by Bill Wallace
In 2004, Evans’s half-sister, Mary Westlake, launched an attempt to overturn a decision by the Criminal Cases Review Commission not to quash her half-brother’s conviction. She argued that he had never been declared innocent and a pardon is only a forgiveness for crimes actually committed. The judges decided the costs involved in such a case would be unjustified, but accepted that Timothy Evans did not murder either his wife or his daughter.
Charles Starkweather
The night before his execution, spree killer Charles Starkweather was asked whether he would like to donate his eyes. Starkweather sneered back at the questioner, ‘Why should I. Nobody ever gave me anything.’
It was 1958 and America was changing. President Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon ran the country admittedly, but Elvis Presley had exploded out of Memphis with the new, dangerous sound of rock and roll and just a few years earlier James Dean had invented the teenager, and splashed teenage angst on the country’s cinema screens. Now there was Charles Starkweather, another anguished Dean-like figure in the full glare of the media but this time the discomfort he created in ordinary Americans was for real and not fictional.
Charlie Starkweather was not lying when he claimed no one had ever given him anything. The third of seven children, he was born into poverty in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1938. The family did not go without but that was mainly due to the hard work of Charlie’s parents, Guy and Helen Starkweather. Guy worked as a carpenter while Helen was a waitress.
It was school where young Charlie had problems. He had a speech impediment and bowed legs, differences that the other kids loved to pick up on. He was constantly teased about them and he hated it. It may have been for that reason that he never really tried and, although not stupid, he came to be considered a slow learner. What was never picked up, however, was that he was severely short-sighted, an ailment that was not picked up until he was fifteen.
He was big and strong for his age and as a result was constantly getting into bother for fighting with the other boys. Soon, he had earned a reputation for being one of the hardest kids in Lincoln. Also, like many young American men of the time, he became a James Dean obsessive. He copied the actor’s mannerisms, his tics and wore the same clothes, leather jerkin, tight jeans and cowboy boots. He swept his hair back in the James Dean style. But, he was acutely aware that he was no James Dean. Instead, he was trapped in poverty and going nowhere. He feared he would end up like his parents, having to work every hour there was in unrewarding menial jobs, in order to keep a roof over the heads of a wife and a brood of kids. The thought of it terrified him.
When Charlie’s friend, Bobby Von Busch started going out with Barbara Fulgate in 1956, Charlie began to take an interest in her younger sister, Caril. Charlie was at this time sixteen while Caril had recently turned thirteen. She was a pretty girl and they had a lot in common. She had a rebellious streak and, like Charlie, she was failing at school. Being so young, of course, she thought Charlie was the coolest thing on two legs; she loved his cars and the reputation he had around town for being tough. She worshipped him and Charlie loved the attention she lavished upon him.
Quitting school at sixteen, Charlie found work in a warehouse not far from the school Caril attended so that he could see her every day. But things turned sour at home after Caril was involved in a minor accident while illegally driving Charlie’s car. As part owner of the car, Guy Starkweather, Charlie’s father, had to pay for the damage to the other car. He was furious and after a fight broke out between Charlie and Guy, Guy threw his son out of the house. He took a room in a boarding house where Bob was living with Barbara Fulgate and began telling people that he and Caril were going to get married. When he spread a story that Caril was pregnant, her parents were furious. Meanwhile, his efforts to escape the life of drudgery offered by Lincoln were hardly helped when he quit the warehouse job and started working as a dustmen. Not only was the work not what he saw himself doing with his life, the pay was poor. He was locked out of his room until he could pay rent he owed and he could hardly support Caril and a family on it. He was even unable to afford a cheap stuffed dog that he had seen in a petrol station the previous day and knew that Caril would love. The attendant refused him credit and Charlie seethed with indignation about it. He would one day get back at these small-minded people who seemed to be doing better than him.
