‘It’s about more than just a crime’: what if a teen killer was actually a victim?

The name Caril Ann Fugate might not ring a bell, but she probably lives somewhere in the recesses of your mind. Fugate was half of the teenage couple that set off on a murder spree in 1958, tearing across Nebraska and Wyoming and taking the lives of 11 victims, Fugate’s mother, stepfather, and younger half-sister included. The story captivated the American public, and became a meme before there were memes. Were it not for Fugate, who was 14, and Charles Starkweather, an 18-year-old high school dropout who cultivated a James Dean-ish mien, it’s likely there would be no Badlands or Natural Born Killers. The title track of Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska is sung from Starkweather’s point