Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 504: Charles Starkweather Part I - One Teddy Bear Please
Episode Date: September 10, 2022The boys are back with another bloody tale of mass murder, this week beginning the story of Charles Starkweather, a dim witted outcast who kicked off his career of killing in the winter of 1957, and w...ho would go on to kill 10 more just a year later.
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There's no place to escape to. This is the last talk. On the left.
That's when the cannibalism started.
What was that?
You know, entertainment used to be easier. I don't think so. Yeah. Completely disaggregated.
No, entertainment used to be easier because... Everyone died driving.
No, I'm not talking about live or flying.
Lives were harder.
Okay.
But doing songs and TV shows were easier.
Like, because we're going through this whole series, every song from this time period is like,
Whoa, it's the ice cream dance.
Well, but that was very unique for the time.
You gotta get yourself a scissors. You gotta put your hand on the construction paper.
We're making a turkey.
Like, that's all they do.
Well, it was very difficult to be the first to do it though.
Yeah.
They just had to have a crew cut and have a big fat face and then like...
I mean, it's better than the 40s. Every song in the 40s was about a train or a train line or the...
Well.
Grape is it gonna go with a great Pacific mama?
Mama.
Oh, what's wrong with that?
Well, I also...
I love train music.
The Charleston started in 1925?
Fantastic.
Welcome to the last podcast of the Left, everyone.
I have been hanging out with the inspiring Henry Zabrowski.
That's me.
And Marcus Parks.
Hi.
In this episode, now this is gonna be really funky and really fresh.
He has the last name of a businessman who has a briefcase full of photocopies of his own buttocks.
What?
But he is indeed much worse than that.
You're just talking about Tony Stark, first of all.
That's where you...
That's the first half of the joke.
Yes, indeed.
And much like Tony Stark, in this story, it weathers bullets.
Anyway, we are on to Charles Starkweather, part one.
Okay.
I thought we were supposed to be better after breaking this.
No, much worse.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm getting the weather report.
It's a chance of bullets.
That's good.
Oh, it's a plane.
It's a bird.
It's bullets.
Charles Starkweather was an American mass murderer from Lincoln, Nebraska, who murdered
11 people at the age of 19 years old.
According to the courts, 10 of those murders were committed with either the assistance
or the blessing of his 14-year-old girlfriend, Carol Ann Fugit.
Yeah.
Oh, Carol Ann.
And she's gonna be coming up a lot.
She is an interesting, controversial figure in true crime.
She's still out there.
Is she?
Seven, eight years spun.
Wow.
Oh, yeah.
So hopefully she will respond.
And we can talk to her after this and see what her analysis of our analysis is.
Yeah.
You're very close.
You're very, very close.
There's something horrifying about a 14-year-old giving you their blessing.
Yeah.
It's like what do you do with a witch?
Kill.
Yes, a real key.
All right.
But this story is something that we've wanted to do for a long time.
We covered this, I think, like a little bit when we did Spree Killers a million years
ago.
I mean, that episode was mostly just rereadings of the Richard McBeef play.
It was a different kind of show back then.
Yes, it was.
But now, Charles Stark, whether of all of the characters in true crime, too, I think is
interesting, how many movies and how much shit it has inspired.
This story is inspired by natural-born killers, the movie Badlands, Nebraska, the album.
No kidding.
Yeah.
It's very bleak.
Well, specifically Nebraska, the song.
Yeah, that was Bruce Springsteen's finest work, in my opinion.
I'm gonna get a lot of shit for that.
I got a lot of shit for that for saying it on the Suicide Series on No Dogs in Space.
I love Bruce Springsteen.
We're boss heads.
Marcus is sensitive.
You know what I've finally figured out?
I figured out that it's not Bruce Springsteen that I dislike.
It's the E Street Band.
What the fuck?
Marcus, we're actually...
This is a rare chance where Marcus should be edited.
He needs to be edited.
Clarence?
I'm just saying, I like Bruce Springsteen better when it's just him and a guitar.
Unbelievable.
You are just simply the worst.
Wow.
Wow, cloudy with a chance of hatred.
That's what he is.
The weather, man.
Bringing the bummers.
Starkweather's Killing Spree technically took place in multiple locations over two months,
but while the first murder took place on December 1st, 1957,
the other ten murders all occurred in a week-long rampage
in late January of the following year.
His is the ultimate example of a rampage,
where it is...
The two of them had no order.
There was no...
It was well planned.
This isn't like a bunch of guys at militia gear planning how to...
It is actual childlike chaos with guns.
Alright, not Matt Damon Ben Affleck.
It's not the town.
You're right.
You're right.
Correct.
Now, Starkweather's murder spree was the cause of much consternation in America when it
occurred, but not just because of the sheer volume of murders.
Instead, it was a confirmation of what was already a grave concern in this country.
See, America in the 50s was going through a moral panic concerning the perceived rise
in juvenile delinquency.
Can you imagine your daughter wearing pants?
Can you imagine eating peanut butter in the evening?
Whoa, delinquency.
And Charles Starkweather fit the bill of a stereotypical juvenile delinquent perfectly.
He had a bad attitude.
He couldn't or wouldn't hold a job.
He raced hot rods.
He smoked and he was a fucking moron.
And it was all done with a practiced James Dean pose.
And that's not even...
He's not exaggerating.
He would spend most of his days practicing, which is now...
It used to be, like, very pop-cultury.
Everybody knew the James Dean pose.
You've seen it in, like, Bugs Bunny cartoons and shit.
He's laying on the side of the road.
If you're going to look at it, it's this.
You got to get hands in your pockets.
It's the eyebrows up and the head completely turned.
It's almost 240 degrees.
You trying to tell me how to be a kid?
I was born in a gutter.
It's a horrible way to drive, brother.
It is.
That's all I'm saying.
Which is why he crashed his car in that fateful, fateful night.
I've been making references to that.
Similarly, Starkweather's alleged accomplice, 14-year-old Carol M. Fugit,
she became a symbol of youth corrupted by youth.
An example of how strong a bad influence can be,
even in the face of parents who tried to steer their child in the right direction.
Imagine a 17-year-old thinking about voting.
That's disgusting.
However, the narrative was not as simple as all that.
Carol M. Fugit was basically neglected by her mother and stepfather,
and her overall guilt or innocence in at least 10 of the 11 murders
is not cut and dry one way or the other.
Of all the couple killers that we have covered,
especially just recently doing Carlo Hamoka and Paul Bernardo,
you really see, when the research goes in, once we start opening the case up,
once we open her up, she's going to the hood.
Sure.
We start to see that, you know, in Carlo's case,
she was definitely way more guilty than I had even thought
than when we began the process of researching the show.
This, the more I research, really shows it is very, very gray
about Carol Ann Fugit's involvement in all this,
because she was fucking like 13 years old.
Right, forget about it.
She was 14 years old.
I mean, they're all the same.
You're just a blob.
Right.
Until you're 35 years old.
You don't count.
That's true.
Now, in a macro sense, the Stark weather murders were doubly shocking to America
because it was felt that if they could happen in Nebraska,
then it could happen anywhere.
Whoa.
It's like New York City.
Yeah.
But it's Nebraska.
Right.
And one of the things people either didn't know or willfully ignored
was the fact that the Midwest in the 50s was the scene
of some of the most infamous and gruesome murders of the entire decade.
Oh, we know now.
I feel like that has become such a meme.
That's such a thing now about how dangerous the Midwest is.
I think it's important to remember that LA is also dangerous.
It is dangerous.
And you can get shot here.
So, oh, you say, oh, a couple of Midwesters
were eating all the kids fucking pussies.
Oh, everybody's making a bone altar.
Oh, isn't that funny?
We still do fucked up shit in LA.
Well, yeah.
Nothing to be proud of, I don't think.
But in the Midwest, it is overwhelmingly kinder for the most part,
but it's just a few offbeat characters that cause massive amounts of damage.
Oh, this is about an offbeat character.
Yes.
That's how you're describing John Wayne Gacy or Jeffrey Dahmer.
It is an offbeat character.
A bit of a nut.
Yeah, crazy guy.
Okay, hold on.
You're telling me that John Wayne Gacy is an offbeat?
No.
You're saying they're all the neighbor from Empty Nest?
Yes.
Have I remember him?
Of course.
Yeah, I remember him.
Also, I think he was just gay.
And they were like, something's wrong with that guy.
Crazy.
Now, he had a bit of a James Dean pose.
He did.
Like this.
And now I'm just going to try and talk to the whole rest of the show.
Just like James did.
You know what?
You don't understand me, dad.
I wear a leather jacket because it's cold.
I'm actually, you know what?
It's so funny you said, you're asking me if I need a ride,
but you know what?
I'm actually going to walk it.
I'm going to walk it.
Thank you.
I said, if I...
I'm not going to get a drive.
I'm going to be driven by James Dean.
Oh, okay.
Oh.
Oh, yes.
He died in a tragic car accident.
Yeah.
For those of you under the age of 40.
Yeah.
Everyone knows that.
I don't know if they do.
Also, he was...
Whatever.
Some people don't know the Holocaust happened.
Yes, they do.
They just pretended so they can feel better about their political views.
No, kids don't know that the Holocaust happened.
They really don't know.
It's crazy.
Well, congratulations, kids.
It did.
There's kids that said they didn't know about the Holocaust until they listened to our Joseph
Mengele episode.
That's sad.
It's not good.
Well, in addition to Starkweather's reign of terror, you also had the mass murder of
the Clutter family in Kansas a few years later in 1959.
Of course, that was the subject of In Cold Blood.
That was a mess.
Even more famously, the 50s was also the time of Ed Gein, whose crimes in Wisconsin were
discovered the same year Starkweather committed his first murder.
And that was just 500 miles away, a paltry distance in the Midwest.
This is...
I love it.
I love it.
A lot of second miles are the same.
It doesn't five-footer miles from Nebraska to Wisconsin.
No, there's no difference.
Oh, and I read in the script.
It's absolutely...
Have you ever tried driving 500 miles from New York City to down south and driving 500
miles from Milwaukee to fucking making Nebraska?
You've never been dumber.
It is the same distance.
No, it's not.
The one takes longer.
It one takes longer.
And distance is relative, my friend.
One takes longer to do.
One takes longer to do.
He's in it now, we have to break him out of it.
I'm not in it at all.
I'm talking from Texas perspective.
I can do 500 miles in Texas easy, 500 miles in the East Coast.
That's a different matter altogether, my friend.
Fantastic.
He wrote the script.
I know.
However, serial killing wasn't the big concern in the 50s like it was in the 70s, nor was
mass murder the main concern like it is today.
