Talk:Caril Ann Fugate

There is no evidence Fugate made lunch while Starkweather killed her baby sister -- that was Starkweather's version of events when he testified against her. Carol S A 21:26, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Fugate participated in the killings, there is no proof that Ms. Borden did so. She aided and abetted a fugitive, and possibly talked about running away, or fantasized about killing her parents so she could be with him.

The parole date in this entry is different than in the Charles Starkweather entry. Which is correct? --phule 19:13, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Fugate is not a "medical assistant" but is a nursing assistant (nurses aide).-71.28.243.246 19:58, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

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DIDDLEY SQUAT ADDS:

There is no evidence whatever that Caril Ann Fugate voluntarily participated in a single one of Charles Starkweather's murders. In fact, she was never tried for shooting anyone. Rather she was convicted of being an accessory to the murder of the one victim for which Starkweather received the death penalty, that of Robert Jensen, who with girlfriend Carol King was killed in a carjacking. Then, as now, if a murder results from a felony, all participants to that felony are technically guilty of the murder.

Fugate admitted to police that she robbed King and Jensen. But she had just witnessed Starkweather shoot August Meyer, the old farmer who lived just east of Bennett, Nebraska who was a friend of the Starkweather family. A short time later, after his own car broke down, Starkweather had stopped Jensen, who had a similar car, and asked for a ride. Fugate had every reason to believe that Starkweather would kill both Jensen and King for the car. She did rob them, but oddly, it was an attempt to spare their lives. She knew that the only thing that could prevent Starkweather from killing the two was if she, Fugate, could separate the youthful couple from the vehicle and their money, and get them to run for their lives. Obviously, it didn't work.

It is wrong to assume that Fugate had opportunities to escape and didn't. The evidence suggests otherwise. First of all, Starkweather was apprehended in Wyoming only when Caril bolted from the latest stolen car he was driving just as a sheriff's car was approaching. She literally threw herself in front of it, screaming that it was Starkweather she was running from and that she wanted to be back home with her mother. Therefore it is not only wrong to say she didn't "try" to escape. She did, in fact, escape.

As for the request to see her mother, psychologists who interviewed Fugate in the aftermath of the arrests also believed she knew nothing about the deaths of her family members, mother Velda Bartlett, stepfather Marion Bartlett, and two-year-old sister Betty Jean Bartlett. In fact, everyone who ever knew her acknowledged that Caril was extremely close to her mother and sister, as well as her maternal grandmother, Pansy Street, who ironically lived in the same slum apartment building as Starkweather. She did resent her stepfather. But that's neither unusual nor evidence she had anything to do with the killings.

As for other attempts to escape, there were several. In fact, during the six days they holed up in the Bartlett house after Caril's family was killed, she tried to convey the message that Starkweather was holding her and (she thought) her family against their will. She posted a sign in the door, on orders from Starkweather, saying that the house was quarantined because of the flu. She signed it with a nickname used to refer to the baby, Betty Jean. The oddity was noticed by Fugate's grandmother, Ms. Street. And police were called. They just simply did not search the place.

Fugate also threw personal things out the window of Jensen's car as she and Starkweather traveled along the road, hoping that police would follow the trail. Again, it didn't work. And after she stopped the police car in Wyoming and was taken into custody, deputies found in her coat pocket a note she attempted to leave in a restaurant ladies' room asking the finder to call the police. It was signed with Fugate's own name, but she quickly concealed it in her coat when Starkweather pushed his face into the restroom to check on her. That note was mysteriously unavailable to her attorney at her trial.

The only person to testify against Fugate was Charles Starkweather himself. And ironically, he had insisted Fugate had nothing to do with the killings until he learned that she would testify against him. He then changed his story and said that he killed all them men, eight of them, and that Fugate killed the women, two to be exact. The problem, of course, was that the numbers didn't add up. Of the ten people killed in the January 1958 spree, five were women. Those were Caril's mother and baby sister; Carol King (Jensen's fiance); and Clara Ward, a resident of a wealthy district where Starkweather once collected garbage, along with Lillian Fencl, a live-in maid at the Ward house. That's hardly credible testimony on which to base a conviction, let alone a true crime story that has become legendary. History - and Fugate - deserve better.

Finally, Starkweather had killed once before - about six weeks before the spree. That happened in December of 1957 after he robbed a gas station on Cornhusker highway in Lincoln and feared that the clerk Robert Colvert, recognized him.

As for the trial and parole dates, they may be found here:

http://www.lcl.lib.ne.us/depts/ref/StarkweatherTimeline.pdf

Hope that helps.

69.250.112.9 04:30, 28 December 2005 (UTC)D.S.