Charles Starkweather
American spree killer (1938–1959)
Charles Raymond Starkweather (November 24, 1938 – June 25, 1959) was an American spree killer who murdered eleven people in Nebraska and Wyoming between December 1957 and January 1958, when he was nineteen years old. He killed ten of his victims between January 21 and January 29, 1958, the date of his arrest. During his spree in 1958, Starkweather was accompanied by his fourteen-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate.
Both Starkweather and Fugate were convicted on charges for their parts in the homicides; Starkweather was sentenced to death and executed seventeen months after the events. Fugate served seventeen years in prison, gaining release in 1976. Starkweather's execution by electric chair in 1959 was the last execution in Nebraska until 1994.
Criminologists and psychologists have analyzed the Starkweather case in an attempt to understand spree killers' motivations and precipitating factors. It also became notorious as one of the earlier crime scandals that reached national prominence, much like the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh's son, with the media outlets covering the case at the time openly condemning Starkweather. His crime spree has endured in popular culture, most notably as the inspiration for the 1973 film Badlands, the 1996 film The Frighteners, and Bruce Springsteen’s song "Nebraska"; he was also mentioned in the Billy Joel song "We Didn't Start the Fire".
Early life
Starkweather was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, the fourth of seven children of Guy and Helen Arnold Starkweather.
The public source identifies “Charles Starkweather” as american spree killer (1938–1959). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Charles, Starkweather and American.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q920200. VIAF identifies the subject as 65689972. The Library of Congress control number is n93111422. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1938, 1959, 1957 and 1958.
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This entry incorporates text from “Charles Starkweather” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.