in the

galvanic skin response.

Notice the cardio pattern; Nothing at all there.

Based on all of these charts that we conducted during this

examination, it appears to me that you didn't know your

parents had been killed when you started off with starkweather.

I wanna tell you, caril, i'm pretty convinced that there was

enough there, I think, to say that that probably is what

happened.

Thank you.

[Bailey] All right.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for being with us on the program.

We'll be back right after this.

Teen caril Ann fugate was convicted as starkweather's

accomplice.

During an appearance on f Lee Bailey's syndicated 'lie

detector' program, fugate said she was a helpless hostage who

did not know her family was dead from the start.

The polygraph agreed.

The lights are kinda bright.

I really can't see you all.

Um...

The reason I asked you to come was because there had been many

phone calls made to the place of my employment.

As far as, uh, going on 'lie detector test, '

um, I feel that, uh...

The injustice that was done to me 25 years ago...

Has been rectified.

I feel personally that I have been vindicated.

At that time, I said, "some day, you're going to find out that

you've made a mistake."

And I feel, with the help of 'lie detector, '

that this has been proven.

Uh, it had been in the news.

This is what... this is basically what prompted it.

Uh...

You know I had eluded the, uh, medium and I had refused to talk

to 'em, and this thing of sorts, because,

see, I know...

[Chuckles] I know what the press can do.

I feel free.

I feel free.

I really do.

I was, um, free physically, but...

Well, you can't know what it's like...

To know that you're... You're a person in history,

and everyone hates you.

They hate you!

And knowing...

Knowing you were a victim, and to have the hate...

And the maliciousness...

And... and...

It's... it's like being in an iron grip.

[Male reporter vo] At his home in Lincoln,

retired police detective Bob sodden disagrees with the

sympathetic portrayal of fugate as a frightened,

innocent hostage.

Only time she put on an Oscar-winning performance was in

Douglas, Wyoming, when she knew the jig was up and she broke and

ran for the deputy sheriff there.

Before that, she was high on the hog,

she was doing good, you know.

It was Bonnie and Clyde all over again.

Hey, boy!

What you doin' with my mama's car?

[Murley vo] There are really strong correlations to be drawn

between Bonnie Parker and caril fugate.

They were both from the west and the midwest of america.

So strongly a part of the American identity.

Good afternoon, this is the barrow gang.

The story was typically portrayed as a 1950s version of

the Bonnie and Clyde story.

This is a very different story.

This isn't a legend, this isn't romance,

this was horror, this was terror.

Dark music

[murley vo] It would have been a different story if Charles

starkweather had acted alone.

But it's not a good story unless they are lovers who are so

committed to...

Individualism...

And freedom...

And just doing whatever the fuck they want.

Look, I don't want you to worry about nothing.

[Murley vo] Americans love that.

Did I ever tell you that this here jacket represents a symbol

of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom?!

About 50,000 times.

Those characteristics have to be part of the story that gets

told about caril fugate, otherwise it's not appealing.

Nobody really wants to know about a 14-year-old girl being

raped and forced to partake in a murder spree;

that's a horrible story.

Dramatic music

mellow jazzy music

[johnston vo] There's a French term: "Folie deux."

If two people who might not commit crimes separately,

but when they come in contact with each other,

they become sort of this one entity and do things that they

would never normally do, and I think that's probably true with

them.

[Siren]

[Charles vo] I done it, caril Ann.

I killed a man.

I swear, with god as my witness, the only reason I did that was

for you.

[Johnston vo] I do enough research that I do feel like I

know the characters and I know the story.

Read two or three books, found some documentaries.

And I try to be...

Respectful for, perhaps, the victims.

I figure if you've been convicted of your crimes,

then you no longer really deserve of respect.

Narrative can be so powerful in making us think we understand

reality clearly.

Caril Ann, let me inside and let me talk to your mom and

stepdaddy.

No, the flu.

[Anderson vo] Having an older actress play a character

inspired by caril Ann fugate in these films makes her seem more

guilty.