Instead, the twin enemies of the American way of life during that decade were communism,
naturally.
No!
And the aforementioned juvenile delinquency.
Can you imagine putting a soft-toed chew on to go outside?
Unbelievable.
It sounds a lot like today as well, doesn't it?
Concerning the skirt, now that's an old man's statement.
I'm 41.
This is when, I think once you hit 41, you can start calling people delinquents.
Yeah.
And I'm actually flipping in reverse and I say, get on my lawn, let me see ya.
Hey kids, get on my lawn, all right?
Let's not go to that eager man's house anymore, Billy.
See, concerning the scourge of juvenile delinquency in the 50s, the alarm had been sounded years
before Charles Starkweather murdered 11 people.
In the summer of 1954, a gang of teenage boys in New York City beat one man to death and
drowned another, seemingly just for the thrill of it.
That's because the dudes lost the rumble.
And it's so hard, once you get in the middle of that tap-single, if you can't do that...
You can't do that, you lose, then you have to volunteer to be raped and drowned by that
group of boys.
Well, you know, it's not...
Dangs aren't like West Side Story.
There they are!
I went up to MS-13, and me and MS-13 have been working on their choreography for a minute
now.
And I'll tell you what, South Street Miguel is been...
He's incredible, and the light that comes from him when he's the music man is...
I think it's going to turn the whole gang around.
You act in jest, but I think that could actually help.
I keep trying to offer theater classes to the gangs, and they keep saying, we're not ready.
It's almost like you're not Michelle Pfeiffer.
Well, these two murders in Brooklyn led the local press to unimaginatively nickname the
group the Brooklyn Thrill Killers.
Okay.
See, during that summer, authorities in Manhattan have been cracking down on what they call
the undesirables.
This was code for homeless people, gay men, and alcoholics.
So when the persecution came from up top, the targeted individuals fled to Brooklyn.
Is that why Brooklyn is this way?
So cool and fun.
Yeah, like it's fun?
Yeah.
When they arrived, they discovered that the Brooklyn Thrill Killers had already been on
patrol, quote, cleaning the streets of Bums as they put it.
Well, that's not good.
Yeah.
However, the Thrill Killers activities had mostly at this point been limited to dousing
homeless men in gasoline and setting them on fire, or chasing women around the streets
with whips.
Obviously, it's a terrible crime to do, and I, you know...
Yeah.
When they say cleaning up the streets, I feel like that's the opposite of cleaning the streets.
I feel like a burning human actually makes the streets very dirty.
Very messy, horrible, absolutely.
That reminds me of the first season of the first episode of The Flash, where they were
killing homeless people, and The Flash had to stop them from doing that.
By running fast?
Yeah, and doing a series of other different kind of weird things.
Henry, he's also a police scientist.
He knows what he's doing.
He's a police scientist.
So he brings a fucking microscope out to the crime scene?
Who does that even mean?
He's The Flash.
He's a police scientist.
I don't know how else to describe it to you.
But he just runs fast?
No, but you know what The Flash does.
I never know.
I don't.
That's what The Flash does.
He runs fast.
He runs fast, but he also uses science to make situations happen.
Like, he can wave his arms really fast, and it creates wind.
He's Bill Nye the fast guy?
Well, after this group of four boys killed two men, and were arrested for their crimes,
the media had a field day with these juvenile delinquents,
and made up for the somewhat dull nickname of the Brooklyn Thrill Killers.
Once the boys hit the newspapers, one outlet referred to them as, quote,
those terrible youth.
I feel like it's my mom going, oh, those terrible youth.
And a true crime magazine went even further,
calling the ringleader the quote,
Boy Hitler of Flatbush Avenue.
Kill him.
Boy Hitler, wow.
The adventures of Boy Hitler.
Ah, yes.
Look at him.
It's the final solution to eat all of the red jelly beans.
It's like the documentary The Old Man was watching it up.
I also feel like then that's, again, in Brooklyn,
is that where the hairstyle comes from?
Ah, the Boy Hitler.
Yeah, I guess it did come from the FOD boys.
The Nazi brush cut is real big down there.
Yeah, it really is.
There's a lot of them here in the neighborhood.
It's not like vice as an entity.
It started ironic, and then it just turned into bigotry.
Yeah, it's weird.
Well, this Boy Hitler nickname came from the suggestion
that the boys were neo-Nazis due to their obviously fascistic techniques.
This was also highly ironic, considering how all four boys were Jewish.
But as far as where Boy Hitler had obtained those whips
they had used to chase around women.
Yeah, where'd you get some of those?
He'd ordered them from ads in the back of either a horror
or a true crime comic book.
Yeah, dude, this really comes all the way back around to comic books.
Interesting.
Anyway, it's really strange.
You could just get a whip from a comic book back home.
Can we add whips to our merch, bitch?
We tried.
That'd be awesome.
You apparently need a license to sell whips.
No.
I mean, that's why I was still one time I left my fly down up by the beach.
You are too much tonight.
Yeah, I'm feeling it.
And as it just so happened,
the court psychiatrist for the Brooklyn Thrill Killers Trial
was the infamous Dr. Frederick Wortham.
We don't know.
We don't know.
We don't know.
Oh, wow.
Yay.
Now, in the true crime world, Wortham is...
He's massively...
He's one of the secret authors.
I mean, he really is one of the architects of the 20th century.
This guy is massively influential.
And in the true crime world,
Wortham is best known as the man who was charged
with determining the legal sanity of serial killer Albert Fish.
Not only is this man sane, but I am his best friend.
That's where you accuse yourself.
And Wortham is the reason why we know so much
about the bizarre life of Albert Fish prior to his capture.
The life filled with needles, paddles, monkeys, and peewees.
Oh, gosh.
A lot of people say, oh, Dr. Wortham,
what is your superpower that allows me to be so good at your job?
And it's because I do not suffer from a sense of ickiness.
Oh, you do?
Tell me about what you put in your penis again.
Oh, my goodness.
You can just see him being like, I'm also a stud finder.
And then he just points right to Albert Fish's butt.
Yeah, it's him right there.
But in pop culture, Dr. Frederick Wortham is best known
as the author of a book called The Seduction of the Innocent,
which claimed that comic books were the number one cause
of the wave of highly violent juvenile delinquency
sweeping the country in the 50s,
adding that Batman and Robin were super gay for good measure.
He wasn't entirely wrong.
Yeah, he was.
No matter what.
He was saying that Batman was a pedophile
and that Robin was his groomed boy.
That's not true.
No.
That's not true?
No.
That's how I viewed it.
Not that I know of.
I felt like it was a beneficial relationship.
And in the end, I'm glad that Robin, in the end,
he enjoyed his position.
Well, he turns into Nightwing.
Nightwing.
Now we did.
They were trying to make a Nightwing movie,
but then they realized nobody cares.
Nobody gives a fucking shit about Robin.
Isn't that too bad?
Yeah.
Well, I know.
I'm sorry, Fernando.
A lot of people love random.
He's like, he's a pro Robin.
I like Robin.
There's a whole Robin thing going on right now
that you just stepped into that you need to step out of right now.
Step out of it.
I'm fine.
I'm whatever you nerds want.
There you go.
Whatever you want.
I'm just saying you need to back off a Robin right now, bro.
I'm saying that I'm telling you.
Nightwing.
My hands are up.
My hands are up.
Even I knew it was Nightwing.
It's kind of exciting.
Well, in the Brooklyn Throw Killers trial,
Wortham said that Boy Hitler's actions were partly motivated
by a graphic BDSM crime comic called Nights of Horror,
which featured torture, humiliation, bondage,
flagellation, bloodletting, foot worship,
and just a couple of nipples.
Then every single thing that will make me heart is in this comic.
I like it.
I love how the 1950s, again, so much your shit
embedded in that decade, because it was this kind of...
I don't want to be in that one.
I don't like that decade very much.
It's very dark.
1950s feels very dark.
But on the background in all of these living rooms
where all of these people are doing these wicked things,
is leave it to be.
That's exactly...
The backdrop is all this pure innocence,
and it's just weird.
It's really weird.
Like, you see it in Blue Velvet?
Like, he nails it to me like that dichotomy of it,
where there's so much of that.
But also, at the same time, it's BDSM.
Now we know.
It's like, so what?
You get spanked.
So what if you fucking put clamps in your nipples?
Let's fucking people, people.
You have a red bottom right now?
No!
Rosie Chick's Podcaster found.
Strangled to death in latex bubble.
Oh, my goodness.
But interestingly, Nights of Horror, that BDSM comic,
it was drawn by Superman co-creator Joe Schuster
at a low point in his career.
This was not too long after a court ruled
that DC owed him and Jerry Siegel
nothing for the creation of the most popular superhero of all time,
because they technically signed the rights away in the 30s
for the paltry sum of $150.
Worth it.
They made Superman for $150?
Yeah, and I think later on,
didn't later on they got some settlement where they got paid out
like $100 grand a year, but it was like nothing.
Even then.
It was like in the 90s or the 2000s or something like that.
And even now, trying to use Superman in a comic book
is really difficult because you have to go through
the Siegel and Schuster families.
Yeah.
But concerning Joe Schuster's post-Superman work,
Nights of Horror was used as evidence
of Boy Hitler's quote-unquote sexual perversion
and was actually used partly to convict him
and one of the other boys for murder.
Now, they did commit murders.
I am here.
I am the defense attorney for these children.
Stop calling him Boy Hitler.
I find it too, making the jury think of him as Hitler
and that's not necessarily beneficial.
Well, honestly, I would be down.
We all would agree to stop calling him Boy Hitler
if he'd put the arm down.
Overruled.
Now, Boy Hitler was certainly some sort of psychopath
because while Nights of Horror was more masturbation material,
his worst crimes were actually inspired by superhero comics
because he saw himself as a crime-fighting hero
who was actually helping police in their quest
to clean the streets of undesirables.
And they didn't do anything to refute that
by allowing it to continue and saying actively
that he was helping clean up the streets.
Interesting indeed.
I wonder what his superhero name would be.
Boy Hitler.
Boy Hitler.
Oh.
But as far as causing murders and the like,
crime and superhero comics merely gave
the Brooklyn thrill killers a template to work from
because had these types not had the comics
or the movies or the TV shows,
the urges would come out one way or another.
Humans are very creative.
Yeah.
Well, if anything, the argument should be
that crime comics destroyed imaginations
rather than morals because as far as I know,
Albert Fish didn't read any jolting tales of tension
told in the EC tradition.
He invented them.
Get on my lawn, please, God.
Get on my lawn.
You know what he did?
You know what Albert Fish did?
