Lincoln, Nebraska: Charles Starkweather gets into a fight with his girlfriend's family as he waits for her to come home from school. He shoots them dead when the 14 year old arrives, then goes to strangle her 2 year old sister Betty Jean.

Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate then watched television together. They stayed in the house for the next two days, turning away inquiries and writing a note on the door: "Stay a Way. Every body is sick with the flu". By the time the bodies were discovered, the two were on their way out of town.

The two spent the next few days driving around the back highways of the northern plains, killing and stealing cars. Their victims included C. Lauer Ward, a wealthy businessman, his wife, Clara, and their maid, Lillian Fenci. Despite a substantial police search, Starkweather and Fugate made their way to Wyoming where their killing continued.

Police officers were to stumble onto Starkweather struggling with his latest victim, he was apprehended after a high speed chase.

Fugate initially told police that she had been taken hostage by Starkweather, but abandoned that defense at trial. Fugate received a life sentence and Starkweather went to the electric chair on June 24, 1959.

Starkweather told police:"The more I looked at people the more I hated them because I knowed they wasn't any place for me with the kind of people I knowed".

Starkweather and Fugate's crime spree was dramatized in the 1975 film, Badlands.