Get in there.

[Giggles]

True crime, as a genre, shows us the dark side of who we are.

You have a story with multiple murders,

quite-shocking, rather-cinematic figures in Charles and caril

that have been duplicated on a fictional level multiple times.

It's a fascination for the public.

But caril was a different story, and that,

to me, was what was truly fascinating.

Eerie music

in college, I was a huge Bruce Springsteen fan,

and one of my favorite albums was 'Nebraska, '

and the first track was all about Charles starkweather and

caril Ann fugate.

So many years passed, I ended up at a show called 'a current

affair.'

I started digging and I found out that caril Ann fugate was

alive and well in Lansing, Michigan.

And I tracked her down.

And my first show ever produced was a show about the

starkweather murders.

Spacey theme music

this was caril Ann fugate age 14,

30 years ago.

And this is caril Ann today.

I mean, an entire state was terrified.

But my god...

He had me in his clutches.

[Larkin vo] When we were out there...

She was in good spirits, and we walked around and we saw her

house.

I remember she had this parakeet that she was quite close to and

affectionate towards.

She was quite worried about how people were gonna perceive her,

what our spin was gonna be.

But I think she really wanted to get things off her chest about

this experience from her life.

It had not been properly exorcised.

I was not a Bonnie and Clyde having fun,

as it was depicted.

His words were to me...

"If I can't have you, I'm going to make sure that no man ever

has you."

And that's one prophecy that he has seen to.

While she had built this quite...

Solid life for herself over the years since the incident,

it was all still right there on the surface.

[Caril vo] I... I feel cheated.

I feel cheated, yeah.

But see, I'm not gonna... I'm not gonna let the little green rage

monster destroy, you know, what I have left of my life.

I'm not gonna do it.

Next three decades was one which claimed that caril calmly

watched television while starkweather murdered her

family.

I sat and watched television?

While he rammed a gun down my sister's throat?

And I'm going...

[Crying] "What is this?

And how do they have the right...

To put something like this in a book when it's not true?"

It's not true!

[Cries]

I'm sorry.

[Crying] It's just so...

Painful.

She was discouraged that she wasn't getting through to

people, but she kept trying.

She wouldn't accept that they wouldn't change their minds

about her.

It's emotional for me that people have always been so mean

and hateful.

For decades, I feel like, she tried to prove her innocence.

Just no one believed her.

And then, they'd come out with a movie or something...

It would resurface; Every so many years,

it seems like it would all be brought up again and...

She would just kind of, "oh, well,

here we go again."

The deadly woman you voted number nine has entered American

folklore as our most famous case of teen rebellion gone wrong.

[Camera flashes]

[Male announcer vo] They're the world's most infamous serial

killers.

[Female announcer vo] Caril fugate.

[Female announcer vo] Caril fugate.

[Male announcer vo] Her name was... caril Ann fugate.

Tense ambient music

the off-the-charts popularity of true crime speaks to our fear

that's very real, in some ways.

Here is a genre that narrates the dark sides of our lives.

It allows us to make sense of the senseless.

There's no other genre that does that.

[Male narrator vo] He discovered Janice at the bottom

of the stairs.

There were two victims, and three more women were missing.

[Woman vo] The pocketbook was found right near where another

murdered woman had been found.

[Murley vo] For women, we see ourselves in true crime,

for better or for worse.

[Girl] I can't leave the house right now.

What's wrong? Is somebody there?

[Girl] Yeah.

[Murley vo] We get to hear about domestic violence...

And sexual assault...

That many of us experience.

And for centuries, we've been told,

"it's all in your head.

It's not that bad."

[Man vo] And then, she disappeared.

True crime, for women, is a kind of a collective "what the

fuck?

What is actually happening that we are murdered,

raped, abducted, tortured, thrown away in ditches,

buried in shallow graves en mass in this country?"

We are not imagining it.

I was in my late 40s when my Rose-colored glasses literally

fell off.

