Infamous America - CHARLES STARKWEATHER Ep. 3 | “Victim Number Five”

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

Charles and Caril try to hide on a farm outside Lincoln, Nebraska, but the attempt goes tragically wrong. Back in Lincoln, friends and family members discover the grisly murders at Caril’s home. Law enforcement begins the manhunt, but they’re a step behind. Charles and Caril have already met their next victims. Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join Apple users join Noiser+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. On YouTube, subscribe to INFAMOUS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons. Hit “JOIN” on the Infamous America YouTube homepage.  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm4V_wVD7N1gEB045t7-V0w/featured For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Warning. This series contains scenes of graphic violence that may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. By the morning of January 22nd, 1958, Charles Starkweather had the blood of four dead citizens of Lincoln, Nebraska on his hands. There had been the service station attendant. a husband and soon to be father. Charles had robbed him,

then drove him to a dirt road beyond the reach of the downtown lights, and killed him with a shotgun. Then there had been the family at 924 Belmont Avenue, a working-class husband who was a night watchman in a trucking company, and a housewife who was the mother of three children and their two-year-old daughter. He had killed him in their own home. The killings on Belmont were far more personal than the murder of the gas station attendant. The family was that of Charles' girlfriend, Carol Ann Fugate.

Charles was 19 in early 1958, and Carol was just 14. He was a listless young man who identified with the rebels and outlaws he read about in comics and watched at the movies. He was the bullied kid who grew up to be a bully. Charles had a stutter, walked with bow legs, and would fight anyone who mentioned them. To him, Carol was an angel who didn't just forget. give his shortcomings, but adored them. Circumstance, their families, and their combustible natures had threatened to pull them apart.

Charles Starkweather wasn't going to let that happen. As the sun rose on Wednesday the 22nd, Charles' deeds were unknown to the public and the police. He and Carol were living in the house where her family had been murdered. The couple watched TV, ate junk food, and lived in denial of the three bodies that were stashed in the backyard. But soon, the names Charles Starkweather and Carol Fugate would be on the lips of every Nebraska. The killers would skip town, leaving the good people of the capital city in the grips of terrified hysteria. Law enforcement would race against the clock to track down the two teenagers before they could kill again. The entire state of Nebraska was held hostage as they all wondered who would be the next victims.

It wouldn't take long to find out. From Black Barrow 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 three. Victim number five. Charles Starkweather would go to his grave,

swearing that Carol was a willing participant in the murders of her family members. She had tried to shoot her mother, Velda. She had called Charles to finish off her stepfather, Marion, after Marion had been shot but didn't die, and she herself had killed her two-year-old half-sister Betty Jean. But Carol had a much different version of what happened that day. In her version, she arrived home from school on Tuesday, January 21st, 1958, to a quiet house. It was empty, except for the boy she claimed to have dumped two days earlier.

Charles had become more controlling and violently jealous. Once he had stormed onto her school bus, pulled her out of her seat, and dragged her off the bus. He had been watching her outside her school and hadn't liked the way she was talking to one of the boys in her class. Even as he became more scary, he had never threatened her or her family. But this day was different. Carol claimed she entered her house that afternoon through the back door, not the front door, as Charles said. When Carol walked into the kitchen, there was a rifle on the table next to a pistol. Charles was sitting on the couch with a hacksaw, cutting the end off of her father's 4-10 shotgun.

Charles was antsy. He was agitated. He said he had her family. They were alive and safe, but if she didn't do exactly what he said, the people who were holding them would kill her mother, her stepfather, and her baby half-sister. According to Charles, Carol couldn't stand her stepfather. She resented her stepmother for marrying him, and she hated her needy. crying half-sister. According to Carol, her mother was a saint for leaving her abusive biological

father. Her stepdad was strict but caring, and two-year-old Betty Jean was adorable. The full truth will remain elusive, but at least one fact is undisputed. Carol's mother, stepfather, and half-sister were killed in her house. They had been shot, stabbed, and beaten. If Carol arrived home from school that afternoon and saw no trace of the incredible violence that had happened, then Charles must have been a world-class cleaner who had removed every speck of blood in record time. And he must have been a world-class liar for Carol to have believed the story that Charles and some mysterious accomplices were holding her family hostage. In reality, the body of Carol's stepfather was stuffed into a chicken coop in the backyard. The bodies of her

mother and half-sister were shoved into an old outhouse. And inside the house, Charles and Carol spent several days just hanging out. Charles made daily trips to a nearby market where he bought snacks and Pepsi. He eavesdropped on the other customers and listened for anything that might sound suspicious. Thus far, he heard nothing out of the ordinary. When he returned to the house, he and Carol watched reruns and westerns on TV. But the clock was ticking. They couldn't sit around indefinitely without people asking questions. On the day of the murders, Charles had called the trucking company where Carol's stepfather Marion worked. Charles had said Marion and his whole family was sick. Marion would be absent from work until they all felt better. The scheme worked,