He began to realise that the only way he was going to break free was to steal what he wanted. Therefore, in the early hours of 1 December 1958 he took a 12-gauge shotgun he had stolen from a cousin of Bob Von Busch and drove to the petrol station where the stuffed dog was for sale. Inside, the attendant who had refused him credit the previous day was on duty alone. Robert Colvert, married with a pregnant wife, was working on a car when Starkweather walked in, bought a packet of cigarettes and drove away again. Not far along the road, however, he turned the vehicle round and drove back. He bought some gum and once again drove off into the night. He parked the car down the road, tied a bandana around his face and put a hunter’s hat on his head, covering his distinctive red hair. This time he walked into the petrol station carrying the loaded shotgun. Sticking the gun into Colvert’s back, he ordered him into the office and told him to open the cash drawer. He scooped up the cash and put it in a sack but when he ordered Colvert to open up the safe, the other man told him he did not know the combination. Starkweather accepted that but for some reason decided to take Colvert for a drive. Arriving at a property owned by a local character known as ‘Bloody Mary’, Charlie ordered him out of the car. He later claimed that Colvert then made a grab for the gun and in the ensuing scuffle, it went off. Colvert collapsed to the ground and as he tried to get up again, Charlie finished him off with a shot to the skull.
The police thought the murder had been committed by someone passing through and Charlie was off the hook. For once, however, he had money. Furthermore, he felt on top of the world, like he could do whatever he wanted and get away with it. He told Caril about the robbery but said that someone else had shot Colvert. It is unlikely that she believed him but they now possessed a unique bond.
Before long, however, things were even worse than prior to the murder when he lost both his job and his room. Meanwhile, Caril’s family were doing everything to split up their daughter and the loser she followed around like a puppy dog.
On the afternoon of 21 January, Charlie drove to the Fulgate house, a squalid rubbish heap of a property. In the car was a .22 rifle he had borrowed. He later told police officers that he was actually hoping to go hunting with Caril’s stepfather Marion Bartlett, in an effort to make friends with him. However, Caril’s mother, Velda angrily told Charlie that she wanted him to stop seeing her daughter. An argument ensued and Charlie left. When he returned to argue his case, he was literally kicked out of the house by Marion. He went back again but this time he brought his gun. When Marion came at him with a hammer, Charlie shot him in the head. Velda came screaming at him with a knife and he shot her in the face. In a rage, he then smashed their two-year-old toddler’s skull with the rifle butt before throwing a knife at her that stuck in her throat. He finished off Marion Bartlett who was still alive by stabbing him in the throat.
Caril and Charlie tried to clean up the house and dispose of the bodies outside as best they could. They then stayed there for a week, pretending to anyone that asked that the family had flu. When Charlie’s friend Bob Von Busch became suspicious, he went to the police. They visited and gave the house a cursory check but said everything was in order. Bob and his brother went to see for themselves, however, and discovered the bodies, hidden in outhouses and in the chicken coop. There was no sign of Charlie and Caril. They were long gone.
They had headed for a farm twenty miles outside Lincoln, owned by Charlie’s friend, seventy-two-year-old August Meyer. For some reason, that has never really been clear, Charlie shot Meyer in the head and killed him. They stole money and guns and went to bed. Next day when their car got stuck in mud as they tried to leave, the
y hitched a ride from seventeen-year-old Robert Jensen and sixteen-year-old Carol King. As soon as they were in the car Starkweather pulled out a gun and demanded money. He ordered Jensen back in the direction of Meyer’s farm where he shot him six times in the head. Carol was also dispatched with a bullet to the head. She was later found half-naked with stab wounds in the abdomen and pubic area, but she had not been raped. Charlie later said the killing and stabbing of Carol King was the work of Caril, claiming she was furious that he seemed attractive to the girl.
They drove off in Jensen’s car, incredibly driving back to Lincoln where they cruised past the Bartlett house. Seeing the police cars outside the property, they knew that the bodies had been found. They spent the night sleeping in the car in a wealthy part of town. The next day, the mayhem at the Meyer farm was discovered. Charlie and Caril, now the subjects of a massive manhunt, were wanted in connection with the murders of six people.
There would be more.