Sensitive ambient music

when I was practicing law, my boss,

he was sexually obsessed with me,

and if he couldn't get me, he was going to ruin my career,

and he did!

I had a complete breakdown over that.

I was pretty vulnerable.

And really, that's what drew me into caril's story.

The dread...

And the darkness you've gotta live with.

That's when it hit me: I have to show her innocence...

And I'm going to use my legal skills to show it.

I never looked back.

Something inside of me was saying,

"keep going, keep going, keep going.

You've gotta write this book."

I had to be very consistent with what I was writing.

I wanted this to be the complete truth of what happened.

It was very in-depth analysis of both trials.

And caril called me.

She called me in my office.

I closed the door.

We were on the phone for over two hours.

I told her, "maybe one day, we could get you a pardon."

And she goes, "you know, here's what I want the book to do.

I want that book to convince one person who thought I was guilty

that I'm innocent.

Just one person, and that book will be a success in my eyes.

Dark music

[ward vo] When I was a child, I'd just never sleep.

I couldn't settle, and I still can't.

When I was five, we had grandparents day at school,

and I wondered where my father's parents were.

[Man speaking indistinctly]

And my parents told me that they had died in their sleep,

so I was afraid to sleep.

Eventually, they told me that my grandparents were killed by a

very bad man.

I asked him name and I knew that his name was "starkweather."

Her story was something I dug out of...

Little bits of television shows or movies.

I found a book in a library called 'starkweather.'

and I read it over and over again.

And there she was.

Caril was the last person to see my grandparents alive,

and I feel like if I looked in her eyes,

I could tell whether she was culpable and see into the past.

The night is a long...

Piece of time.

[Chuckles]

[Indistinct overlapping voices]

Dark theme music

it was a murder spree straight from the heartland.

And america would soon come face-to-face with two of its own

children: Charles starkweather and caril Ann fugate.

Delicate piano music

caril fugate agreed to interviewed for this program.

What he told me was that...

If I did not do as he said, then he would make one phone call and

they would be dead.

[Male reporter vo] She then has to tell her story under

hypnosis.

Ominous music

now, caril says...

"I wanted to know the truth for myself."

[Clock and metronome ticking]

I wanted to know if maybe there was some repressed memory."

That was kind of a big thing at that time.

And she says, "if I find out that I did something...

I'll kill myself."

You've been telling the truth."

She says, "James, I had a bunch of copies of that recording

made.

And I sent them to everybody involved.

The county attorney, the judges, the police.

I'm asking for understanding.

It's in this packet; Everything I'm saying is in here.

I think it's something that the public deserves to see and hear.

She got a Lincoln, Nebraska phonebook and went down the

phonebook and started randomly sending them to anybody...

Whoever she got in the phonebook.

I know that caused quite a stir.

I think maybe it's time that we let starkweather die and Bury

him...

And let me get on with my life.

Dramatic music

[gun cocks]

What are you doing back?

[Charles] Where's your husband?

What do you think you're doing?!

[Smack]

[Groans]

Marion!

[Baby cries]

[Gunshot]

[Gun cocks]

[Gunshot]

[Larkin vo] When I had gotten out to la in the early '90s,

I had brought this project to abc.

I had never really pitched anything before,

and I literally spoke about the entire story to this particular

executive, and the project was bought in the room.

It became a four-hour miniseries.

Speed rolling.

[Man] Speeding sound.

[Man through megaphone] Background action.

We had enormous amount of research.

[Larkin vo] We could take a stance of just tackling it

head-on, almost as a documentary in some respects.

[O'Hara vo] We were able to pretty much copy the costumes

down to the socks.

[James mcarthur vo] Mike Larkin asked me to be the technical

advisor on the film.

I got caril on the phone and she seemed to be relieved.

I was there on the set every day,

working with the director...

Specifically to make sure every last inch of that miniseries was

truthful.

What has happened here is we have now left 1957.

[Man] Yes.

And we are moving into 1958, so I'm changing out this license

plate to 1958.

Uplifting ambient music

there was no reason to take huge creative liberties because,

uh...

