KALAMAZOO, Mich. — The former girlfriend of teenaged mad-dog killer Charlie Starkweather was in critical condition after a rollover accident Monday night in Michigan. The Detroit Free Press reported 70-year-old Caril Ann Fugate Clair was injured when her husband, Frederick Clair, 81; drifted off the right side of I-69 near Kalamazoo, cut left across two lanes of traffic and rolled several times in the median. He was killed. Caril Ann Fugate was 14 when her boyfriend Charlie Starkweather, 19, went on a killing spree across Nebraska and into Wyoming from December 1957 through January 1958. Starkweather killed 11 people, including Fugate’s mother, stepfather and two-year-old sister, and two dogs during his rampage. His spree terrorized the central U.S, and at one point, the Nebraska National Guard was called up to help search for him. The two were captured near Douglas, Wyo., after he tried to murder a salesman and steal his car, and a chase by police that exceeded an 100 miles an hour. Starkweather, who modeled himself after rebel actor James Dean, got the electric chair on June 25, 1959. Fugate got a life sentence but was released after 18 years in a Nebraska prison. She was the youngest girl in the U.S. to be tried for first-degree murder. Her role has remained controversial but she has insisted she was innocent and merely a hostage. After she was released, she moved from Nebraska, became a medical technician and married Clair about five years ago. In death, Starkweather became a dark cultural icon. His spree inspired several movies including “Badlands,” starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek, and “Natural Born Killers;” and several songs, including Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska.”
Wednesday, Aug. 7, 4 p.m.