When they woke up Charlie selected a house to rob, the home of wealthy industrialist, C. Lauer Ward. That morning, Ward’s wife Clara and her fifty-one-year-old maid, Lillian Fencl, were at home. Lillian Fencl was horrified when she opened the front door to find a disheveled young man pointing a gun at her. The maid had a hearing problem and to make himself understood, Starkweather had to scribble notes to her. He wrote one ordering her to put the Wards’ dog Queenie in the basement and to carry on preparing breakfast and when Clara Ward walked into the kitchen, he reassured her they would not be hurt. He called Caril in from the car and after drinking some coffee, she fell asleep in the library. Meanwhile, Mrs Ward was trying to remain calm and do as she was told. He ordered her to make breakfast for him and ate it in the library. He was getting a kick out of ordering this wealthy woman around.
At around 1 p.m., when Clara Ward went upstairs to change her shoes, Starkweather followed her. He claimed later that when he walked in she was pointing a gun at him. He pulled out a knife and threw it at her and it stuck in her back. He then stabbed her in an uncontrollable frenzy. When her poodle Suzy barked at him as he dragged her body into the bedroom, he broke the dog’s neck with the butt of the gun.
Around this time, he telephoned his father and told him to let Bob Von Busch know that he was going to kill him for trying to interfere in his relationship with Caril. He then wrote a letter addressed ‘to the law only’, a confession of sorts, but mainly a self-justification.
They loaded up the Wards’ black 1956 Packard with food and valuables before tying Lillian Fencl to a bed and stabbing her to death. Later each of them blamed the other for killing her. When C. Lauer Ward walked in from work that evening, they shot him dead.
The discovery of their bodies the next day sparked outrage and the National Guard were even called out to hunt for the killers. Jeeps, armed with mounted machine guns, began to patrol the empty streets. Spotter planes droned in the sky, searching for the black Packard.
Charlie and Caril made for Washington State, crossing into Wyoming next morning. At the side of the highway, they spotted a Buick in which travelling salesman Merle Collison was catching up on some sleep. He was shot in the head, neck, arm and leg, a shooting for which Charlie blamed Caril. But unable to work out how to release the car’s emergency brake, Charlie summoned help from a young geologist who was passing. When the man stopped, Starkweather informed him that if he could not work out how to start the car, he would be killed. The young man suddenly realised that the man next to Starkweather was not asleep; he was dead. He made a grab for the gun. Just at that moment, as the two men struggled, a police car, driven by deputy sheriff William Romer pulled up behind the Packard. Caril immediately jumped out of the car shouting it was Charlie Starkweather and that he was a killer. Charlie pulled himself free of the other man and leapt into the car and sped off, officer Romer in hot pursuit, joined along the road by Sheriff Earl Heflin who had seen Starkweather’s car fly past. Heflin pulled his gun and fired at the Packard, shattering its back window. Suddenly, the car in front stopped in the middle of the highway; Starkweather thought he had been shot. There was blood around his ear, but it had been made by a piece of flying glass. The officers approached the car and Charlie Starkweather was arrested.
The choice was now stark for Starkweather and Caril Fulgate – the gas chamber in Wyoming or the electric chair in Nebraska. They chose Nebraska to where he and Caril were extradited in January 1958. They were both charged with first-degree murder and murder while committing a robbery.
Starkweather’s lawyers entered a plea of ‘innocent by reason of insanity’, but Starkweather insisted that he was sane. He also said initially that Caril was innocent but changed his tune when he learned that she was saying that she had been held hostage by him. He began to implicate her, claiming she was responsible for some of the murders and all the mutilations.
Caril was found guilty, but, being only fourteen, was spared the electric chair. Sentenced, instead, to life imprisonment, she was paroled in 1976, still maintaining that he had kidnapped her and that she was innocent. Starkweather was also found guilty and he was sentenced to die in the electric chair. The sentence was carried out on 25 June 1959.
Charles Starkweather had finally escaped from his disappointing life in Nebraska.
