Killing Spree

I saw her standin' on her front lawn Just a twirlin' her baton Me and her went for a ride, sir And ten innocent people died From the town of Lincoln, Nebraska With a sawed off .410 on my lap Through to the badlands of Wyoming I killed everything in my path I can't say that I'm sorry For the things that we done At least for a little while, sir Me and her we had us some fun Now the jury brought in a guilty verdict And the judge he sentenced me to death Midnight in the prison storeroom With leather straps across my chest Sheriff, when the man pulls that switch, sir And snaps my poor head back You make sure my pretty baby Is sittin' right there on my lap They declared me unfit to live Said into that great void my soul'd be hurled They want to know why I did what I did Sir, I guess there's just a meanness in this world Those are the lyrics of the song, “Nebraska,” written by Bruce Springsteen in 1982 immortalizing the killing spree of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate in Lincoln, Nebraska and nearby Wyoming in 1958. Were Charlie and Caril Ann a new breed of Bonnie and Clyde? Was 14-year-old Caril Ann, a willing and equal participant in 10 ruthless and gruesome murders, or was she a hostage? Books, movies, and endless documentaries have tried to answer that question. Harry N. Maclean has an “inside track” on the story having grown up at the time in Lincoln contemporaneously with Starkweather and Fugate. Today on MURDER MOST FOUL, Mr. Maclean shares his recollection of the period and what it was like to return to Lincoln to research his book, “STARKWEATHER: The Untold Story of the Killing Spree that Changed America.”