Then none of you guys have the fucking guts to do the
complaint on the internet.
He went out and made his dreams real.
I think there were nightmares to be fair.
Also, oh my God.
Look at the moon.
Is that a small Hitler stash?
Boy Hitler must be around.
These hands.
Oh my God.
And I'm so glad this year they're finally,
they're revamping the whole thing with girl Hitler.
I think it's so brave representation.
One man who did love horror and true crime comics,
however, was Charles Starkweather.
Hey, I don't like them.
I don't like them violent.
I don't like them with the tits out.
I like them on the front.
I like them everywhere.
Smoky cigarettes.
I don't like them.
That's fine.
It's artistic.
Just, you know, they're fiction.
Yeah, fiction to get me some dinner, you bitch.
Okay.
Very rude.
Well, Starkweather's favorite genre was,
and I quote, comics with knives.
I hate comics with spoons.
Why is this a guy super seren?
That sucks.
Yeah, I hate soupy comics.
In other words, Starkweather was, as I said,
a bit of a moron.
And he wasn't really there to appreciate,
say, the artistry of a solid Wally Wood story.
I'm going to do some readings today.
It's really going to show the thinking level
of Charles Starkweather.
Like, where he's at.
Because one thing I will say about all of these crimes,
especially, and now more and more I read about
Caroline Fugit's story too, I do feel sympathy for her.
But everybody was very fucking stupid in this story.
That was not murdered.
All the murdered people in this and blah, blah, blah.
But fucking...
Blah, blah, blah.
They are victims of a madman.
Well, we'll get it.
Her family, it's like, there's two different sides
of stories about her family and what happens,
why they got murdered, right?
Okay.
But Charles Starkweather, stupid in his way,
into being one of the most infamous names in true crime.
And that is the scariest thing of all.
Yes.
It can all come to an end, no matter how hard you work.
Someone dumb with a gun.
That's all.
It's just somebody with no skills, no viable career,
nobody, no happiness, nothing inside of them,
but rage and stupidity and comic books.
So drop out of school now.
Stop everything.
It can all end.
You know, I'm just joking.
Well, while Frederick Wortham's seduction
of the innocent panic occurred before Charles Starkweather's
spree, a thick file was certainly found
amongst Frederick Wortham's effects after he died
concerning the Starkweather fugit murders.
I wish that we could have spent some time together
because I do believe we would enjoy a hamburger.
Me and Charlie Starkweather just enjoying each other
in the summer afternoon, having sex with a little girl
together.
I love being a doctor for serial killers.
Just one hamburger, just you and Charlie splitting it
and then your lips kissing the middle of a tomato.
Liam of Trampman.
Yes, indeed.
I tried to do that with Natalie with a burrito the other day
and she said, no.
Yeah, it's disgusting.
Oh, God.
You know how, like from the beginning of the burrito,
like you got to chomp through the entire...
You guys both get a knuckle.
Yeah.
But before we get to those murders,
let's acknowledge our source for this series.
Today, we've got Wasteland, the savage odyssey
of Charles Starkweather and Carol Ann Fugit by Michael Newton.
It's another solid and well researched true crime narrative.
Recommend it.
I also was reading from the idea
of the Carol Fugit's entire storyline.
It's the 12th victim by Linda M. Batiste.
And it's very pro-Caroline.
Oh, yeah.
Interesting.
She's got her supporters, definitely.
I also read from something called Wikipedia,
which I think is a pedophile who hunts kids that can read.
And it was very interesting.
And that's why it's safe to be dumb.
And so without further ado,
let's get into the story of Charles Starkweather
and his alleged accomplice, Carol Ann Fugit.
Now, if I were to compare Charles Starkweather's general demeanor
and outlook on life to anyone, I'd choose Joel Rifkin.
Because both men blamed every bad thing they ever did
on the relentless bullying that they received growing up.
Well, it's just something about listening to the testimony
of an older man constantly just being like,
if everything, honestly, my whole life turned to shit
when I was four.
So it's like, you never had a chance, dude.
Well, I mean, they had a chance not to become serial killers.
We were all bullied and everything.
I mean, but you got to, it's tough.
It is hard to overcome.
It's about being hyper-focused on this perceived thing
that then became your entire personality.
Well, while Rifkin was adopted,
Charles was raised by his birth parents, Guy and Helen Starkweather.
Born with conspicuous red hair in 1938,
as the third of seven kids,
Charles was raised in a perfectly average,
lower middle-class household
and was considered a normal child until he entered preschool.
Red hair is beautiful.
Red hair is fine.
Red hair is gorgeous.
Well, when I was a little boy,
the pictures of me as a little boy,
it's like I'm just so fucking evil-looking
because I have the red hair.
The red hair does make you look like a little fucking demon.
No, it doesn't.
It doesn't.
No, the problem child really hurt
and set the redheads back quite a bit.
But Charlie Starkweather also didn't help.
Right.
Yeah.
That year, though, the year that Charles entered preschool,
he was playing cowboys and Indians when he fell
and hit his head on a wash tub,
which puts him on the ever-growing list of killers
who had childhood head injuries.
That one wasn't that bad.
It wasn't that bad.
It wasn't too terribly traumatic.
It's nothing compared to, say,
the blackouts and seizures suffered by John Wayne Gacy
in his childhood.
That's just because he was a fucking little chubby bitch.
He was all big.
Yeah.
But Starkweather fell apart when he entered school
and the bullying began.
See, like Joel Rifkin,
Charles Starkweather had a safe place that existed
before he had to interact with the rest of society.
Starkweather called his the Enchanted Forest.
Oh, that's not creative.
Everyone had the Enchanted Forest.
You don't know me.
I'm out there.
Me and them trees have a special relationship.
Because you see that one over there?
What?
He's got a hole in it.
Why?
That's my wife.
Oh, my goodness.
It was just a wooden area behind his house that he played in
before he encountered the relentless bullies of elementary school.
Well, because both of them have the same,
that bullshit thing of like the house he on days of when I was two years old.
You don't remember.
You just moved.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
You moved, bro.
It's not that fucking traumatic.
It can be traumatizing.
Yeah, whatever, dude.
Get up for it.
Don't kill a bunch of people.
Don't kill a bunch of people.
Well, besides the red hair,
Charles was terribly shy and awkward
in addition to having a speech impediment
that caused him to switch his H's with his W's.
For example, he would say, wow, instead of house.
He's, again, he was a target for a reason in many ways as a child
because I've never heard of that speech impediment.
I haven't either.
It's bizarre.
It happens.
It's Nebraska.
It's Nebraska.
During a speech in front of his class in which the kids giggled at his
strange speech patterns, Charles had a panic attack,
which quickly turned into the raging hatred that would spew forth
from Starkweather for the rest of his short life.
The speech impediment and red hair, however,
weren't the only sources of bullying.
He had a trifecta here.
Oh, yeah.
Starkweather was also massively bow-legged.
Wide enough, where, in Charlie's words,
a pig could run through without touching the sides.
Yeah, that's cool.
We now know that moseying is cool
because pop culture made it cool.
Mosey around.
Yeah, and mostly it's just because we, you know, pop culture.
We see these things, all the cowboys.
It's cool.
At a time, made him like a victim of everyone else
because he was massively bow-legged.
Actually, that's what is interesting is that he was correct.
He did have oval legs.
And anything could squirt between there.
Well, it's kind of nice in case you're in a rodeo or something.
You have to avoid kind of a horse or a bear or a bull.
Or a crawling mother.
Yeah, it's kind of good like that.
With all this put together, Charles would later say that his first day
of school made him rebel against the entire human race.
Like him and fucking Gigi Allen.
Yeah.
I mean, I understand where he's coming from.
He's quite upset.
People were too mean to him.
Well, he did later at least admit that this wasn't a great excuse
for murdering 11 people.
That's a lot of better excuses like going to war.
You can tell many people over there it's a great excuse.
If somebody touches your car.
Sure.
You fucking cut his hand off.
You bashed his head against the fucking.
You can still hurt your car.
Fuck you.
That's my second home.
I'm not sure if he had the opportunity to go to war.
Is this Korean wartime here?
50s?
Yeah, he would have been able to go to the Korean war, I think.
He could have done that bow legged.
He could have gotten on one of those little bombs.
They didn't want him.
He would have been 4F.
He would have been bow legged.
You can't get into the army if you're bow legged.
But the thing is, isn't it easier to ride the turret of a tank?
Yeah.
You have to be kind of fun on the outside and then you're the lookout.
Yeah.
There's the other guys over there.
Perfect.
Well, back then Starkweather used this anger as motivation to beat the other kids
whenever he felt a hint of bullying.
And since he was also a moron, he had that special kind of easily confused,
violent sensitivity that can be particularly dangerous.
He's just the type of guy that will fight you if you bump into him at the bar.
He's that type of, he became at the age of five,
ready to fight anybody within arm's distance of him.
And blaming everybody else for all of his qualms.
Charles would also create provocation when Num was present.
And for this, he was called a brute and a beast.
But since he was also a bit of a worm, his classmates' favorite name to call Charles
was, quote, red-headed bow legged peckerwood.
I find it a thing to be long.
It is long.
I know many times that people say that they yell that at me,
but by the time they're done with it, I'm gone.
That's very true, or you're punching him or something.
It was more of a chant, like, red-headed bow legged peckerwood,
red-headed bow legged peckerwood,
and then they'd chase him around and they'd say it over and over again.
You'd cry and cry.
We're creating a demon.
You're doing it, we're helping him.
I also, they did try to call him woodpecker too, which is fun.
Oh, woodpecker, peckerwood, I like it.
He took it again.
I feel like, you know, if you lean in, that's how you become a cool guy.
It's really not that bad of an insult.
If you're going to lean in and people calling you woodpecker and you're calling yourself woodpecker,
that's fucking, you're going to be a stunt cock in a stag film.
You could do that.
I pecked your mom last night.
Yeah, sure, I'm a woodpecker.
I pecked your mom last night.
You know, something like that.
Whoa, whoa.
Throw it back at him.
Throw it back at him.
And by the time he's 20, his name's just Woody,
and all of a sudden he's Woody Starkweather.
I'd fucking hang out with Woody Starkweather all night long.
Just a second.
Just a second.
Talking about hot rods, gum, all our favorite songs, the ice cream dance,
there's the hot dog dance, there's the corn pop shuffle.
Oh, you're going to love that.
Cloudy with a chance of cum.
Oh, man.
I'm certain.
Bring your umbrellas.
Absolutely.
There is a 20% chance of cum.
Woody Woodpecker, he could go by Woody Woodpecker,
and that could be embarrassing too.