Truth is stranger than fiction.

[Gunshot, scream]

Starkweather's story changed something along the lines of

eight, nine times by the time he was put to death.

[Groaning]

Somebody help me!

[Larkin vo] But caril's story remained the same to this day,

all of these years later.

It's never changed.

Didn't you go out with Charley starkweather for quite a while?

[Both carils] Yes, I went with him the year before,

and then I told him that I never wanted to see him again.

Why didn't you wanna go with him anymore?

[Both carils] Because he was crazy.

Ominous music

[Larkin vo] It was important that we laid the facts out and

let the audience have this experience for themselves.

But then, a critic for the Washington post described it as

"violence porn."

He accused us of turning Charley starkweather into a folk hero.

And the next thing you know, starkweather became the poster

boy for violence on television.

We had a firestorm of controversy.

There have been thousands of studies of television violence

and most come to the same conclusion: That the violence on

the small screen does have a big impact on violence in the

streets.

A senate subcommittee meets today to listen to complaints

about excessive violence in television programming.

'Murder in the heartland.'

Washington post reports that a 18-year-old Canadian saw it and

repeated the murders in the same way that he saw on that movie.

The charge was led by Paul Simon.

He was a very theatrical guy with a bowtie,

so it was great theater for him.

This is a serious problem in the minds of those of us in

congress.

Abc surrendered immediately.

You know, there's been some comment about 'murder in the

heartland.'

I mean, we tried do... you know, we tried to do the best job we

could on it, we thought is was a good idea,

obviously, at the time.

But I would certainly hope that by next may,

that we would have less violence in our may sweeps.

I mean, they basically just went on their knees and begged

for forgiveness.

All the advertisers dropped out.

And abc had to run four hours of hemorrhoid commercials to fill

in the space.

Preparation h actually helps shrink swelling of hemorrhoidal

tissues caused by inflammation.

I'll try it.

There were people who felt we shouldn't have told the story

because we kept it alive, and they didn't want it kept alive,

they wanted it buried, they didn't want to talk about it,

they never wanted to hear about it again.

We had real problems [chuckling] coming out of Lincoln,

Nebraska over it.

[Radio tuning]

[Man on radio] Broadcasting from Lincoln,

Nebraska, 1400 klin.

I am John Stevens Berry, reminding you...

The torch burns...

The flame endures...

The human spirit will prevail.

In the '90s, caril fugate's pardon was in the news,

so I invited Jim mcarthur on the show.

I said, "let's talk about the pardon hearing."

Of course, Steve has known this case from the very beginning,

and I told him, before he started,

I said, "you're gonna find even now..." And this is 35 years

after the incident, but I said, "you're gonna find a lot of

pent-up anger at caril."

[James mcarthur vo] We were talking along there and got one

call...

"Caril fugate is calling."

So of course, he put her through right away.

Now, that took me by surprise that she would do that.

I hadn't expected to have her on.

And I was startled.

So we ran through commercials,

and we ran through a sports show...

That was supposed to follow.

There were so many calls of people who supported her.

[Berry vo] The most satisfying moment is when you can bring the

truth to light, and here it was: The truth.

Tender ambient music

different people calling from different places...

Witnesses for caril...

Who got to speak out.

[Berry vo] People use the metaphor of a blade of grass

growing through concrete.

Sometimes, that will happen, and the blade of grass,

which was the truth, emerged, and I was shaken.

It changed my life.

At the moment of that radio show,

I began wondering what I could do to right that wrong,

to bring justice.

Tender ambient music

[Kathy Ross vo] I remember her being so excited to tell me that

she met him at the casino.

They just hit it off.

And she was just... Just like a young girl,

you know, in love.

Caril and Freddy, it was one of the happiest times of her life.

Asked all my brothers and me to gather.

He said he was gonna get married,

but there was a story he had to tell.

And caril was there.

And I said, "well, you're caril fugate.

You were involved in the Nebraska murders...

With Charles starkweather."

