Reason First: Charlie Starkweather’s Weapon of Choice was the Firearm

Some people say that sometimes people just like to kill. But what is at the psychological root of such a transgression? With the case of Charlie Starkweather, his ill intelligence did not contribute to his murder spree along with accomplice Caril Ann Fugate.

In total, Starkweather would lay down eleven people. This is the crux of the mind bent on destruction.

He exhibited little intelligence but this isn’t the reason why he went on his homicidal spree. The “smartest” people kill such as Loeb and Leopold. This is the fault in all of these murderers: purposelessness.

Had Starkweather applied himself to his trade as a dustman, he would not have been sent to the electric chair. The position may not be as vaunted as a physicist but it would have been honorable and honest work.

There seemed to be no pattern or consideration behind the slayings. He killed a gas station attendant. He killed Fugate’s mother with a rifle. Then he murdered Fugate's stepfather. Fugate viewed the murder of her two-year-old sister at Starkweather’s hands by strangulation and stabbing the infant.

This Nebraskan nightmare continued when Starkweather shot and killed a family friend by shooting him in the head. Starkweather and Fugate met up with two teenagers. Starkweather dispatched them both and stole their vehicle because of their patronage.

Their next excursion brought them to the home of entrepreneur C. Lauer Ward, 47. There, the duo forever silenced the lives of Ward’s wife Clara, 46, and maid Lillian Fencl, 51. Once Ward had returned, he received a devastating round to his person.

A shoe-salesman by the name of Mr. Collison met his fate when Fugate murdered him upon Starkweather’s pistol malfunctioning. In their attempt to flee, authorities caught him. Fugate received life in prison where she received parole and saw release in 1976. As of this writing, she is still living in Lansing, Michigan and has been mostly mum about the murders.

The fact remains. Without a purpose, only evil can arise. Without some spark of life for an occupation or vocation or some hobby or the industry of taking care of a family, the individual is doomed to commit crimes like the ones Starkweather and Fugate committed.

Had the both of them been engaged in philanthropy or study or some kind of practice and dedicated themselves to it, lives would not have been stolen. And dedication is the key. Just having a job will not prevent someone from going out and doing what Starkweather and Fugate did. It takes focus and drive to fully commit to a task and allow that to take precedence in an individuals life.

And whatever romantic relationship that Starkweather and Fugate formed, it should be discounted in the entire spectrum of the cases. They did not show real love as real love is about values and you can’t have values by robbing other people of their right to live.

Now, there have been numerous references and depictions regarding the Starkweather-Fugate murders. Filmmakers Terrence Malick and Oliver Stone crafted the films Badlands (1973) and Natural Born Killers (1994), respectively. Bruce Springsteen even penned a song about a first person account of the spree called “Nebraska.”

With all of these offerings in popular culture, what is being held up as the ideal? Murderers? Is the pathology so ingrained within the culture that produces such fare on the lowest among us without a proper critique of the actions and an analysis of their criminal ways?

Starkweather pointed out that “if [he] would fry in the electric chair then Caril should be sitting in [his] lap.” And that’s true. She participated in the murders like him. And look where she is now, a free woman with breath still in her lungs.

Starkweather could’ve been the best dustman in Nebraska in 1957. Instead he threw his life away and never achieved the purpose that should have sustained him. Though he may not have been smart, he could have been moral. And that would have sufficed.