What Ever Happened to Caril Fugate?

If you commit murder for insurance money, or for mere pleasure, make it wholesale. Never stop at one.... It is the wholesale poisoner, or the shockingly cruel and unusual murderer, who attracts the sob sisters and sob brothers of the yellow press; causes quack alienists to rally to his defense like buzzards around a carcass; invites the windiest oratory and the most unmitigated flapdoodle from his attorneys; and finally, if he be convicted at all, makes thousands of persons move heaven and earth, slander the living and vilify the dead, in order to save his precious body alive.

--Edmund L. Pearson, Rules for Murderesses

Caril Ann Fugate was convicted of murder and sent to prison for her part in a week-long murder rampage through Nebraska and Wyoming in 1958 that left nearly a dozen people, including her parents and little sister, dead. Fugate, in reliance on her age of fourteen, always maintained that she was the innocent victim of her boyfriend Charles Starkweather. After eighteen years of penal service, Caril had been taxed enough, it was adjudged. Evidencing its reluctance to treat young girls who kill with anything approaching severity, the state of Nebraska paroled her in the mid-'70s.

Photo: Fugate in 1976

After her parole, Fugate moved to St. Johns, Michigan, a small farming community between Lansing and Mt. Pleasant, in the center of Michigan's lower peninsula. What drew her there was the solace of a couple who befriended her after seeing a documentary about the murders.

And where Fugate went, the tabloids followed. But they couldn't get interviews with the convicted murderess without written permission from the Nebraska Parole Board. So they pestered everyone else around her.

When newspapermen came inquiring in St. Johns in 1976, nobody wanted to talk about her. "Why don't you boys just leave her alone?" one man asked. "She's paid her dues." A woman from St. Johns told a reporter: "As long as she keeps her nose clean, it's okay with us."

In 1983, Fugate was again the focus of national attention when she appeared on a program called Lie Detector. The nationally televised show purported to put Fugate's claims of innocence to the test. According to the producers of the show, she passed. Afterward, Fugate held a press conference at a motel in Lansing in which she said she felt vindicated by the program, claimed that she was a victim of mass hysteria, and further represented that she did not realize that Starkweather had killed her family until long after the fact.

Photo: Fugate in 1983

The prosecutor reiterated that she was guilty as charged, and that the test was too superficial to find the truth.

But then one could expect that of a prosecutor -- someone taken with a system involving weeks and weeks spent in a courthouse, the tedious interrogations of dozens of witnesses under threat of perjury, and the painstaking examination of mountains of documentary and forensic evidence. Had the state of Nebraska held more faith in lie detectors, maybe they could have avoided all that fuss to begin with.

In the many years that have passed since she last appeared on the national stage, Caril Fugate has led a quiet life, judging by the fact that anything less than that would be common knowledge by now. It is said that she works as a nurse's aide in the Lansing area. (I verified that she holds no license from the state, at least not under her maiden name, and thus, if she's working in the medical field, it can be as no more than an aide.)

At this point, though, she nears the end of her allotted threescore and ten, and we may well hear of her again soon. And whether that occasion will result in reunification with the murderous psychopath whom she once called Love--only she can really say.

***

Sources:

"Michigan town taciturn about Fugate," Lincoln Star, Nov. 11, 1976.

"TV 'Lie Detector' test 'vindicates' murderess," Arlington Heights Daily Herald, Feb. 23, 1983.

** For more:

Comments

[Harding]

This is a great story. Nice.

H-

[Robert]

I loved the comments of Edmund Pearson. It's as true today as it was back then, not only for poisoners but all convicted murderers.

[Gary Bernklow]

Interesting take on Caril Anne Fugate. Imagine the nerve of those evil prosecutors! I especially enjoyed your sympathetic view that she "did not realize that Starkweather had killed her family until long after the fact". Would that be long after the lived in the same house with her dead family for several days? Would that be one, two, three hours after it happened? Would that be when she heard the shots since she admitted she was in the house when it happened? Please. Get a grip and do some research. She was a murderer and no more deserves to have avoided all of the "fuss" (nice euphemism for 11 murders) than her boyfriend.

[Laura]

Gary, Gary! We are on the same page. Kindly reread my post with sarcastic inflections.

[juliette]

i got the (obvious) sarcastic inflections. sheesh.

[Janet Currie]

I have recently read a book detailing Caril's life after her sentence. I know that she was released in 1976, but does anyone know whether or not she ever married? One site says she never has, but someone checked to see whether she had a driver's licence under her married name. Could anyone help?

