The story of Caril Ann Fugate is the focus of a new Showtime docuseries, "The 12th Victim," which premieres Friday.
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Caril Ann Fugate was 14 years old when her boyfriend, Charles Starkweather, went on a killing spree in 1958.
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The story of Caril Ann Fugate is the focus of a new Showtime docuseries, "The 12th Victim," which premieres Friday.
Courtesy of SHOWTIME
Caril Ann Fugate spent years in prison after being convicted for participating in Charles Starkweather's killing spree in 1958.
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Attorney John McArthur (left) and Caril Ann Fugate in "The 12th Victim." McArthur defended her in her 1958 case. His son appears in a new Showtime docuseries, "The 12th Victim," which premieres Friday.
Courtesy of SHOWTIME
The story of Caril Ann Fugate is the focus of a new Showtime docuseries, "The 12th Victim," which premieres Friday.
Courtesy of SHOWTIME
The story of Charles Starkweather (center) and girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate is told in a new Showtime docuseries, "The 12th Victim," which premieres Friday.
Courtesy of SHOWTIME
Caril Ann Fugate is shown at the Women’s State Reformatory in York.Â
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Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska" grew out of a song written about Charles Starkweather (right) and Caril Ann Fugate and is explored in the book "Deliver Me From Nowhere."
I’ve read the majority of the Lincoln Evening Journal and The Lincoln Star coverage of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate along with most of the books about the 1958 murder spree, including the little-known “The Murderous Trail of Charles Starkweather," which contains his most extensive and likely most truthful interviews.
Over the years, I talked with police officers and attorneys who worked the case and, after Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska,†I put together a Starkweather tour for musicians coming to Lincoln that visited many of the locations of the crime spree, seeing buildings that no longer stand today.
And I met Fugate during an early ‘70s tour of the women’s prison in York and spoke with her by phone in the ‘80s.
So I watched “The 12th Victim†with that background and four decades of interest.
I found the first episode to be the best documentary account of the 1958 events I’ve seen. It compiles the ‘50s TV film and photographs with commentary by writers and researchers to comprehensively explore the murder spree. The re-creations, which often spoil documentaries, are well done and enhance the story, which is treated with an even-handed approach.
The third and fourth episodes were, for me, revelatory, providing views of Fugate’s life in prison and after she was paroled to Michigan, that I’d not previously known — like her babysitting for a family — and her thoughts, sometimes in her own words, that I’d not previously encountered.
And, in episode two, “The 12th Victim†builds a convincing argument for Fugate’s innocence, offsetting the evidence and claims of her involvement I heard from police years ago. In doing so, the series, which like all documentaries comes with a point of view, makes the case that Fugate should receive a pardon, which the Nebraska Pardons Board denied in 2020.
“The 12th Victim†will premiere its first episode Friday at 7 p.m. on Showtime. The series' next three episodes will air on succeeding Fridays. The full series will be available for streaming and on demand Friday.
Attorney John McArthur (left) and Caril Ann Fugate in "The 12th Victim." McArthur defended her in her 1958 case. His son appears in a new Showtime docuseries, "The 12th Victim," which premieres Friday.
The story of Charles Starkweather (center) and girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate is told in a new Showtime docuseries, "The 12th Victim," which premieres Friday.
Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska" grew out of a song written about Charles Starkweather (right) and Caril Ann Fugate and is explored in the book "Deliver Me From Nowhere."