but it couldn't last forever. And sooner or later, Carol would be missed, and so would her mother, And the first tense moment came on Wednesday, the day after the murders, when Carol stopped going to school. The morning after the murders, there was a knock on the door of Carol's house. Carol and her friend often walked to school together, and the friend was stopping by on the way to school. Carol answered the door and told her friend she wasn't feeling well and was staying home. The same scenario played out the following day, Thursday. The friend didn't come back on Friday. Then a woman from the neighborhood had called from the street and asked if they had any extra eggs to sell.

Carol had told her everyone in the family was sick, too sick to check the chicken coop. Then someone from Marion's job came by, but Charles and Carol just ignored the knocks and shouts. It wasn't until the weekend rolled around that the soon-to-be fugitives could no longer ignore visitors to the house. Around lunchtime on Saturday, January 25th, Carol's older. sister Barbara and Barbara's husband Bob von Bush came to the house. It was a small world in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Barbara and Bob were the reason Charles and Carol had met. Bob was one of Charles's only friends. Bob started dating Barbara, and the young couple suggested Charles and Carol come along for a double date. Charles and Carol were instantly attracted to each other and had become

inseparable for a good part of 1957. Now in late January of 1958, Bob and Barbara were married and had a newborn baby. Earlier in the month, they had hosted a party to celebrate the arrival of the newest member of the family. And now, Bob, Barbara, and their baby were stopping by the house to show the pictures from the party to Barbara's mother. Carol answered the door and turned them away. She said everyone in the house was sick. It would be a horrible idea to bring her newborn niece inside. Bob and Barbara left, but they were skeptical. They wondered why they didn't hear two-year-old Betty Jean crying. If the little girl was sick, she would probably be crying. And Bob wondered about his friend Charles. Bob called Charles's older brother Rodney. Rodney

explained everything he knew. He had loaned his 22-calibre rifle to Charles. He had loaned his 22-calibre to Charles because Charles said he was going to go hunting with Carol's stepfather. That sounded strange to Rodney and Bob. They knew that Carol's stepfather hated Charles. It was highly unlikely that Marion would invite Charles on a hunting trip. But Rodney had given the rifle to Charles nonetheless. Now the suspicion was too strong. Bob and Rodney drove to Carol's house. It was Saturday night. It was dark outside, and there were only a few lights on in the house. Nothing looked amiss, but it seemed eerily quiet. As Bob and Rodney approached the house, they heard only the sound of the television inside.

Before they could reach the front steps, the door creaked open just enough for Carol to yell out. Everyone was sick, she said again. People needed to stay away for a few days. Neither Bob nor Rodney were satisfied. In fact, their mild concern had grown to full-on fear. something in that house wasn't right. An hour after being turned away, they contacted the Lincoln Police Department. A squad car was dispatched at approximately 10 p.m. to perform a wellness check at the house.

The officers knocked several times before Carol finally came to the door. She was only half awake, and she spoke briefly with the officers. Carol told them that the family had the flu, and she had been warned by a doctor to keep away from other people. so as not to spread it. The answer satisfied the officers, and they left without investigating any further. The next day, Bob and Rodney followed up with the police and heard the same excuse about the family being sick.

They were still suspicious, but they didn't push it. The next visitor, though, was not going to take no for an answer. The weekend passed, and no one in the extended families of Carol or Charles had heard from either teenager. Separately, both families decided further investigation was required. Guy Starkweather, Charles's father, planned to call the police first thing Monday morning. Carol's grandmother, Pansy Street, decided she would be more proactive.

She had not seen her daughter or her granddaughter Betty Jean in a week, and that was unheard of. After her breakfast and coffee that Monday morning, Street called a cab to take her to her daughter's house and then to work. The sturdy, 62-year-old woman still worked long hours as a fry cook at a Lincoln diner. She arrived at Carol's house at roughly 9.30 in the morning. While she had been concerned, she was not so stricken that she thought she would be there long, so she asked the taxi driver to wait. As she approached the front door, she noticed that the curtains were drawn, and a crudely written note had been placed on one of the front windows.

The note repeated the news. Everyone in the house had the flu. But Pansy Street was persistent. She knocked on the door anyway. Carol answered and pleaded with her grandmother to leave. Street ignored her granddaughter's request and yelled for Betty Jean, but she heard no response. Carol closed the door and Street retreated to her taxi.