[JT Thornton]

I have an old Life Magazine dated Dec. 1, 1958. (It has Ricky Nelson on the cover) On page 35 there is a large photo of Caril Ann Fugate being escorted by two women on either side of her (no handcuffs) with this caption:

"Grim-faced Caril Ann Fugate was firmly gripped by Attendant Dora Sawyer in a court in Lincoln, Neb. where she was sentenced to be imprisoned for life. A jury found the 15-year-old eighth-grader guilty of helping her boyfriend, Charles Starkweather, murder 17-year-old Robert Jensen during a spree of killings they went on together last January. Starkweather, already sentenced to die in the electric chair, testified that Caril carried a shotgun and took Jensen's billfold."

Caril Ann is clutching a handkerchief in her left hand and her eyes are closed as they walked, perhaps anticipating the photographer's flash bulb. Behind them is a sign that reads:

MERLE C. KARNOPP
COUNTY SHERIFF

[jim mccord]

I was a year older than Charlie and Caril's youngest victim when the spree took place.Fugate was in it up to her neck.She had the prescence of mind to shut down during her initial interrogation and sometimes simply played dumb.I have read several books on this duo's ill gotten murder spree and am convinced that she should have received a life sentence in Nebraska due to her involvement in commission of the crimes.The lie detector test consisted of two very general questions at best,so basically nothing new was gleaned from that token gesture.Eighteen years is small potatoes after what those two left in their wake.She had more influence on Starkweather during the spree than many will ever admit.She should still be a ward of the State of Nebraska,plain and simple.

[Chelsy Starkweather]

Well.
Charles Starkweather was my grandfathers, uncle.
He had been 17 when he commited the first , and Caril was only 13.
a EFFING 13 year old had helped he boyfriend kill people, so that they would love eachother.
Thats total bull.
But whatever.
I would like to know if Caril is still alive today, and if she had the baby that they reported that she was pregant with.
It would help me out a lot.

[Jim Burke]

I think you did a good job on this blog. Obviously Carol ann served her sentence and went on to have a "peaceful" life. I am sure she knew, but who really knows anything for sure except her or Starkweather. I hope she has found inner peace and solitude.

[Ray George Granger]

As I remember reading about the case, her dead family were not 'in the house', but stashed in an outhouse. She would, though, have definitely found out about them from the morning paper delivered to the Ward house when she and Charlie were holed up there.
I agree she was probably involved to some extent – though Charlie was such a fantasist it's hard to put trust in anything he said – but it's hard to see any 14-year-old girl as hard-bitten, and it seems possible to me that she may have been in such a dissociative state that she firmly believed she was not culpable and was acting under duress, and that, although the issue was never raised at trial because she insisted on her innocence, that she may have been legally insane at the time of the killings.

[Peggy of Philadelphia]

I dont care that she paid her debt to society. She hasn't paid her debt to humanity yet.
It upsets me to think that she will be forgiven and allowed to go to heaven along with those she murdered or allowed to be murdered by her boyfirend Charlie.
After her sentence was over she, and others like her, should have to then serve humanity by doing community service in places that are hard to find help....prisons, mental hospitals, fatal disease institutions, etc!!!!
People like Caril should also be used for medical testing when it is needed!!!

[Shannon]

I just watched the movie Starkweather on E-MYS channel. Guilty guilty guilty!!! He had no conscience. I guess he got it beat out of him by the local kids and he snapped. I don't know what to think of Caril. She could have mentally shut down, but on the other hand, perhaps what drew them together was each others lack of humanity. Like 2 peas in a pod. SHe should not have been allowed to go free. She should have either gotten out of jail and then gone to a mental house, or been sentenced to stay in the mental house for the rest of her life. 11 dead, and she gets to have a life. Thats wrong.

[Anonymous]

Wow!!! Its been almost 50 yrs since this happened and people still won't let my great-aunt live in peace. It's so amazing to me that people who only have the media's depiction on what happened have such harsh things to say about her. I can't believe the audacity of "Shannon" to say people like her should be used for medical testing. How would you like it if someone said that about you or your family member? People should really educate themselves before saying such cruel things.

[martha]

I am a friend of Caril, and as a friend of hers I will not disclose any of her personal information. However the great aunt woman up their is a liar, Her family would not post anything about her in any sense.
She is living well and I do say this it is well deserved. She was a victim of Charles pure and simple. The young man murdered her family, and she was in a state of shock and fear when the police caught up with them. This story has been dramatized, spun out, and totaly mistold by media and so called realitives of both Caril and Charlie. The guilty was punished, and unfortunately so was Caril. She lost alot of years of her life, but she did recieve a great education and is the best nurse the world has ever seen. She is the kindest person I have ever met.