He may have just been a failure no matter what.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think he was set up for it.
But on the other hand, it's also possible that Charles wasn't telling the whole truth
about how tough he was when he was a kid.
Because as we'll see again and again,
the word of Charles Starkweather cannot be trusted.
Hmm.
And I'll put Charlie, you know, because of Chuck, Charlie,
this motherfucker, partially, is that not only the words can't be trusted,
it's not just because he's like some kind of master manipulator.
He's a fucking moron.
Right.
I sometimes actually think that he just doesn't, like, know what happened to him.
You know what I mean?
We're like, he's so truly probably these days you'd say he had some form of mental,
like, learning stability.
Sure.
Because he can't think.
Yeah.
He also had severe myopia.
So he also couldn't really see without, like, coke bottle glasses,
which of course he never wore because that made him look like a nerd.
Yeah.
Hmm.
So he's just this literally bumbling moron bumping into people and getting into fights.
He's blind and then he gets into fights because he's bumping into you.
Right.
What?
Okay.
Well, school records showed only five instances of disciplinary actions throughout Charles'
entire time in school.
And while it's possible that most of the fights happened off school grounds,
it's more likely that Charles fabricated his fight in persona
to fit the teenage rebel image that he'd created for himself by the time he was caught.
I'll always remember my gang.
It was me, Rocky Marciano.
Really?
Bugs Bunny.
And this floating checkerboard.
I was talking, I was like, yo, King me, King me, you know, this checkerboard, right?
To the checkers, yeah.
And they have no one else saw it.
Crazy gang.
I was a father.
That's it.
It sounds like it.
It's tough to sweep his leg, I bet, because of the bull-leggedness.
I could see this guy's, and he's a weeble wobble.
I bet she doesn't fall down.
No, that's our power with low centers of gravity.
Mm-hmm.
Really, Charles was just another oddball scorned by society in the vein of so many killers
before and after who chose the easy road of turning that rage into violence rather than
finding a more suitable outlet.
Now, when the bullying at his first school got to be too much, Charles transferred to
another school and immediately got into a fight with a kid named Bob Van Bush, the first
of many people in the story with highly colorful names.
There's good names in this episode.
I do like that.
But even though they fought, Bob and Charles became fast friends because Bob considered
Charles to be, quote, the roughest guy he ever fought.
Whoa.
And a hell of a lot of fun.
I mean, it's rough, a rough man, a very rough man.
These are your sixth graders, right?
I like girls.
I like girls.
I like, I don't like all the tugging and the rustling and the men slapping each other.
Why do you, well, why do you men do that?
Because it's kind of, you're toughening it up.
You're toughening up the tush.
Why are you always grabbing each other?
I mean, all the men are slapping and it's always like, oh, you punched me the hardest,
Dave.
You're my best friend now.
And then spending all day is going, I want to kiss, I want to kiss.
We used to see how long we could put each other in wrestling moves, like the sharpshooter
in figure four.
See, that's cool.
But again, it's butt on butt.
Yes.
Yeah.
Kids would get tied up a lot when I was growing up, like hogtied and, you know, and then
you'd freak out.
That's what he fucking did.
He fed his whole brain.
But we'd do it to each other and then, you know, you'd squeal and you'd squeal and you'd
get really freaked out.
Then all the kids would laugh and, you know, they'd finally untie you and then you'd do
it to another kid and then you'd squeal and squeal and then all of a sudden two hours
are gone.
And you got an afternoon there.
Boom, a full afternoon.
It's a vicious cycle of somebody else suffering and you're just happy it's not you.
But you know, they did that to Dennis Rader and then they had to stop playing the game
because every single time they tied him up, he'd get a little fucking erection.
Well, yeah, that's the problems that all the boys have to go like, oh, I didn't know the
turkey was going to finish once we tied him up.
Perhaps what brought Bob and Charles together most though was hot rods.
With this obsession, Charles pretty much became the epitome of the 1950s juvenile delinquent
cliche.
All dungarees and cigarettes and gasoline.
Oh my.
Hong Kong.
He loved that shit.
I guess that's what he was bad at, driving.
I guess what he was really bad at and then they tried to, you know, we're going to get
into this now, but he like, you know, they tried to make him a mechanic and he's not
going to use it because the thing is that actually being a mechanic is a really complex
job.
Absolutely it is.
Now you have to be a computer scientist.
Yes.
See, in the mid 50s, Bob Von Bush and Charles Starkweather began stealing cars for fun and
profit.
And Charles started participating in games of chicken, proudly boasting that he never
once swerved first.
That's what he always says.
That's what everybody who's really says they all say, I never swear, but he couldn't
see.
So he didn't know when to swear.
That was his secret power.
No one knew.
They don't know.
I can't see shit.
I can't even see the danger.
So I don't feel it.
Right.
Okay.
Kind of a superpower is in its own.
Right.
Well, such Charles gained the admiration of a whole new set appears, the hot rod set.
Whoa.
Cool.
This, however, wasn't enough to fix his overall state of being that of a timid, withdrawn,
sullen and resentful teenager who was prone to temper tantrums and extreme acts of cruelty.
In one fight that Charles started, he pushed the loser's face into a gravel driveway, grinding
it into the rocks until the kid was shredded and bloody.
The school nurse who witnessed the fight and apparently did nothing until it was over said
that Charles did it with all the passion of a man changing a flat tire.
I would like to point out I am the nurse.
I am not a referee.
I show up at the end and I clean up the mess.
Yeah.
I don't do it.
I just wipe up blood.
That's it.
But he, you know, again, I just, this is all in retrospect.
Right.
Is that not true?
Is that not true?
But he even really did that.
I don't.
I think that he was a rough.
Yeah.
There was a report about that.
Yeah.
That one he did.
He did all the things afterwards because now you know he's a mass killer, but I feel like
at the time they're all just assume, well, this kid is going to literally stupid himself
to death.
Yeah.
Like he is going to back his car.
Accidentally, it's going to be in reverse.
He's going to start the car.
He's going to go off a bridge.
Sure.
He's going to, a pallet of bricks is going to fall on him.
He's going to fall through a sewer grate down an open elevator shaft.
He's going to die that way.
He's not going to be a criminal.
It's not going to make it to being a criminal.
I mean, 1950s, Nebraska, half the way to past time is just to rub your face and gravel
anyway.
Yeah.
Well, it's like Ben said earlier, you know, it's extraordinarily easy to die in a car
accident in the 1950s.
There's a whole genre of songs that's just about people dying in car accidents.
Yeah.
Dead Ben's Curves.
I can't drive the pack.
My boyfriend's a grave.
Rudy Tooty had a miscarriage in my hoodie.
That was a bad one.
I was crazy.
I didn't even know she was pregnant.
Yeah.
It's a surprise ending there.
The river actually by Bruce Springsteen has a little car scene in it.
It's a very sad, sad song.
There's actually a, if anyone's listening to the lyrics of that song, if it is your
parents' favorite song, they hate each other.
Cause that entire relationship is.
It's about killing a woman next to a river.
It's miserable.
A roast as dark as the night.
Perfect for fueling the cryptid research and mad ravings required for your podcasting.
Don't mind the red eyes.
He's just trying to warn you of the bridge.
The bridge.
Finally, from the caffeine-addled brains of Spring Hill Jack Coffee and Last Podcast on
the left, we bring you Mothman's Red Eye Blend.
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Go to lastpodcastmerch.com to order yours today.
Now, Charles Starkweather's Enter Life was all about obsessing over constant failures.
And I have a good quote.
I have the exact quote.
Can I read it?
Sure.
Cause he was obsessed with us, right?
And he believed that he failed in life.
And the reason why he failed was cause.
I haven't ever eaten in a high class restaurant.
Never seen the New York Yankees play or been to Los Angeles or New York City or other places
that books and magazines sell wonderful places to be.
There hadn't been a chance for me to have this opportunity or privilege for the best things
in life.
It's not Narnia.
They're real.
You just go there.
Oh.
You just gotta go.
Wait a second.
I thought a dwarf had to show up with a ring.
No.
Like a magic ring.
And you guys go down there and go, oh, we better do something.
He's a dragon in New York City.
You're dumber than boy Hitler.
Yeah, he's smart.
He's smart.
He believed that he constantly failed just because life wasn't fair.
It was the classic loser's excuse.
He just didn't like growing up in Nebraska.
No.
No, but he thought that that was someone had done.
But he thought that growing up in Nebraska was something that was done to him.
I mean.
It's his whole, it's, it's again, he just, he's a baby.
He's a, he's a fucking shithead.
His whole thing is that everybody wronged him because he has red hair.
Yeah.
Well, as such, Charles dropped out of high school at the age of 16 and got a job with
his brother Rodney as a garbage man for 35 bucks a week.
Yeah.
Not bad.
But he had a fight.
They had a fire up because it kept harassing people on the root.
He yelling people about their garbage.
What would he yell about their garbage?
They're putting off this stinky fucking bullshit.
How do you for me?
I got nothing to respect for your garbage man, but you're the garbage man.
You got to pick up the garbage man.
You put duties in this bag.
No, it's not.
I have dogs.
I have to pick up the dog shot in the house.
You disgust me.
No, you're just, please, you get paid fairly well.
Am I some kind of duty?
Fucking slay man?
I didn't make you a garbage man.
It's a good job.
You got to work for 25 years and you can retire forever.
I didn't know that.
Then you go to Florida.
I shouldn't have quit then, right?
I know.
Then you go to Bucca Ratone.
I made so many mistakes.
I'm never going to get to the world's fair.
No, you won't.
Well, after he quit, he got a job at a newspaper warehouse,
bailing papers and unloading trucks.
Now, even though the warehouse job was extremely low skill,
his bosses still described him as,
let's use the word mentally challenged.
Let's use that phrase.
They used a different word.
There are old medical terms that we don't use anymore.
Intriguing.
Yeah.
Well, from what his bosses said, you'd have to tell Charles
two or three times how to do something before he'd finally get it.
It earned him the title,
the dumbest man the newspaper ever employed.
Hey, I have a question here.
What are we prittin' here?
What is this?
It's news.
It's the news.
Okay.
No, of course.
Of course.
Can I ask a question?
Yeah.
What are the squiggles on the papers?
Those are words.
Oh.
Now, I have another question.
Someone wanted, someone asked me, should I return the newspaper?
Because when you talk to the little man in the square,
doesn't say anything.
All right.
It's a picture.
Whoa.
Yeah, it's not that.
See, he's frozen?
Does that mean he doesn't go to heaven?
No, it's still alive.
It's just somebody took a picture of somebody or a duck.