But she didn't go to work. She went right to the police station. Street knew that Bob Vaughn Bush and Rodney Starkweather had not been satisfied with the police's first visit to the house, and she walked into the Lincoln Police Station ready to raise all kinds of hell to get the police to go back over there. But it turned out not to be necessary. Chief Joe Carroll immediately ordered two officers to escort Street back to the address. Earlier that morning, the chief had received a call from Guy Starkweather. Guy was worried that his rambunctious son was either in trouble or up to it.

Now Pansy Street was in the station with a similar concern, and that was on top. top of the concerns of Bob and Rodney. If the chief hadn't been suspicious before, he was now. The officers drove Pansy Street back to the house. They noted that it was quiet around the front of the property. No one answered when they knocked. But then they found an open window. Street implored them to go through it and look inside. They didn't have a warrant to enter the house, but given the circumstances, they figured they could defend their actions. One of the officers slipped inside and unlocked the front door. The house was now empty. Street pointed out that the house was far too tidy for four sick people to have just been there half an hour ago. Whether or not

the officers agreed, they didn't find any evidence of a triple homicide. So maybe Charles was a world-class cleaner after all. Or maybe Charles and Carol had truly scrubbed the house clean. Or maybe the officers didn't look closely enough. One officer suggested that maybe the extremely sick family had just headed out of town on an unannounced vacation. Street glared at him and walked out. The two officers followed without ever going into the backyard. After dropping off Pansy Street at her job,

the officers returned to the station and conferred with Chief Carroll. There was still some minor concern about the whereabouts of Carol's family and Charles Starkweather, but the chief reasoned that it wasn't a crime to simply avoid your family members. He didn't order a more thorough search of the property. He didn't ask his officers to be on the lookout for anyone in question, even though there was a small child involved. And he didn't alert his counterpart at the Lancaster County Sheriff's Office, Sheriff Merle Carnop. Chief Carroll had dedicated most of his life to the city of Lincoln. He had played football for the University of Nebraska and then gone into law enforcement. Carol took the job as police chief in 1941 and would

serve in the role until 1975. In 1988, he would be an inaugural inductee into the Nebraska Police Officers Hall of Fame. But Chief Carroll and Sheriff Carnop, two lawmen who would serve the area for decades, were about to find themselves in the spotlight for the wrong reason. When the police decided not to investigate any further, Bob Vaughn Bush and Rodney Starkweather went back to Belmont Avenue, and they definitely found evidence of a crime. Earlier that morning, Charles Starkweather had leapt up from the kitchen table when he heard Pansy Street yelling into the house for her granddaughter.

He had been peacefully eating his breakfast of fried eggs and bacon when the woman arrived. Carol had been able to get rid of her, but Charles was spooked. He made the decision that they had to leave right away. Carol changed out of her nightgown into blue jeans and a sweater and put on her patent leather majorette boots. She threw a few pieces of clothing and some pictures and mementos into a bag. Charles wrapped up the sawed-off 4-10 shotgun and a handgun he had found in Carol's mother's room.

They left the house and walked to Charles' car a few blocks away. It had been parked there for almost a week, and to their dismay it had a flat tire. As Charles changed the tire, he realized that the spare had a bent rim, and that wouldn't work for any sort of long trip. So the couple nursed the wobbly tire across town to the garage that Charles rented from a wealthy family.

There, Charles laid out his plan. First, they obviously needed a new tire and a new spare. Then they needed gas, food, and maps for all the states between Nebraska, and Washington. Charles told Carol he had a brother in Washington State who was a chef. They could start over in the Pacific Northwest. Carol either agreed or was a hostage who had no choice but to go along. They drove to a service station where Charles knew one of the employees.

They were ex-schoolmates, not pals, but when Charles mentioned that he and his girlfriend were headed out of town, the guy offered to throw the car on the rack and check the transmission. Over the next hour, while the couple waited, Lincoln police cars came and went from the service station. If Chief Joe Carroll had told his officers to be on the lookout for members of Carol's family and Charles Starkweather, who had red hair and looked like he had just stepped out of the movie Rebel Without a Cause, there was a good chance that one of the officers would have spotted Carol or Charles or Charles's car. But the order to be on the lookout for the teenagers wouldn't be given for another five hours. So, when the work on the car was done, Charles and Carol drove to another service station that

had a burger joint attached to it. Charles filled the car's gas tank. Then he bought the maps and shells for the shotgun. Carol ordered and waited for the food. The girl working the counter at the restaurant testified later that Carol seemed scared and jumpy. And Carol testified that she wrote a note begging for help, but she didn't have a chance to slip it to the girl behind the counter.