[Del Harding]

I was the only newspaper reporter who was at the scene of all the murders, who covered both Starkweather's and Fugate's trials, and his execution. In response to one of the earlier comments, Charlie WAS given lie detector tests, both by the Lincoln police and by the state highway patrol. He said Caril was not a hostage and that she herself killed or helped kill at least two of the 11 victims. Based on my extensive personal knowledge of the case, I have NO doubt at all that she was guilty.
Correcting earlier postings: when the murders took place he was 19 and she was 14; the rumor in 1958 that she was pregnant was not true; and, she could not have read about her parents' murders because because the first news story (mine) didn't run until Jan. 28, the day after they had left the Bartlett house and the same day three more victims were discovered near Bennet, Nebr.
This my first post in this forum. Much of what has been written about this case since Dec. 1957 (when the first murder took place) is exaggerated or just plain wrong.

[Anonymous]

Whoever this Martha lady is yes i am the great niece of Caril Fugate and I can prove it. I did not give any personal information in my blog and you shouldn't say what her family would and would not do if you are not a part of our family. I have gladly came to her defense any time I have heard bad things said about her throughout my life and she knows it. As a matter of fact I just seen my great aunt at the beginning of the summer. We had a wonderful time together.

[Min9]

Someone please tell me this woman was not allowed to be a nurse? This woman is clearly not someone who should be allowed around sick people based on her history it is to risky. She should be a landscaper, electrician a mechanic even, but not a nurse! How scary.

[jim mccord]

This comment is for Mr. Harding.I bought an autographed copy of "Headline Starkweather" online several year ago.It was signed for Margo Harding by the author,Earl Dyer.Below this inscription is Bat 5/3/93.Several of your newspaper entries are included in this informative book.They had previously been highlighted by someone.This book and William Allen's 1976 offering "Starkweather" are the best written studies of this bizarre case imho.Ninette Beaver's "Caril" was very interesting as was James Reinhardt's "The Murderous Trail of Charles Starkweather".I appreciate your thoughtful reflections regarding this meaningless killing spree almost 50 years ago.So many lives were needlessly taken and the surviving family and friends suffered with their losses.Thanks again for your dedication to your proffession and reporting the truth.Respectively,Jim McCord

[Janet Currie]

Dear Del:

I was interested to read that you are the great niece of Caril. I guess your grandmother is her sister Barbara, right? I have seen a photo of your grandparents when they were young.

My own feeling is that Caril was so young and was so scared of her boyfriend, Starkweather, that her feelings just froze. I also think that Starkweather was affected by the accident he had at the newspaper plant where he was hit on the head by a lever. He had never been in trouble with the law before that. Maybe the accident just triggered something in him.

I am just a year older than Caril, and though I don't remember the case at the time (I don't think it made the papers in England) I read about it in the 1970s.

I hope that Caril has achieved some peace in her life now.

[jim mccord]

Pardon me Ms. Currie but the person who posted that they were Caril Fugate's relative did not state their name.Her great niece posted anonymously,which is understandable.Mr. Harding, who you refer to,is a retired reporter from Lincoln,Ne. who covered this story when it broke.Jim McCord

[Janet Currie]

Sorry Mr McCord, I guess I looked up instead of down - the posts are a little confusing. I don't recall Mr Harding's name. I have the book written by several reporters in, I think, 1974. I guess I'll have to read it properly.

I still don't think that Caril was as bad as, say, Myra Hindley, whose name was anathema in England, even after she died five years ago. Caril at least had the excuse that she was very young; Hindley was 21.

[jim mccord]

Not a problem Ms. Currie.It's understandable the way the posts are cataloged.I've done the same thing.I agree that Caril was probably not as evil as Myra Hindley but still feel that she was not Starkweather's hostage in the 8 day killing spree.Maybe she didn't anticipate additional victims after her immediate family was killed.There are still alot of unanswered questions.Charlie certainly took many to his grave.The glaring statement that Fugate made to the Wyoming deputy that she saw her family killed has always stood out to me.There are some other statements that she made to the authorities in Lincoln that also didn't serve her well in her claim of innocence.She will always have her supporters as well as her detractors I suppose.After almost 50 years the mystery remains.Best wishes,Jim McCord

[Amanda]

The idea of this person being a nurse is terrifying! The fact that she was able to eat, sleep, and lounge in the houses of all the victims, and was able to allow her immediate family including her baby sister to be brutally murdered is enough to sicken the hardest of souls, but to be paroled and able to " care for" other people is horrendous. I sure hope if I ever need a nurse, they've had a background check.

[sandra mccann]

I prefere caril ann fugate has a nurse than beverley hallittwho murdered a quite a few children in england.