As a matter of fact, remember that duck segment when they were ran?
The world's weirdest duck.
Yeah, I hated him.
He creeped me out.
Yeah, indeed.
Quack along, quack along.
Yeah.
You didn't read that article, did you?
What horrible business am I in?
It's a newspaper business.
Oh, concerning Charles's stupidity, he once fell asleep at work under a sun lamp
and burned half his face.
And he'd often order car parts and charge them to the company to have the cost taken
out of his paycheck.
But since he couldn't do math, he would constantly order more car parts than what he was paid.
So they had to tell him to stop doing it.
Another time, the handle on a bailing machine slipped out of Charles's hand and struck him
so hard in the face that he was not cold.
And as a result, he suffered frequent blinding headaches for the rest of his life.
Here's another quote from Charlie Starkweather.
At the newspaper union, the people was always watching me.
They had me numbered for the bottom.
I tried to do work as good as anybody.
I haven't done things by myself.
The two of us should have done, all right?
I used to think, now, no more hating, no more fighting.
I've done what is right and something would happen to take it all out of me.
I used to wonder why no goods like some I know was getting praised for doing what they done.
I guess it's because they talk better than I did because they are better places to sleep at night.
They made me hate.
Then they could make me like them without their changing and then they wasn't going to change.
To be honest, Charles, we had no idea this was all going on in your head.
We just, everyone was just kind of doing everything.
Do you see my watercolors?
I left them out. It was a crime for help.
I didn't know that. I'm sorry.
Well, around the time that Charles dropped out of high school,
he saw a movie that confirmed the shallow teenage rebel image he'd built for himself.
In 1955, Charles Starkweather saw Rebel Without a Cause
and he made an idol out of James Dean.
See, Charles loved James Dean in the film because Dean not only captured the brooding dickhead personality
Starkweather cultivated, but because Dean's character was named Jim Stark,
which was kind of like Starkweather.
Absolutely.
That's my name.
And I love that scene where James Dean goes to the bathroom with his big bow legs
and has his leg accidentally sit down on the other side of the old urinal there and he gets a blowjob.
That's the one thing I don't understand.
He says, Jim Stark is supposed to be me. Why doesn't he have bow legs?
Because it's not you.
He's actually an actor.
He's kind of actually strangely tiny.
The only thing is, but why has he got my name? Why is that half my name?
He doesn't.
He doesn't have.
No, he has half of your last name.
Why is he living my life?
It's a movie. He doesn't even live that life.
James Dean is living a miserable life.
I actually never really understood. I thought I was looking through a big window.
That's the screen.
Yeah.
Look how one of those in my house keeps the bugs out.
It's a little different.
But from the Jim Stark character, Sarkweather found a pose and a style.
And according to his sister, he spent hours in front of the mirror rehearsing his James Dean pose,
perfecting the way Dean hung a cigarette from his lips.
Ow, ow, keep burning my chin.
Ow, how does he do this?
It's pretty remarkable.
I always wanted to have a cigar like the dude in the wheelchair from the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
But then at some point, you chew the cigar and it's gross.
It's disgusting when it's all wet.
Yeah, it's gross.
For years, I thought that was a sausage.
Nope. No, it's not. I thought it was as well.
I never understood why it wasn't smoking, but we're not cigar men.
I've had a couple of cigars recently.
You like cigars.
I've been into them.
Yeah, I know, but you suck on them when they're not lit.
You go home at night and take a half of a wet old cigar and put it in your mouth.
I just said to him, I wish I could have saved that girl.
I'll tell you one thing. I don't put it in my mouth, but it is funny.
There's this new movie that is basically Five Nights at Freddy's that Nicholas Cage stars in.
Willie's Wonderland.
Yeah, and then there is one of the detectives.
And he just has a piece of jerky in his mouth the whole time.
Yeah, but that's because he's trying to quit smoking. It's character adjusted.
It's a character thing.
Yeah, but completely unrelated to Dean's performance,
it was around this time that Charles's fantasies of the aforementioned enchanted forest
were overtaken by increasingly strong and violent fantasies
involving a physical representation of the grim reaper.
Charles would later say that he would experience personal visits from death
who would bring along a coffin and order Charles to climb inside.
I do have a direct reading of his fantasy.
Yeah, go for it. Go for it.
She comes to me in a dream.
She told me, don't be in no hurry.
I won't forget one time death came to me with a coffin with you all folded for me to get in.
And the coffin stailed away with me in it to come to a big fire.
And the coffin sort of melted, I guess.
I was down there in a street with great flames of fire on each side of me,
but it wasn't hot like I always thought hell would be.
This is a dream.
No, it was more like beautiful flames of gold.
Then I woke up.
All right, so it doesn't sound like it was a nightmare. It sounds like he really enjoyed it.
Yeah, he loved his visits from death,
but his death was not the typical black robe skeleton type.
To him, death was a half human, half bear with no neck, no arms and no ears.
It's just they asked him because the psychiatrist, they're sitting with the psychiatrist.
This is all obviously all these quotes all come from after the fact.
They're trying to figure out all this kind of shit.
And so they're asking him like finally.
So, okay, so death comes to you, Charles.
That's incredible.
It's fascinating.
Absolutely fascinating.
But what does death look like?
And he's like, really, some kind of bear.
He's a half bear.
He's got two woman's tits, right?
He's got a half bear.
He's got a bear head, right?
So it's got an open pussy, no arms.
So it's kind of like a snake.
Okay.
It sounds like it's like man bear pig from South Park.
It had a pointed head that tapered off into a chest with big tits.
It was a woman somehow for some reason.
You're not very creative, are you, Charles?
I think actually I'm quite creative.
I think it's very creative.
No one's ever once thought of that once.
Oh no.
You think a lot of doctors have said to me is that Charlie, you're so stupid, you're unique.
That's amazing.
Right.
No, he just fantasized about having a big tits with no arms and no legs so it can't get
away from him or fight him off.
No, it has legs, but it was half a bear.
It had like bear's legs, I think.
And then a bear woman head, but it was pointy and no ears.
I can guarantee that he never thought of it once until they asked him what his death looked
like and then he just made it up on the spot.
Interesting.
Well, eventually Charles claimed that this bear woman would visit him in waking fantasies
accompanying by a whistling sound that announced her arrival.
In these daydreams, Charles imagined himself as the hero of fantastical adventures and
these fantasies always ended with Charles murdering his enemies.
It's interesting that he did view death as a whistle because I'm certain he had no clue
about the Aztec death whistles or any of that type of shit.
No.
He said that that's what it sounded like, which is I find that to be fascinating.
I mean, and again, these are just fantasies.
So who doesn't want to murder their enemies in fantasy?
People do.
Then you murder them in other ways emotionally.
Yes.
Sure.
Jesus.
Well, these murders were always justified in Starkweather's mind because Starkweather
had conditioned himself through years of aggressive behavior to justify any violent action.
He'd pick fights with strangers that he said were asking for it.
They were asked for it by the way they were dressed or the way they combed their hair
or because they looked at him cross-eyed as he put it.
That is rude to them.
I hate that.
It's what you're looking at.
Like Harpo.
I hate when people give me Harpo face.
I go nuts.
Oh, absolutely.
Jerry Lewis, come on.
Well, this is a way of living that would repel most people.
It was actually attractive to Starkweather's future partner in crime, Carol Ann Fugit.
Look at that.
Now, there's a lot of speculation as to whether Carol Ann was a willing accomplice in the
murders to come and modern interpretations usually tend to absolve her of any blame.
Mostly, I think because of her age and the nature of the crime, but I think that there's
a gray area in between that we're trying to waddle in.
Yeah, I think it comes down to a reality that exists somewhere between two scenarios.
The first possibility is that Carol Ann fell in love with a bad boy, quickly got in over
her head when the fantasies became real, then went along with the mass murder because she
was scared of what Charles would do if she didn't go along with it.
Yes.
The second option, though, is that Carol Ann was more like Carla Hamulka.
In that situation, the extreme violence starting with Carol's parents activated a hidden desire
to kill.
This is the Mickey and Mallory scenario, although Starkweather and Carol Ann never left anyone
alive to tell the tale.
The more research I do, the more I'm starting to believe that she did not have anything directly
to do with any sort of violence except for the violence against her family and that everything
else was separate and that Charles Starkweather kept it separate, but then try to blame it
all on her, which we'll get to.
All right, natural born killers, perhaps.
Concerning the former possibility, though, Carol Ann was only 12 years old when she met
Charles Starkweather.
She'd gone on a double date with Starkweather and Carol Ann's sister, Barbara, who at the
time was dating Starkweather's best friend, Bob Von Bush.
Now, yeah, this is old-timey dating.
This is old-timey dating because you remember the fugits actually just broke up, right?
Because she had a stepfather, blah, blah, blah.
There's a little bit of backstory here because the father was weird.
The original fugit left town and they're kind of like a hard scrabble family trying to put
it together, but it is weird to be like, you should date my 12-year-old sister, fellow
adult.
Again, 1950s, the guy blew a fugit, he had to get out of there.
Nice.
From what the author wrote, Carol was 12 but could have easily passed for 17 in both looks
and attitude, which isn't all that hard to see considering how everyone in the 50s looked
like they were fucking 35 by the time they were 15 years old.
By the way, check out Orphan's first kill, Not Too Shabby.
It's good.
It's not too shabby.
The twist and it's pretty great.
Not too shabby.
It's great.
All right, interesting because I figured there were no more twists left.
Oh, there's a twist.
There's a twist.
But concerning Carol Ann, she was rebellious, quick-tempered, wore dungarees and a mint
shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
She swore like a sailor and she already knew how to drive a car.
She was aping the idea of being a bad girl.
She was 12.
Right.
So she didn't really know.
Yeah.
Like Charles, though, Carol Ann was also a bit of a dullard and had been held back
in elementary school.
And like Charles, though, Carol Ann was neglected by her mother following a divorce and a remarry.
And Carol Ann grew up in utter poverty.
From the book, The 12th Victim, there was an example of why the mother actually disliked
the original father because the William Fugate, her father, was a considered to be like he
was not around a lot, but he was considered to be a little bit inappropriate in his humor.
And one of the favorite, he used to write poems for his daughters to make them laugh.
And one of the poems was, Oh, I took my girl a skate and I sat her on my knee.
She lit a fart, broke my heart and shit all over me.
Oh, it ain't gonna rain no more.
That's funny.
No more.
That was the poem that he used to sing.
That's funny.
And the kids used to laugh and love it.
That's a funny one.
And Brando was giving side-eye.
Yeah.
That's not bad.