Charles came in, grabbed the burgers, and said it was time to go. They drove to the farm of a man named August Meyer. Meyer lived near the small town of Bennett, southeast of Lincoln. He was single and lived alone. Charles and his father had hunted on the farmer's land, and Charles was confident that Meyer would put them up for a night. But he also had a plan for what to do if August Meyer refused his request. outside Lincoln, the landscape quickly changed to farmlands and prairie,

and Myers Farm was on a country road just east of the tiny town of Bennett. As the couple approached the turnoff, Charles underestimated the terrain. A snowstorm hit the area earlier in the month, and now the melted snow made the road to the house a muddy mess. Charles tried to drive through it and got his Ford stuck. They abandoned the car and trudged up the land. toward August Myers Farmhouse. Around that same time back in Lincoln,

Bob Vaughn Bush and Rodney Starkweather were making the grisly discovery that launched the manhunt and threw the region into chaos. In Lincoln, 15 miles from August Myers Farm, Rodney and Bob returned to Carroll's house. It was still empty, and they agreed with the assessment of Carol's grandmother. The house was far too pristine

to have held four sick people for a solid week. But at the same time, neither Rodney nor Bob saw any signs of a struggle or conflict, though that was when they took the step that no one else had. They went into the backyard. In the chicken coop, they found Marion Bartlett, Carol's stepfather. His body was frozen solid. In the outhouse, they peered into the hole of the toilet and saw what they assumed was the body of Carol's mother, Velda.

They didn't look in the blood-soaked box on the toilet seat. They couldn't bear it. They knew they'd find the body of little Betty Jean. At that point, finally, the police department and the sheriff's department descended on Carol's house. It was about 5 p.m. and already getting dark. Chief Joe Carroll and Sheriff Merle Carnop waited outside while their officers and deputies investigated. Crime scene photographers could barely stomach their jobs as they took pictures of the bodies. It was the most gruesome crime anyone in the area could recall.

The two law enforcement agencies were still reeling from the unsolved murder of Robert Colvert, and they could imagine the hysteria that the murders of the Bartlett family might cause in Lincoln. A pickup alert was issued for Charles and Carol, and the make and model of Starkweather's car was sent out across the state. At that moment, the car was stuck in the mud at August Myers Farm, 15 miles southeast of the scene of the investigation. Charles and Carol had walked up the long drive to the, farmhouse. And then, again, the tragedy at the farm was explained in two different ways.

Carol claimed that Charles was intent on a rampage. She said August Meyer graciously agreed to let Charles use his horses to pull the ford out of the mud. But then, when the farmer turned and began to walk toward the barn, Charles raised the 4-10 shotgun and blasted the old man in the back of the head. Carol watched while Charles dragged the body behind the house and out of sight. She claimed she tried to refuse to go into the house, but Charles made it clear that if she didn't, she would be joining August Meyer on the cold dirt in the backyard. Charles said there was a confrontation that led to the death of August Meyer.

Charles said Meyer refused to let them in the house and told Charles to go around back, which he did. But when Meyer appeared at his back door, he was brandishing a rifle. Meyer fired at Charles and tried to retreat into the house. Only then, in fear for his life and that of his girlfriend, did Charles fire his shotgun at Meyer. That was Charles' story. And regardless of whether or not people wanted to believe it was self-defense, August Meyer was shot in the back of the head, and he was victim number five. When Meyer was dead, Charles and Carol entered the house.

Carol remained downstairs while Charles searched for money and weapons. He grabbed some clean clothes. The couple had a quick meal of jello and cookies, and then left. They retraced their steps back down to the country road near Myers Farm, past Charles' abandoned car. They started walking toward the town of Bennett, hoping to hitchhike before they had to walk all the way in the dropping temperatures. Soon they saw the headlights of a car driving toward them. The car slowed down, and Charles walked up to the driver's side window. behind the wheel was 17-year-old Robert Jensen.

His 16-year-old high school sweetheart, Carol King, sat beside him. Being a kind-hearted young couple, they had decided to stop and help the couple who were walking along the side of the road on a cold, dark night. That was a mistake, and tragically, it was the last one they would make. Next time on Infamous America, the murders at Carol's house become front-page news, And then three more bodies are discovered at August Myers Farm. Six brutal homicides in the space of a week sends the region around Lincoln, Nebraska, into full-blown panic.

And the police are no closer to catching Charles and Carroll. That's next week on Infamous America. Members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week for new episodes. They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials. And they also receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships began at just $5 per month. This series was researched and written by Jamie Leiko, original music by Rob Valier.

I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer. Find us at our website, blackbarrelmedia.com or on our social media channels. We're Black Barrel Media on Facebook and Instagram and V-Barrell Media on Twitter. and you can stream all our episodes on YouTube. Just search for Infamous America Podcast. Thanks for listening.