On December 1, 1957, Starkweather held up a gas station in Lincoln, abducting the attendant, 21-year-old Robert Colvert, and driving him into the countryside, where he was killed by a close-range shotgun blast. No one suspected Charlie of the crime, and his primal satisfaction in the act of murder was amplified by feelings of power when he escaped detection.

Seven weeks later, on January 21, 1958, Starkweather was visiting Caril Ann's home when he got into a violent argument with her mother, Velda Bartlett. As Charlie recalled the incident, "They said they were tired of me hanging around," and blows were exchanged, Starkweather falling back on his favorite equalizer, blasting Bartlett and her husband where they stood. With Caril looking on, Charles grabbed her sister, two-year-old Betty Bartlett, and choked the girl to death by ramming his gun barrel down her throat. Caril then retired to watch TV, while Charles concealed the bodies and prepared some sandwiches. A sign was posted on the door -- "Stay a Way. Every Body is Sick With the Flu" -- and the teenaged lovers spent six days in Caril's home, rebuffing relatives and police officers before they finally left, and the crime was discovered.

On January 28, Starkweather's car bogged down on the property of a local farmer, 70-year-old August Meyer. The result was "a helluva argument," climaxed with Charles shooting Meyer and his dog "in self-defense." Leaving their car in the mud, Starkweather and Fugate walked to the highway and stuck out their thumbs, securing a lift from high school sweethearts Robert Jensen, 17, and Carol King, 16. At gunpoint, Charlie made them drive to an abandoned school and ordered them into the cellar, where Jensen was shot six times in the head. King was also shot to death, her genitals slashed with a knife, but Charlie blamed Caril for the crime, citing "jealousy" as the motive.

Escaping in Jensen's car, Starkweather considered surrender, but Caril allegedly talked him out of it. Returning to Lincoln on January 30, they invaded the home of businessman C. Lauer Ward, binding his wife Clara and a maid, 51-year-old Lillian Fencl, before stabbing both women to death in a bedroom. Charles next went after the family dog, breaking its neck before he settled down to wait for Ward's return from work. Blasting the businessman dead on the threshold, Starkweather fled in his limousine, Caril riding shotgun, intent on escaping to Washington state.

On February 1, they stopped at Douglas, Wyoming, after slipping through a dragnet that included 200 members of the Nebraska National Guard. Seeking a new car, they found shoe salesman Merle Collison asleep in his vehicle, and Starkweather pumped nine bullets into the helpless victim. Stuck behind the steering wheel, Collison's body was giving Charlie fits when another motorist stopped to offer help and Starkweather got the drop on him. They were grappling over Charlie's gun when a deputy sheriff arrived, and Caril Ann jumped into the squad car, pointing at Charles as she cried, "He killed a man!"

Outnumbered, Starkweather fled in the Ward limousine, topping speeds of 120 mph as his pursuers radioed ahead for a road block. Concentrated gunfire drove him off the road at last, and Charles surrendered after he was cut by flying glass. In custody, he made a full confession to his crimes, sharing responsibility with Fugate in what some of her friends described as a spiteful last fling. Sentenced to death, Starkweather was electrocuted at the Nebraska state prison on June 24, 1959. Caril Ann drew a term of life imprisonment for her role in the murder spree, winning parole in June 1976.