Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate Trials: 1958

Once on the stand, he grudgingly told how it was to grow up in an unfeeling family, to be born bow-legged and half blind with a speech impediment, a figure of constant ridicule amongst other children. But it didn't take him long to crush any sympathy this might have engendered. His absurd rationalization and ingrained callousness couldn't help spilling over.

"Why did you kill, Charlie?" asked Gaughan.

"Self-defense."

"Do you feel any remorse for the people you killed?"

"I won't answer that."

If Starkweather wouldn't help himself, others were prepared to do the job for him. Dr. Nathan Greenbaum, just one of three psychiatrists to testify on the defendant's behalf, told the court that "Charles Starkweather is suffering from a severe mental disease or illness of such a kind as to influence his acts … people don't mean anything to him. They are no more than a stick or a piece of wood to this boy."

In his final address, Gaughan spread the blame far and wide. "This boy is a product of our society. Our society that spawned this individual is looking for a scapegoat." Then he touched on a subject that had terrified many Nebraskans, the prospect that, if found insane, Starkwearher might one day be released. "Even an act of Congress will not take him out of the state hospital."

County Attorney Elmer Scheele countered by telling the jury, "Let's get back to earth, get our feet on the ground … Can't you see what a hoax it is to persuade you into grasping at the straw of insanity?" He ended by urging them "to protect this community—our families, yours and mine—from the defendant."

When the jury returned families, from their deliberations on May 23, the verdict was guilty and the sentence was death.