When the state of Nebraska fried serial killer Charlie Starkweather in 1959, I thought we'd heard the last of him and his girl friend, Caril Ann Fugate.
Was I wrong.
Charlie—and Caril—caught our national imagination and never let go.
In 1958, Omaha poet Gary David Johnson frisked Charlie's still warm confession, looted his words to write "Starkweather's Confession" in quatrains: "'Don't know why it was but being alone with her/Was like owning a little world all our own.'"
Head Trauma, 2006, Gary David Johnson
And Steven King, only 9, kept a scrapbook and became a horror writer because of it. He used Charlie as the basis for an evil character in several books. "I do think that the very first time I saw a picture of [Starkweather], I knew I was looking at the future. His eyes were a double zero. There was just nothing there. He was like an outrider of what America might become."
The Stand, 1978, and other Stephen King books
I focused, in "Badlands Revisited, on the panic created when authorities assumed that Charlie and Caril, "armed and dangerous," were on the loose—in our town, Lincoln, Nebraska. National Guardsmen protected the bank. Plentiful rewards promised to pay for leads to the capture of the pair. People left garage doors open and keys in the car to protect themselves as they hid in their houses. The radio broadcasted—over and over and over—the license plate number of Charlie's car.
Great Plains Patchwork, 1989, Marilyn Coffey
To read "Badlands Revisited" as published in The Atlantic 1974, click:
Charlie and Carol became muses for dozens of artists: writers, film makers, musicians, poets, and the like. We artists based our works loosely on Charlie and/or Caril or completely. They became like our chameleons, inspiring our designs, like those Old World lizards change, in various combinations of pink, blue, red, orange, green, black, brown, light blue, yellow, turquoise, and purple.
Below is a list of works based, in some form, on Charlie or Caril.
BOOKS
"The Murderous Trail of Charles Starkweather," 1960, James M. Reinhardt
"The Psychology of Strange Killers," 1962, James M. Reinhardt
"The Quality of Murder: 300 Years of True Crime," 1962, Anthony Boucher
"Nothing Left But Murder," 1970, James M. Reinhardt
"Caril," 1974, Ninette Beaver
"Starkweather: The Story of a Mass Murderer," 1976, William Allen
"The Stand," 1978, and other Stephen King books
"Charles and Caril: An Orgy of Blood," 1980, Glenn Desmond
"The Encyclopedia of American Crime," 1982, Carl Sifakis
"Mass Murder," 1985, Jack Levin & James Allen Fox
"Great Plains Patchwork," 1989, Marilyn Coffey
"Encyclopedia of World Crime," 1990, Jay Robert Nash
"Wild at Heart," 1990, Barry Gifford
"Krokodil Tears," 1991, Jack Yeovil
"Starkweather," 1993, Jeff O'Donnell and Kevin Oliver
"Starkweather: Inside the Mind of a Teenage Killer," 1993, William Allen
"Headline: Starkweather," 1993, Earl Dyer
"Bloodletters and Badmen," 1995, Jay Robert Nash
"Born Bad: Charles Starkweather—Natural Born Killer," 1996, Jack Sargent
"Murder Cases of the 20th Century," 1996, David K. Frasier
"Lustmord: The Writings and Artifacts of Murderers," 1996, Brian King
"The Ballad of Charles Starkweather," 1997, Donald Justice; Robert Mezey
"Waste Land," 1998, Michael Newton
"Pro Bono: The 18 Year Defense of Caril Ann Fugate," 2012, Jeff McArthur
COMICS
"Starkweather Immortal," 2007, Archaia Studios Press
MOVIES
"The Sadist," 1963 also "Sweet Baby Charlie," James Landis
"Take the Money and Run," 1969, Woody Allen
"Badlands," 1973, Terrence Malick
"The Sugarland Express," 1974, Seven Spielberg
"Stark Raving Mad," 1983, George F. Hood
"Wild at Heart," 1990, David Lynch
"Kalifornia," 1993, Dominic Sena
"True Romance," 1993, Tony Scott
"Natural Born Killers," 1994, Oliver Stone
"The Frighteners," 1996, Peter Jackson
"Starkweather," 2004, Bryon Werner
MUSIC
"Keep Searchin,'" 1965, Del Shannon, (We'll Follow the Sun)
"Nebraska," 1982 Bruce Springsteen (Nebraska)
"We Didn't Start the Fire," 1989, Billy Joel
"Hate So Real," 1994, J Church
"Badlands," 2009, Church of Misery
"Stark Weather," 2012, Icky Blossoms
"Love Kills," 2016, (rock musical), Kyle Jarrow
NOVEL
"Outside Valentine," 2004, Liza Ward, granddaughter of two victims
PHOTOGRAPHY
"Redheaded Peckerwood," 2011, Christian Patterson
POETRY
"Head Trauma," 2006, Gary David Johnson
"Inspired by Charles Starkweather," 2010, Kayt Krepcho
VIDEO
"A Case Study of Two Savages," 1962, episode of Naked City
"Charles & Caril: Starkweather 30 Years Later," 1957, WOWT
"Murder in the Heartland," 1993, miniseries, Robert Makowitz
"Spree Killers," 1993, episode, A&E Home Video
"Starkweather," 2004, Velocity Home Entertainment
VIDEO GAMES
"The Manhunt," 2003, Rockstar Games
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