The name Caril Ann Fugate might not ring a bell, but she probably lives somewhere in the recesses of your mind. Fugate was half of the teenage couple that set off on a murder spree in 1958, tearing across Nebraska and Wyoming and taking the lives of 11 victims, Fugate’s mother, stepfather, and younger half-sister included. The story captivated the American public, and became a meme before there were memes. Were it not for Fugate, who was 14, and Charles Starkweather, an 18-year-old high school dropout who cultivated a James Dean-ish mien, it’s likely there would be no Badlands or Natural Born Killers. The title track of Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska is sung from Starkweather’s point of view.
Bowlegged and barely 5ft 5in, Starkweather was every inch the ruthless rebel with his black motorcycle jacket and the cigarette that was a permanent fixture in his scowl. With her blank expression, Fugate was harder to read, even after Starkweather’s execution. Fugate was sentenced to life in prison, and images of her behind bars call to mind an Antonioni heroine: distant, subdued, unrepentant.