I mean, it's not nearly as bad as it could be.
Yeah.
Obviously, yeah.
He could have molested everyone.
Oh, sure.
Well, after Carol Ann and Charles went out on one date, he was so smitten that he actually
threatened to kill another boy who tried asking her out.
Oh my.
Yeah.
And the pair would date for the next two years.
See Carol, she didn't care about Starkweather's speech impediment, his bow legs or his intense
myopia.
Love does that, doesn't it?
I guess.
All she saw was a tough rebel with a hot rod, whom she considered handsome.
Even though Charles Starkweather is about one of the weirdest looking dudes I've ever
laid eyes on.
He's somehow both moon-faced and square-headed at the same time.
Well, what he is, is hot and cool to a 12-year-old.
And then you understand this, things do change.
I don't see it.
Things do change.
You look at him because, again, he was giving her a lot of attention.
He was five years older than her.
He was loving, you know, now we know the term love-bombing, he was doing that too.
He pulled out all the stops.
It was like he just would give her whatever money he had, he gave her and he was obsessed
with her.
So she felt very special.
Yeah.
See, in Carol Ann's eyes, Charles could do no wrong.
And once he had someone to share his world with, he could, in author Michael Newton's
words, break from society completely.
For Charles, quote,
Something worth killing for had come.
Yeah, now I know.
Now it's just not meaningless killing.
Yeah.
Now I can do it.
It's nice.
I got a reason.
I got to cause this bella.
I mean, it's kind of romantic if it was written by Shakespeare, but it's not.
Well, it's cause he's a Nassle.
And again, it's about like now I have somebody that likes me for me, which is I'm a horrendous
asshole.
Yeah.
And now you like me for being one.
And I was doing, I did do a little snooping on, on Mr. Charles Zert and no research is
snooping.
And he's not that unattractive.
I'm going to say he's a 6.5, 6.5 really.
Get an actor's head.
Kissel's being generous today.
I don't know why he's choosing to be generous with Charles Zerk, whether or not he is.
But things didn't immediately start with murder and death.
It took a while for both of them to warm up to the idea, but once Charles got a taste
for it and since he wasn't that great at thinking about the future, he found that murder
solved problems in the very short term.
Eureka.
Yep.
So tell me, Charles, what was your aha moment?
Well, I realized that you just kill and kill and kill and kill and everybody just like,
they give you things and you win number one.
That's great.
Do you want to sit down with Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil to talk about it on their show?
Oh my God.
Am I going to go?
Am I going to see the yellow brick road?
Yep.
Catch me outside.
Those problems, however, mostly involved Carol Ann and a fight with his father over whether
or not Carol should be allowed to drive Charles's car when she was just 13, Charles slapped
his father and his father slapped back, sending Charles flying backwards into his car's side
window, breaking it.
Literally, he literally threw him out of a window.
Oh my goodness gracious.
That's how small he was, but his father was like a nice guy.
Like by all accounts, his father was a hardworking, honest man that like freaked out.
Like there was his son just...
He got into a slap fight with this kid.
I mean, you know, that's a slap fight.
Yeah.
No, that's a thing.
There were seven kids.
The other six were just fine.
Yeah, they were just hanging out.
He got all the recessive genes.
It's too bad.
It's too bad.
Well, Charles was subsequently kicked out of his house and he moved in with Bob Van
Bush and Carol Ann's sister, Barbara, who, since marrying Bob, had become Barbara Bush.
Yay!
But not Bush, war criminal, Bush, bad beer.
Okay.
Soon after though, Charles moved in with his brother, Radney, and focused on Carol,
spending most of his paychecks on buying her useless junk.
Yeah.
And even though he needed money, he quit his job at the newspaper warehouse because in
Charlie's estimation, his boss had hired a bunch of college boys, made Charlie train
them, then he promoted them to hire paying jobs.
It's because I mean...
They all could think and he could not think.
Well, he thought well enough to train them, did he not?
He didn't.
I...
That's Charlie saying he was training them.
I don't think they were sending him to train.
I don't think they were like, I don't think so.
Alright.
Alright.
But his bosses, they were about to fire him anyway because he was dumb and he had a bad
attitude.
You can't be both.
Because what gets the thing?
You can either be mean or stupid and still hold a job.
Yes.
But you can't be both and expect people to want you around.
Yeah, no matter the fact, if you're kind of stupid but really nice, you'll be loved.
That's what I need.
That's what I crave.
Yeah.
Nevertheless, Charles returned to the life of a garbage man, this time for 42 bucks a
week.
Got a 7 dollar a week raise.
This is good money.
Technically, it is very good money.
But it wasn't enough to shower Carol with gifts and pay rent you got your fucking missing the point Charles
Hey, you're the garbage man start sniffing through it. I know my gift every damn time you go to work
I know where my bread is sputtered. Oh my god is on the body of this 12-year-old girl
This is disgusting a garbage men get some of the best of the best of the best. I mean if you've got a good eye
Absolutely, mm-hmm
But that's the thing with since he couldn't have the gifts and the rent. He just stopped paying rent
Seems like his priorities aren't really in order it seems like he has a thinking issue
Because if you don't have a house you have no place to put the things that you're right
But as it was always destined to go things finally came to a head in 1957 when a rumor started
Circulating that Charles had gotten Carol Ann pregnant. She doesn't nail when they don't know is that she was skipping the rope
You know the age she fell down on the belly and it's just a fucking bruise. There you go. Thank you, Charles
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Now even though Carol Ann was mostly neglected following her mother's divorce and remarry
Carol Ann's mother Veldah and her stepfather Marion
They weren't too jazzed about having Charlie Stark weather as a potential son-in-law
You're just sitting in your living room living in normal like cuz honestly Marion
Fugit was fine or Marion whatever his last name was Bartlett. He's fine, right?
He was just normal they she said according to this according to the the
Carol Ann Fugit book. It's all like she had a perfect life and then oh
She didn't know you know I feel like it's too far in the other end where mostly just seems like Marion was fine
He lived a normal life and then all of a sudden your 12-year-old shows up with Charles Stark weather
He is exactly as ordered
Everywhere he goes right a circle of chaos and idiocy because he just fucks up
Every single thing that he touches
He's he's not he's bad to have in the living right. Yeah, you might kick him out there
Yeah, so they refused to allow Carol to marry Charles saying that if they tried they didn't know the marriage and charged Charles with statutory rape
I didn't touch a single fucking statue
And with this Marion and Veldah became the specific scapegoat for all of Stark weather's failures
Suddenly he decided that they were working night and day to keep what he deserved out of his reach. Oh my gosh
I also have like I have an idea that Charles was a virgin
Throughout this whole thing because they talk about how he didn't know what to do with women and
Carol Ann says straight up like we just kissed like she was never even
She knew she couldn't be pregnant because they never had sex
Each other
Eventually though Charles settled on a solution
He began to imagine himself as the hero of what he called his shooting movies. Oh wow. What a clever name
Yeah, that went along with the stabby books. I got shoot movies. I got my sharp ass books. Oh, I'm the most dangerous guy at the library
What does the devil look like again? Oh, he's just all ice cream
No, sometimes get a long blonde hair sometimes. Oh, is that Patsy Jack? Oh
I'm surprised. You know who he is. Yeah, I know time is in linear. It's something
Well, Charles imagined himself to be the man killing the evil villain standing in his path
And this was all in the pursuit of whisking away his beloved to a better life
At the same time Charlie's bizarre half bear vision of death was slowly replaced by Carol Ann herself
And according to Charles the two of them Carol Ann and himself they began planning their violent escape
Together, but Carol Ann of course denies that she knew anything about the rampage to come
Carol Ann says in the book that
He never once mentioned ever wanting to rob anything which is not true
I think that's completely fake. Yeah, but she said that what he had was that he told her the story is that you know
Actually up and before you met me. I was a sheriff in Texas
She got to go back because the beer has been looking to me
Literally that's what that's what she said was his fantasies that they're gonna escape and go back to where he's a sheriff in Texas
Which is I just don't think that that
I think that they fantasize about robbing a bank together. Yeah, they're just really young and very stupid
And he probably talked about it so much that she forgot that he was talking about it at all. Yes
Well before Charles got her on to enacting that fantasy of whisking our way to a better life
He needed money. Yeah, like some job that you had remember when you had a job. Yeah
Miss step
What if I go digging for gold
That's what you know what fine. That's at least a mission
You're a child I'm a child we shouldn't be together Carol you look fantastic. Thank you
Like he needed a lot of money fast
And he figured the easiest way to do that was to rob the gas station where he hung out on his days off
Bum and sodas and cigarettes. That's great. So everyone knows who you are
And then you show up to be like, hey, mr. Stark weather. No, they're gonna be like finally you're robbing here
Finally free us
We know who you are, you know that right kids if you rob somebody's job you free all the employees
For about two weeks Charles cased the gas station noting the movements of the attendance while hanging out with one of the attendants
A guy named Robert McClung
Literally and they're all like what's Charlie doing out there
Seems like he's cased in the joint. Yeah, it might as well have been he told them
Well, Charlie figured as he watched more and more that it wouldn't be a problem if he had to kill the attendant
But at the end of November in 1957 a petty and very stupid argument guaranteed the attendance death
Oh on that day and this wasn't the guy that Charlie knew but on that day stark weather tried buying a teddy bear for Carol
Ann on credit
For a you know me plushy business
Your girlfriend a teddy bear as a gift you're dating someone way to you. It's child
No, she just really wants this Lego set
No, actually Natalie did just Natalie like the Lego sets, but nowadays they're like $400. Yes
Yes, they're very adults. They have advanced once now
Yeah, and when attendant Robert culvert told stark weather that he only accepted cash
Charles got mouthy
He left in a huff and decided that maybe killing the attendant could be a feature of the robbery not a bug
Let me have a fucking bear
And they're just watching him fume about the teddy bear in the store like watching him just sit in a car across the street
Right, there's no scene like that in Rubble without a cause
Yeah between James Dean and salmoneo the famous let me have the teddy bear
He was a former garbage man, you know many people throw away their teddy bears
You know how many how many teddy bears I've seen in the garbage so wash it off and give it as a gift. No, you're right
Actually, oh, I mean a lot of mistakes
And so that night
Charles stark weather stole a 12-gauge shotgun from Bob Vaughn Bush's cousin and he cleaned and oiled it before taking
Carol out to watch him participate and one of his many demolition derbies
He's not bad. He wasn't bad at him. He was great. He won most most of the time the only skill he had it is the
Let's see here. How do I phrase this if you're really dumb?
