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Dakota

FORUM BITCH / Beloved Cunt
Bold Member!
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A woman who was one of two teenage participants in a killing spree that left 11 people dead 55 years ago and became the basis of the movie "Badlands" starring Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen has been critically injured in a crash, western Michigan authorities said Tuesday.

Caril Ann Clair, 70, of Stryker, Ohio, was critically hurt and her 81-year-old husband killed late Monday in a single-vehicle crash on northbound Interstate 69 in Calhoun County, the sheriff's department said.
[...]

As a 14-year-old, then-Caril Fugate and her 19-year-old boyfriend, Charlie Starkweather, went on a killing spree in Nebraska and Wyoming in 1957-58 that claimed the lives of Fugate's mother, stepfather, 2-year-old sister and eight others. Starkweather was executed, while Fugate left prison in 1976.

The killings began in late 1957 with the death of 21-year-old gas station attendant Robert Colvert, who was robbed, abducted and shot to death. His body was left on a Nebraska country road.

Two months later, Lincoln, Neb.-area authorities found the bodies of Marion Bartlett, 57; and his 35-year-old wife, Velda, in an outbuilding. Their 2-year-old daughter, Betty Jean, had been clubbed to death with the butt of a gun and her body stuffed in a cardboard box. Missing were Velda Bartlett's 14-year-old daughter by a previous marriage, Caril Fugate, and her boyfriend, Starkweather.

A fictionalized account of the killing spree was told in "Badlands," released in 1973. Bruce Springsteen sang about Starkweather and Miss Fugate on his "Nebraska" album.
http://siouxcityjournal.com/news/st...cle_727ddb54-b60a-556a-b3de-fe094739175b.html

Caril Ann Fugate Clair was airlifted from the crash on I-69 to a Kalamazoo hospital, where she remains in critical condition, according to Calhoun County authorities.

The wreck happened late Monday night near Old 27 in Tekonsha Township south of Marshall.

Fugate Clair and her husband 81-year-old Frederick Clair were headed north on I-69 when their Ford Explorer appeared to go off the road to the right. Frederick Clair, the driver, re-entered the road and overcorrected, causing the SUV to flip several times before coming to rest in the median.

Frederick Clair was pronounced dead at the scene.

Both were wearing seat belts. Speed and alcohol do not appear to be factors.
[...]

She was 14 at the time, making her the youngest female ever in the United States to be tried for first-degree murder.

Starkweather was 19. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was executed in 1959 in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Fugate Clair has maintained that she was innocent, saying she was also a victim of Starkweather's violence. But a jury didn't buy it and convicted her. Though she was originally sentenced to life in prison, she was paroled in 1976 and moved to the Lansing area.
http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/local/kalamazoo_and_battle_creek/i-69-crash-august-5-2013

From a 2012 piece:
New Life Is Redemption for Caril Ann Fugate, Who Still Claims Innocence in Killings
For 30 years after her release, Caril Ann worked as a janitor at a Michigan hospital. She had begun training as a nurse’s aide in prison, but on the outside, her record prevented her from being entrusted with anything more than custodial work. A stepson says, “She told me every day she hated going to work.â€￾

But she made herself as useful as she could.

“She’d clean up a couple beds, clean up the floors,â€￾ the stepson says. “Help out.â€￾

And she kept at it without incident until 2007, when she married a small-town machinist who also serves as an observer for the National Weather Service. She, who had been with a psychopathic killer when she was impossibly young, entered her senior years with a steady soul who makes daily measurements of precipitation and the level of the river that runs near the house.
[...]

Back when the name Fugate gained such notoriety, Caril Ann was brought before the press as the youngest female in America ever charged with first-degree murder. She said she had begun seeing 19-year-old Charles Starkweather the year before, when she was 13, but had recently tried to break it off.

“I told him I didn’t want to see him again but he came back,â€￾ she said. “I kept telling him to leave. I told him to leave and I didn’t ever want to see him again.â€￾

“What had bought you to this conclusion?â€￾ she was asked. “Why didn’t you want to go with him anymore?â€￾

“I think he’s crazy,â€￾ she said.

She had insisted from the moment of her arrest that Starkweather had held her hostage and that she had not been aware he had killed her mother, stepfather, and 2-year-old half-sister at the start of the spree. She was asked at the press conference why her boyfriend insisted she had been a willing participant.

“Well, by now, I’m sure he hates me for running away,â€￾ Caril Ann said. “He’s trying to make it look like I’m just as guilty as he is.â€￾

Starkweather’s testimony against her at trial ensured she was officially found exactly as guilty as he was. But he was sentenced to death, whereas she was spared because of her age, and perhaps her gender.

“If they were going to give me life, why didn’t they give me the chair?â€￾ she exclaimed at her sentencing, breaking into tears.

Starkweather insisted to the very hour of his execution that Caril Ann had been complicit, perhaps out of urges that Springsteen would guess at decades later with his song “Nebraska.â€￾

“Sheriff, when the man pulls that switch … You make sure my pretty baby is sitting right there on my lap.â€￾
[...]

She was a model prisoner when she came before the parole board, which was no doubt further influenced by the sympathetic treatment of her in Terrence Malick’s Badlands. She would tell her stepson that this was the most accurate of the movies inspired by the spree, even though she insists that in real life there had been no sex.

“She said that was really the closest to the truth,â€￾ the stepson told The Daily Beast.

Besides the post-arrest press appearance and the documentary, Caril Ann’s only other public comments were on a Nebraska radio show in 1996, shortly after the state denied her a pardon.

“Since this has happened, there’s not a day in my life that has gone by that I haven’t thought about it,â€￾ she said of the killings. “There’s times when I think about my family and when I think about them, it’s always what happened. It’s always how they died.â€￾
[...]
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...e-who-still-claims-innocence-in-killings.html

Charlie Starkweather on Murderpedia: http://murderpedia.org/male.S/s/starkweather.htm
 
I don't when the photo of them together was taken but they look like they just got off the Ferris Wheel after having a great time at the County Fair.

I don't give her a pass either, she was complicit, but she'd be foolish to admit it at this late date, she got off light, so she should just really shut up about it.
 
Any updates on her condition? I'm kinda hoping that she succumbed to her injuries.

I know she says that she was under his spell, so to speak, but if I'm remembering correctly, they killed her family and spent time in the house and she sent people away saying the house was under quarantine. To me, she had the chance to get away right there, her family was already gone so he couldn't hurt them any more. I'm not saying she is as guilty as him but she isn't an innocent little flower either from shows I have seen and all.
 
Mass murderer's girlfriend who was jailed after accompanying him on 1950s killing spree set to ask for pardon with supporters saying she was unfairly convicted
  • Caril Ann Fugate, 71, was with Charles Starkweather during the 1957 killing spree that spanned Nebraska and Wyoming
  • She was 14 at the time, and was convicted as an accessory to murder
  • Starkweather was executed in 1959 while Fugate was released in 1976
  • Has always maintained that her sentence 'did not fit the crime'
  • Author who wrote book saying she was unfairly punished is helping plea
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-people-two-month-roadtrip.html#ixzz3H2JezJdN
 
I have to say that its very hard for a grown woman to leave or get out of a controlling abusive relationship. I can't imagine what it was like for this woman when she was just 14. I believe she had some culpability but not to the extent of what she was accused of.
 
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