In 1958, nineteen-year-old Charles Starkweather became one of the nation’s first spree killers, murdering eleven people in Nebraska and Wyoming. He kidnapped his fifteen-year-old girlfriend, Caril Fugate, forcing her to accompany him on the spree. He told Caril if she didn’t obey, he would murder her parents and baby sister. Little did she know, he had already killed them.
Days later, both were captured and went on trial. Starkweather claimed Fugate helped with the murders, but she was, in fact, innocent. Still, she was charged with murder and sentenced to life in prison; however, after eighteen years, she was paroled in 1976. In 2017 Fugate applied for a pardon. Three years later, The Nebraska Pardons Board refused to hear her case at a pardon’s board meeting in February 2020. Her request for pardon was denied.