It was hard for her to even talk about it 'cause she didn't know

how we were gonna react, and trust me,

every word that ever came out of her mouth,

I questioned.

[Typing]

I got on the computer and started digging everything up.

[Chuckling] Probably stayed up 'til three,

four o'clock in the morning googling,

and I must have went through 500 pages of Google searches to find

everything.

I'm thinking, "wow, what's my dad getting into?"

They seemed to be good for one another,

and, you know, I accepted it.

Mellow jovial music

my dad had a camper and they went all over the United States

together.

For her, because she's never been cared for.

There's no doubt in my mind that it was the best years of her

life.

But it didn't last.

Dark music

they were going to the gambling casino up in Michigan... to

battle creek.

And they were going 79 miles an hour when my dad fell asleep.

[Tires screeching]

And he hit a mile marker.

And it flipped the truck over in mid-air...

And it came down and smashed the top.

[Sirens and police radio chatter]

Caril broke a lot of bones in her...

One leg and her...

Wrist and her arm.

Seven ribs, she broke.

But, uh...

Miraculously, she survived.

But, um, my dad didn't make it.

The accident and the headlines were just...

I just couldn't believe it.

Dark music

[Clair vo] When I went to the hospital,

the local news was there.

They said, "are you tommie Clair?

Did caril kill your dad?"

That was the first words out of their mouth!

You wanna see me get angry and mad,

and say a few cuss words?

I did!

[Danielle Ross vo] And then I remember seeing comments.

These comments are just, like, horrific.

Just that she should have... She should have been murdered,

she should have died, she should have got the death penalty.

[Kathy Ross vo] You know, "I wonder...

What part she played in this?

Was she driving?

Do you think she grabbed the steering wheel?"

Why would people even think this?!

[Danielle Ross vo] Just hate, hate, hate.

We cleaned up the house and got it all nice and put new carpet

in, bought some new furniture, tried to make it...

Her house, you know?

And, um...

We found pictures of my dad and we put them up and stuff.

And she'd just break down and cry.

[Kathy Ross vo] She lost him and then she had a stroke.

We went to see her about three years ago.

Wasn't she writing on a...

Mm-hm.

Chalkboard?

She was.

She was just in a huge state of depression.

She said to me, "i don't know why...

God didn't let me die then."

And then she said... And I always tell her,

"it's not your time to die.

This is not your time."

[Kathy Ross vo] She used to talk fast.

Very fast.

Very fast.

So fast, you were like, "whoa, slow down."

You had to say, "slow down, wait, what?

[Chuckles]

Tell me that again."

'Cause she was so full energy and bubbly,

and then to see her like that...

She was trying so hard...

To talk to us and reminisce, and she just couldn't.

Sad ambient music

and she would be trying to say one word,

and it would take her several minutes.

And we were struggling to understand her.

So I had to read Linda battisti's book to her.

And it would get to parts where, ah,

she'd break down.

I mean, I'm sitting right beside her and she's breaking down,

and she's saying, "yes, this is true.

Yes, this is true."

It was so hard for her to even reconcile what happened.

And there's parts in the book of... where somebody's getting

murdered, and she says, "no, it was even worse than that."

You know, um...

The horror was even worse than the book described.

[Ward vo] My grandparents were murdered.

I can see very well what my father had been hiding from.

I had figured out, by going through trial transcripts,

court documents, by reading 'the twelfth victim.'..

That the story was much more complicated.

Maybe you could talk a little bit or tell me what it was

like...

When you found out... what happened...

At the house.

I just wish it would all go away.

It's hard to be discussing this.

I stayed away most of the time.

I remember all the newspaper people at the cemetery,

climbing up on...

[Sighs]

Tombstones to get pictures of me.

They were like parasites...

At the time when...

You were burying your parents.

That was awful.

[Liza ward] When I asked about what happened to my

grandparents, I remember you just told me that they were

killed by a bad man.

Dark music

I don't think there was any mention of an accomplice or

anything.

I see caril fugate as not culpable,

and I know that that has been probably really difficult

for you.

