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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCaril Ann Fugate, 1958 murder spree convict, critically injured in car crash
Caril Ann Clair (née Fugate), a woman linked to 10 murders in the Midwest more than 50 years ago, has been critically injured in a car accident.
Clair, 70, was injured in a single-vehicle accident. Her husband, 81-year-old Frederick Clair, was driving the SUV. He was killed in the accident.
In 1958, when she was 14, Clair was arrested in connection to 10 murders with then-boyfriend Charles Starkweather. The victims were killed in Nebraska and Wyoming, and included Clair's mother, stepfather and two-year-old sister.
The killing spree is the deadliest in Nebraska history, and inspired a Bruce Springsteen song and the movie "Badlands."
Clair plead not guilty and maintained her innocence, saying she had tried to break things off with Starkweather. The jury found her guilty in the robbery and murder of a 17-year-old boy. She was sentenced to life in prison, and served 18 years before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled mandatory life sentences for juveniles were unconstitutional.
From there, her sentence was changed to 30 to 50 years. Clair was paroled in 1976 and came to live in Michigan, where she lived with a family that befriended her after seeing a documentary of her on TV. She worked in a Lansing, Mich., hospital and married Frederick Clair at age 63.
Starkweather did not share the same fate. At the time of the murders, he was 19 years old and tried as an adult. He was executed in the electric chair in 1959.
Read more: http://www.upi.com/blog/2013/08/07/Caril-Ann-Fugate-1958-murder-spree-convict-critically-injured-in-car-crash/2531375909313/#ixzz2bKG8icav
SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)Or so it was reported
Siwsan
(26,315 posts)She lived in Michigan, very much under the radar, for years. I always wondered if she was a 'Stockholm Syndrome' victim or an active participant. It was one of those stories that has always intrigued me.
SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)just a " Generalissimo Francisco Franco" moment went thru my head
Siwsan
(26,315 posts)Of course, they day is not over, yet.
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)never thought she deserved to be hounded and punished her entire life for what she did as a minor. Without Starkweather she would have wound up a typical 60s housewife.
Siwsan
(26,315 posts)What ever the situation, she did turn her life around.
duffyduff
(3,251 posts)staying out of trouble. She was and is one of the few people in American history involved in serial/spree killings who has ever been paroled.
Fugate Clair is the classic example of somebody who really has been rehabilitated.
She was only about 14 or 15 during the time of the killings. That and the questions surrounding her involvement in the killings is what saved her life. She would never have been involved in any crime, directly or indirectly, had she not taken up with the loser Starkweather.