You might be good at demolition. Yeah, because the whole point is that you don't drive well. Yeah. Yeah, if you're dumb
And you can't see that's great. Yeah, he's never gonna hesitate because he can't can't I can tell I'm winning by all the crash noises. Oh
That's me
You won you you hurt the most amount of cars. Yeah, it's cool. Right. Did you sit in there? Yeah
Well that night Charles won 20 bucks
Oh, and he's celebrated by blowing a bunch of cash at a steakhouse
Before taking Carol and to see a submarine movie called the enemy below starring Robert Mitchum. Oh
Yeah, Mitchum underrated actor. I love the night of the hunter great movie night of the hunter pans. Yeah, Charles then dropped
Charles then dropped off Carol
He then had a couple of beers at the bar
Then he went home with a bottle of wild turkey and spent a couple hours
Practicing his aim by pointing a shotgun at the TV
You
Pretty good there 20 bucks really went a long way back then huh? It really did. Wow. Yeah
No, no, he had a porter thick porter house smothered it in onions big big potato
Then at 2 a.m. He grabbed the shotgun a pair of leather gloves a canvas bag a
Hunter's cap with ear flaps and a red bandana before leaving for the Crest gas station where the much-hated Robert
Colvert was working
It's like 50 cents you could have bought it with the 20 that you won but let's just say I'm like this month, okay?
Now Charles didn't immediately walk into the store brandishing a weapon
Instead he went inside and bought a pack of camels for a quarter
Yeah, yeah, take some cigarettes cuz you can tell we did it like super like non-glue not gonna rob it
Then he returned and bought some gum
Just browsing the store that I basically living are you gonna rob the store?
I'm just trying to see if you got anything new and I've been holding her 10 minutes 15 minutes
I know but then I realized oh what if I went back?
Charles you're not robbing the store. I'm thinking about
Okay, great. It's not a lie if you admit the truth
These two visits of course garnered a suspicious look from Robert Colvert
And that's when Starkweather's paranoia kicked into high gear and since he figured Colvert might call the cops
Charles parked a short distance away and turned off his lights waiting for the cops to show up the keys
Maybe if I roll up he really did he was like now. I'm gonna drive back with the lights off
And then I'll surprise the guest. This is the dumbest thing. I have ever heard my life
But when they didn't Starkweather pulled back into the station tied the red bandana around his face and put on the hunting cap
I know it's you somehow work as a disguise
Colvert knew him personally and had already seen him twice in the last hour. He is
Legitimately almost a carbon copy of flat top from Dick Tracy. Who is an extremely distinctive looking person?
Who is this bold-legged woman with a bobbish gun?
What's your name, man?
Charles
Sneaking up behind Colvert who was by then working on a car in the garage
Starkweather shoved the shotgun into his back and ordered him to put the money from the register in the canvas bag
Got about 200 bucks at most. Okay. Yeah, it's like, you know
Between a hundred and 200 bucks, you know, it's a month's pay. It was a big for him at the time
It was a big haul and again, you know, like he's going deeper now
Yeah, Charles then demanded the money in the safe, but Colvert claimed to not have a combination
So Charles Starkweather took Robert Colvert for a ride outside of town
After driving northeast at gunpoint they turned on to an unpaved road called Superior Street
Which was then a bit of a lover's lane for the local teenagers
I always think about how the cops used to watch all the kids make out
Yeah, even when I was in high school that used to do that you'd go like all the kids
There was like a make-out area and you'd go out there and then like the cops would always come sweep it like looking for kids
Like having sex with each other or whatever and I don't understand why why they sent that man out there
Or did he choose to go?
It was just people that had friends and relationships with other people and you were lonely
And the cops would come and do this, but get out of here kids. Yeah, like why did they come and look at us kids?
Shake it up. They didn't look at you. They wanted to shake it up. Get out of here kids. Yeah, get out of here
Yeah, we didn't have a lover's lane since we were it was a you know about rural town
We had a bunch of back roads call it back road and and they would
Keeping her virginity
Yeah, and you'd have your little space that you pull up into but then you know
The cops would come they go on the back roads looking for teenagers out there drinking beer
And they shine a light and go get out of here. So I'm doing this shine. Yeah, why?
To get you out of there. Yeah
I don't own I didn't own the land
Different, it's right. We used to drink at a place called the dead end, which was a dead end. Yeah
Get out of here. Yeah
After driving down Superior Street
They then drove past the house of a woman named Bloody Mary who would fire a shotgun filled with rock salt at teenagers
Until she finally switched to buckshot in the 60s and ended up actually killing a teenager
That's the problem. She's funny though. It was a funny thing until there's death. Yeah, get off her lawn
Yeah, come hang out on my yeah, go to him kissles
Get on my lawn
Well about a mile past Bloody Mary's place
Charles and Robert stopped and stark weather ordered culvert out of the car
Now according to Charles culvert tried grabbing the shotgun and after a scuffle culvert got a hold of the gun
And somehow shot himself in the chest. I don't know how he did it. Yeah. Yeah, you don't know how he did it
Oh, yeah
Then when Charles got the gun back the gun went off again somehow and blew off the back of culvert's head and
Reality though culvert was first shot in the chest point blank then again point blank in the back of the head
That means stark weather probably ordered him out of the car and simply
Executed culvert after what was I'm sure a pathetic little speech about how he should have sold him the teddy bear
And as she sits on her embroidered pillow with C and C next to each other
She has an open space in her arms
That should be the home of a teddy bear. This is all over a teddy bear
But then one man stands in the way of justice. I would have given you the teddy bear
Stands in the way of fate
And that man is stupid. I didn't even do anything. I'm the guy that does the fate
God, I can't believe I'm gonna die at the hands of such a moron
But either way stark weather drove off after the murder leaving the body behind and he threw the shotgun into a creek
Now about an hour or two after stark weather abducted culvert a police car stopped off at the gas station to find it unattended
And coincidentally culvert's body was found by sheriff's deputies at about the same time
After neighbors had called in the discovery of a dead body
Now since charles hadn't left anything behind there were no leads and the cops never came
Close to charles stark weather for the murder until after he killed 10 more people
For his part though, charles was thrilled when the news hit the radio the next day
But he still went about his regular schedule of demolition derbies and cheeseburgers
Won 10 bucks on the second one
Oh, not bad. He won again
But that was the thing is that he spent all night worried. He's like, oh the papers
I don't know in the morning. I mean while like you worked at the newspapers charlie
You know, it takes a second for the news to come out. Right. He doesn't know much
No, no
In other words, the plan to take carolina away from nebraska was well on its way
Even though stark weather was dumb enough to immediately deposit the money from the robbery into a bank account
Oh, yes, crisp stolen 200 dollars. Ah, very good. Someone found this missing money. Very good
But while that was classic moron behavior stark weather was actually smart in the way he covered up the rest of the crime
He changed the tires on his truck in case the cops cast tire prints from the unpaved road where the murder occurred
He painted it black in case anyone had seen him
And he even retrieved the shotgun from the creek the day before cops searched it for the murder weapon
Yeah, it's kind of smart, but it's also like wow. What a coincidence. Well, it's also jd the him getting the shotgun before they searched
Was a coincidence, but that also was truly was just he got there in time
But the rest of it he learned from true crime magazines. I guess
But then about 10 days after the murder once stark weather felt he was free and clear of the crime
He drove carolina to the gas station. He'd robbed and made a big show of buying the teddy bear
He'd previously been denied
Oh my god, she's like
I don't even like this. Oh, you better like that damn teddy bear at this point. Thanks, Charlie, but I don't need it
Thanks, Charlie
But of course this was merely the beginning of stark weather blowing all of the money
He'd gained from the robbery that was supposed to go towards a new life for him and carol an yep
He bought christmas presents for his family and again
Showered carol an with gifts the couple also went to the movies as often as they could and stark weather bought of course a whole bunch of
Comics featuring knives. He loves them. All right
Stark weather's depression and headaches even went away once he finally got what he felt he was owed
This is me now. Yeah
Cool
I've done it. I fixed it
What a life i'm gonna leave absolutely
But when the money ran out in january a little over a month after the robbery
Oh, I should have thought a little bit more about the budget. It's really not that much money
I mean, it was good for a little while but charles fell behind on rent and got evicted
He slept in his car during a cold nebraska winter and the dark moods and violent fantasies returned with a vengeance
Should never have gotten married that couple no
Now stark weather limply tried returning to the workforce
But gave up quite quickly blaming his old bosses at the garbage haulers for quote putting them on a blacklist
There definitely was a garbage haulers blacklist
It would be his third time trying to be a garbage man after he quit the first two times
And they gave him a raise probably wouldn't want to hire him again to be fair
Yeah, no, he was a visible moron with a bad attitude that cannot be stressed enough
But i'm an asset to the company
You're really not you're really not
But to get around this stark weather figured that if he was a married man a place of business would have no choice
But to hire him. Oh, why I don't know. It's very stupid. He just thinks he's like we'll normalize
You know what? Maybe we're too fringe
You know, we gotta do is we gotta bring it together a nice white wedding. We all come together
She's still 12. Yeah, but she won't be 12 and six years
And by then, oh, we'll all be gone and then me and I'll be here
By this time she's 14. It's been this is two years later. Yeah, all right. I'm just stating the facts here
Well, because Charles stark weather figured hey, if I get married everything will be better. He went to carolyn fugates house
The dalliance of ignorance amongst our youth
He went to carolyn fugates house on january 20th, 1958 to plead his case to carolyn's mother and stepfather
Now maryon unveiled this hatred for charles stark weather had only grown over the two years
He'd been seeing carolyn. So after a brief and terse conversation about marriage
maryon grabbed charles by the caller and literally threw him out of the house
There's also a foot taller than him and at this point this was like the third time where they're like
Charlie's not coming back in this house. Yeah, they can't be wrong. He's not coming back and every single time he'd show back up
but like
He'd always come with different schemes like he'd like show up being like
I don't know how I feel like we could flip you all your whole industry. You know, you know
He said I'm something like charlie. You're a fucking moron
Get the fuck out of my house. It seems like the parents really were trying to do the best they could I sure
Yeah, well that night charles claimed he dreamed of giant snakes
Squeezing him to death and when charles woke up screaming and soaked with sweat
He finally decided that carolyn's parents had to die. This is the dream
Okay, these are the snakes to my dreams. I don't know buddy
The next morning charles joined his brother on a garbage route to earn a little extra cash
And after the route was done charles borrowed his brother's 22 rifle saying he was going hunting with carolyn's stepfather maryon
By 1 p.m.