James Hanratty
The place was known as Deadman’s Hill, an appropriate name, given the events that took place there on 22 August 1961, events that would lead to one of the most controversial executions in British legal history.
That evening, the Morris Minor belonging to Michael Gregsten, a thirty-seven-year-old scientist at the Road Research Laboratory at Slough, was parked at Taplow Meadow, outside Maidenhead. In the car with him was twenty-two-year-old Valerie Storie, a fellow employee at the laboratory, with whom he was having an affair. The two were kissing in the front seat when there was a tap at the window. Turning, they saw a large, black revolver pointing at them through the window. A voice with a heavy cockney accent snarled, ‘This is a hold-up. I am a desperate man; I have been on the run for four months. If you do as I tell you, you’ll be alright.’
He opened the back door of the car and climbed in, ordering Gregsten to drive further into the field in which they were parked. They stopped and for the next two hours he talked to them. At 11.30 p.m., he said he was hungry and ordered Gregsten to start the car. They set off in the direction of London and drove around the city’s northern suburbs aimlessly for a while. He told him stop at a milk-vending machine and then sent Gregsten into a shop to buy cigarettes for him. They then stopped at a petrol station to fill up before going on their way again. Meanwhile the terrified couple tried to persuade him to take money in exchange for letting them go, but he turned them down.
They drove through the town of St. Albans before joining the A6 at about 1.30 a.m., heading in a southerly direction. Their abductor told them he was tired and wanted to sleep. Twice he ordered Gregsten to turn off, but changed his mind. Finally, at Deadman’s Hill, he ordered him to pull into a lay-by and stop.
Gregsten, increasingly concerned about what the man had in mind for them, at first refused, but when he was threatened with being shot, he did as he was told and pulled over. The man told them that he was going to sleep, but first he would have to tie them up, all the while the increasingly anxious Gregsten and Storie pleading with him not to shoot them. He firstly tied Storie’s hands behind her back, using Gregsten’s tie and then, having seen some rope in a bag in the car’s boot, ordered Gregsten to pass it over to him. However, as Gregsten made to do so, without warning the man pulled the trigger of his revolver, firing two bullets into Gregsten’s head, killing him instantly. A hysterical Storie asked him why he had done it and he replied coldly that Gregsten had moved too quickly.
He ordered Valerie Storie into the back of the Morris Minor, lying on top of Gregsten’s body which had fallen there and proceeded to rape her, before ordering her to drag Gregsten’s body from the car. He wanted to drive the vehicle, but seemed either unawar
e of how to drive this model, or simply had never learned to drive. When she was unable to explain how it worked, he angrily ordered her out of the car. She pleaded for her life, seated on the ground next to the body of her lover, even pulling out a pound note and offering it to him if he would take the car and go. Instead, he unloaded his gun into her, firing a total of seven shots, five of which hit Storie and would leave her paralyzed for the rest of her life. She fell backwards and pretended to be dead. She then heard him get into the car and drive off, gears crunching and engine racing. She lay there motionless for three hours, terrified in case he came back, and a few hours later passed out.
Sydney Burton, a farm labourer passing on foot, found her and Gregsten at 6.45 a.m. the next day. He ran off and found a student, John Kerr, who was seated further along the A6, carrying out a road census. Kerr succeeded in flagging down a car and the emergency services were summoned.
With great presence of mind, John Kerr managed to write down barely conscious Valerie Storie’s account of what had happened, scribbling it on one of the census forms he had been using earlier. When the police arrived, Kerr handed this vital, first-hand evidence, taken immediately after the incident, to one of the officers. It was never seen again. The investigation had already got off to a less than satisfactory start.
When Valerie Storie was interviewed later that morning, before undergoing surgery at Bedford Hospital, there were immediately some strange elements to the case. It seemed odd, for instance, that the gunman claimed he had been ‘on the run for four months’, but was dressed immaculately in a three-piece suit and clean, well-polished shoes. Police were also puzzled by the randomness of the attack; there was no motive that they could see.