I remember you saying, "well, she was there and there's guilt

by association.

Well, I...

Yeah, well, that's the way I feel.

And she did nothing to stop it.

[Michael ward] Yes.

Sometimes, you burn with a hard,

gem-like flame on a subject, and this became one of those

subjects for a lot of people.

Of pardons.

I met Steve Berry,

and he asked me if I would write a letter...

In petition for caril's pardon.

I was applying for a complete pardon,

a complete and full pardon.

[Liza ward vo] I felt like it was really a betrayal of my

father.

But when I asked him, he said, "I can never go there,

but if you're going to write a letter for the pardons board,

just make sure that it's good."

The caril fugate pardon...

Ties into the right of effective assistance of counsel,

and it ties into juvenile law.

If this case was tried now, it would be...

It wouldn't even look nearly the same.

It wouldn't look anywhere close to the same.

[Berry] Yeah.

[Berry vo] I talked to caril the night before the hearing.

I said we'd do the best we could.

She said she would pray for me.

I thanked her.

Tense dark music

I had descendants of victims not just Liza but other

descendants of victims in the hearing room...

Who wanted caril pardoned.

I would say 15 seconds.

[Man] Caril Ann Clair, formerly known as caril Ann fugate.

Ms Clair gave as a reason for her request for a pardon is:

"The idea that my posterity has been made to believe that I knew

about and/or witnessed the death of my beloved family and left

with starkweather willingly on a murder spree is too much for me

to bear anymore.

Receiving a pardon may somehow alleviate this terrible burden."

There have been seven different state or federal court opinions

on the case.

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

All towards this case.

But I think it's important, as you look to the purpose of her

request, to understand that that's not the role of the

pardons board.

So for that reason...

[Berry vo] That was an act of political cowardice.

It was a disgrace.

And then, they said, "well, she was listed as having been

convicted of first-degree murder!"

This was wrong.

And I said, "could I at least correct the record as to what

she was convicted of?"

[Berry] May I offer a correction of the record, please, sir?

No, you may not.

You may not.

Governor ricketts very bravely shook his ballpoint pen at me.

That is not part... please wait until the public comment period

and you can talk then, but you may not comment now.

And he said, "no!"

I try not to criticize my colleagues,

but no witnesses were allowed,

no testimony was really taken.

That was something I was not used to.

[Chuckles] I was, frankly, disappointed.

I'm gonna tell you something: People who want to blame caril

fugate for what starkweather did,

why don't you go out and put flowers on starkweather's grave!

Now, I know that someone from the governor's office said,

"well, we've heard the last of this."

Well, I don't think so.

Tender ethereal music

[Liza ward vo] Caril, she'd been living this for so long

that she also had become the story.

Who else was she?

What had happened to her?

And she was lying in a hospital bed,

holding her little dog and watching crime shows.

[Man on TV] The last Cheryl Chapman saw her sister alive...

[Liza ward vo] And I said, "you know, i'm...

The granddaughter of Clara and lauer ward."

It sank in and she just...

Dissolved into fits of sobbing.

And I...

Said, "I didn't come here to upset you,

I came here to tell you that I believe you."

And I hugged her.

"I just want to know why we always go along with him.

Why do we go along with him?

When there were no bars, and there were [chuckling] no locks,

and there was no reason why...

You had to say yes.

Why have we learned to do that?"

And she just started to weep and cry.

Betty Jean...

[Sighs]

From 1955 to 1958.

Velda m, 1921 to January 25th, 1958.

So sad that one man can do so much damage.

And her little Betty Jean.

She wants to be buried right there with her mom when

she dies.

I lost my family too.

I've wondered...

Why I was the one that, uh...

Only survived.

It's something that will always be with me,

it's something that I'll always carry with me,

and, uh...

I've learned to... accept it...

And it lives in the back of my mind.

It's behind a little door.

And right now, um, the past is over with.

There's nothing I can do; I can't change it.

Tomorrow, and my future.

There's no way to go back.