Charles had shown up at carolyn's house with the 22
two boxes of ammunition
And some carpet samples he'd picked up on his garbage route. See this is at least he's starting to learn
Well, this thing he picked a bunch of stinky carpet samples out of the garbage
Yeah, and then this whole time they're like because you know carolyn's mother. She's been wanting a new rope new carpet
Here's some samples when he goes in. He just throws them on the floor been like, uh, it's nice. Oh that nice puke ring
Ah, that's a nice one puke
scrape that off here. What about that poopy brown?
We don't want to get
It started as a mouth
Oh, isn't that nice just imagine if you were the size of a mouse though. This could actually be good enough for a living room
I mean he planned to use the scavenged carpet samples as a piece offering
Maybe that's what he said because valda mentioned she wanted a new carpet for their home
Yeah, you see this tiny little piece of soiled carpet. That's really great imagine hundreds more of these pieces
soiled carpet. The thing is is that I only have
this one
Anywhere to get the how do we get the whole thing?
What's thanks for just carpet is that it's perfect for kneeling on with one knee
Yeah, it's perfect. We need a lot more carpet. Yeah
No, not not gonna happen. No
That's all you got. This is your carpet. That's just a little bit though. It's enough
To get a taste of a carpet. That's the new company. I think you guys could start called a taste of carpet. Oh, I see
We used to steal carpet from the back dumpster of a carpet warehouse
To line the walls of our practice spaces with so we wouldn't go deaf practicing in a metal storage space
It's awesome. They're really cool. But he also showed up with a rifle and he does the thing
We walked up to mary and he's like, hey, you want to go fucking hunting today?
Like he just shows up with the rifle and then he's just like, uh, no
Well, mary wasn't awake yet
When charles showed up to the door with the rifle and the carpet samples valda was a little hesitant
But I suppose the carpet samples worked because she reluctantly let him into the house
After he explained that he wanted to ask mary and if he wanted to go hunting
And so charles sat on their couch working the bolt of the rifle in and out in and out over and over
charlie, um, I know we
We might have had a discussion
About you coming over unannounced and maybe we can continue that discussion
Where you could leave you're gonna want to check out those carpet samples
I'm looking at all of them
And smelling them pretty cool. They just seem to be they have like a smell of vision style
Yeah, yeah, we got him out of the trash
Now at this point carol am was still at school
But in the house was valda her two-year-old daughter betty gene and maryan who was napping in the bedroom
After charles was given a polite yet
Terse tour around the house
He left the 22 rifle in carol's bedroom and went to the kitchen
There valda stopped being polite and started getting real
She angrily revealed that she'd heard the rumor that carol am was pregnant
She then slapped charles telling him that she hated him for even the possibility of carol being pregnant
On the second slap though charles blocked it and skittered out the front door
And if you ever want to make your mom
Angrier you catch that hand before the slap. Oh my goodness. Remember that like if you want to get hit extra
You stop the first thing you just got to get hit sometimes by mama. Yeah, my mother never hit me
Whatever
Your mother encouraged your more i'm gonna say raccoon like things that you like to do like scavenging for carpets
Thank you
If i were to say who encouraged my scavenging more it would be my father. Who do you think i learned it from?
Wow, yep, it's a house. It's a house of skeletons. Isn't that something?
Well charles started driving away, but remembered that he left the rifle
So he returned to the house and knocked again
Velda opened the door and charles pushed her aside, but marion was now awake from his nap
Uh-oh, but charles was a slippery little fella. He's small. So he ducked past marion
Marion however was also quick and he managed to kick charles in the ass knocking him to the ground
And he then picked him up by the collar again and threw him out of the house. This is it right now up to this point
This is a heath cliff story. Yeah. I mean, we do have one murder under his belt. Oh, yes
So this man is still very very dangerous. They don't know yet
They don't know that this tiny pain in the ass is actually a maniac, right?
Once at this point that we can see that charles had definitely decided to kill carolann's parents
He drove to marion's place of business and told the operator that marion wouldn't be in for a few days
Which of course would buy charlie some time
Again, 1950s is just easier. You can walk in and say this to somebody. Meanwhile, like people are like, who are you?
Why are you telling me that this other employee like what's happening? They just go, okay
You know, oh well put marion down. He's off the schedule. Yeah
He then drove back to carolann's house to do the deed
But once he got there velda refused to even open the door
So charles stayed outside and played with the family dog for an hour until carolann got out of school
Well, once carolann arrived she immediately got into a shouting match with her mother about stark weather
So charles snuck in through the back kitchen door velda. However, heard him come in and she resumed the slapping
This time though charles hit her back and knocked her to the ground
And this is when things start getting a little rough
It's tense. Yeah, I think it's intense.
Marion then joined in grabbing charles by the neck and throwing him to the ground where they wrestled their way into the living room
Marion then got up and went to another room to find a tool to finish the job
So charles went to carol's room to grab the gun
Just after he loaded it though, he claimed that marion came at him with a claw hammer
So charles fired the rifle and shot marion in the head
Velda charles claimed then came at him with a butcher knife screaming that she was going to chop off his head
Carol supposedly then grabbed the rifle and threatened to shoot her mother if she didn't leave charles alone
Then charles grabbed the gun back and shot velda in the face
This however didn't stop her so charles hit her with the butt of the rifle over and over until she finally stayed down
Meanwhile, the two-year-old toddler betty gene was screaming and carol began screaming in turn for betty gene to shut up
So charles slammed the butt of the rifle into the toddler's face, but not hard enough to kill her
Marion meanwhile was still alive
So charles picked up the butcher knife and advanced towards him
But betty gene was still screaming
So charles threw the knife and somehow managed to hit her in the neck
And according to one account i read charles then pressed the barrel of the gun against betty gene's throat until she died
charles then picked up a hunting knife with the intention of finishing off marion who was struggling to stay alive back in carol's bedroom
Taking the knife charles tried stabbing it through the flesh and sinew of marion's throat, but the knife wouldn't go in
Yeah, because it was just on the wall the knife wasn't even like a usable knife. It was some bullshit
Like like a antique a souvenir. Yeah. Yeah, so
Charles slowly pushed the knife in with his palm several times until marion finally bled to death
Then from what charles said he turned to carol and said that they sure got themselves into a hell of a mess
To which carol supposedly replied quote. Well, it's what we always wanted
Well, you guys want to change what you want. I mean, that's the idea
God
No, because that was the but and there's a lot of talk was carolan even there. There's like there's did she show because according to her
She showed up
Afterwards, we'll get we're gonna get to all that on the next episode
This fucking asshole. So he has now four people that he has killed
And in relatively quick succession, right? Because the robbery was what just a couple of days before no, the robbery was two months
About a month and a half two months before
This is the natural born killers storyline
Yeah, right. Well, of course they make mallory's father rodney danger field of horrible person in this case
It's kind of it's just very sad as well because it seemed like they were good parents again
It's all about my daughter alone. You have to remember that somebody can be so so stupid. They can be very very dangerous
Absolutely, I think everyone I think people know. Yeah, you know
And so after watching tv for a little while
Charles got to the business of getting the bodies out of the house
He wrapped them with rugs sheets and house wrap
Betty Jean, however, was still bleeding. So Charles tossed the body in the sink until the rest of the blood drained out
Belda and Betty Jean bodies were then dragged to the outhouse where Charles engaged in possibly the dumbest body disposal. I've ever encountered
See Charles figured that he could dump the bodies down the shithole starting with Belda and no one would be the wiser
Think about this. He thought that he could put the bodies in the toilet
And then they would disappear. Yeah, it's not this is not a huge outhouse. I can't imagine he's like this is where I
This is where I do think I think it's panic
And being clinically still unbelievable. Yeah, but when he tried shoving Velda's body in head first
It got stuck
So he figured good enough and left the body halfway in halfway out. What do you mean good enough?
It's not
Detectives are gonna notice. No, it wasn't good enough
He then laid the body of Betty Jean on the outhouse seat next to the hole and closed the door
Charles then tried removing Marion's body, but found it was too big to fit through the screen door
So Charles removed the door from its hinges
Drag the body to the back of the chicken coop and for some reason laid the screen on top of the body
There you go. No bugs get in
Stupid there you go. Oh, it's a little door now. No, we'll see that. Yeah. No, that's really really great hiding
Yeah, that transparent door
Mm-hmm after the bodies were out of the house, Charles and Carol Ann cleaned up the gore
Straighten the mess sprinkled perfume over the furniture to mask the copper scent of blood
And use the rug used to wrap Velda with one Charles found at the dump now. He's using his head
I should have just brought this whole rug. Yeah, that would have been nice
Ah, maybe I could have avoided this whole afternoon. Yeah, it seems like he was kind of needless. Yeah. Well, anyway
It's a little ranger. Wow
Oh, then they left the house bought three bottles of pepsi and a bag of potato chips at the store
And allegedly spent the next six days happily playing house in the same place where Carol Ann's entire family was murdered
And according to charlie according to charlie the best week of his life
And that's where we'll pick back up next week with the rest of stark weather's rampage
As well as Carol Ann's side of the story as to what really happened to her family
On that great january afternoon in Nebraska. Oh god, it's down in Nebraska
It's so far away
So far away down to the dark tips and that one I want to remind y'all we'll be in Omaha this way. No, we already we were already there
Nebraska's a great place. It's not representative of the entire people. Wow really good. Yes, no problem
Really good. But guys next week
We're getting to the full rampage
And then this month we've got a lot of fucking we're getting weird with it
I'm really excited. We're gonna get weird. Uh, I'm very excited for the topics coming up
And we will be in your town if you are in buffalo
Or you're in what's the other what's the ohio city? Uh, north. North field. Yeah, north field
Oh, we're gonna crush it. No way. It's gonna be bad
And then my second hometown pittsburgh pennsylvania pittsburgh pennsylvania pittsburgh always a fun time in pittsburgh
Can't wait and always a fun time in buffalo. We played buffalo a few years ago. It was great and kiss look at that guy
Kicked out of that weird bar. That's right. We'll figure it out. Also north field never been
But I'm sure it'll be a fun time and then don't forget beacon theater new york
We have a couple of tickets left so grab those but they're going fast
And we're not just saying that because they're not going fast
No, this is my favorite thing that people would be like almost sold out and then you call them on the front
I'm like, hey, you're really doing good with the shows. I've sold for I've sold for
Oh, no, it's actually going very well. We can't wait to see people man. It's I can't believe we're here
We're doing baby. We're having it. We're having at it
All right, everyone. Well, thank you so much for listening. Thanks for supporting all the shows here on the last podcast network
And never forget. Hey yourself
Hey, Ted, again
Look at installations everybody
Do the ice cream
What a great beat it's easy to murder a family too
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