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Thursday, August 8, 2013

convicted of murder spree as teen, critically hurt in car crash

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception 























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AP

Caril Fugate (now Caril Clair) and Charles Starkweather as they appeared together in 1958.

An infamous murder-spree convict was critically injured in a car crash late Monday night in Michigan.
Caril Ann Clair, 70, of Stryker, Ohio, survived when her SUV veered off road and overturned. She was taken to Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo where she is expected to recover.
Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek portrayed the murderous couple in the 1973 film “Badlands.”

Everett Collection

Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek portrayed the murderous couple in the 1973 film “Badlands.”


Her husband and driver, Frederick A. Clair, 81, died in the accident, authorities said.
Clair always maintained her innocence.

STR/Associated Press

Clair always maintained her innocence.

Fifty-five years ago, Clair (then 14-year-old Caril Fugate) was convicted of going on a deadly rampage throughout Nebraska and Wyoming with her bloodthirsty boyfriend Charles Starkweather, 19.

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A cigarette dangles from the mouth of handcuffed killer Charles Starkweather as he is led into the Nebraska penitentiary by Sheriff Merle Karnopp, right, of Lincoln on February 1, 1958. Bloodstains on the shirt are from minor wounds suffered during his Wyoming capture.

DON ULTANG/ASSOCIATED PRESS

A cigarette dangles from the mouth of handcuffed killer Charles Starkweather as he is led into the Nebraska penitentiary by Sheriff Merle Karnopp, right, of Lincoln on February 1, 1958. Bloodstains on the shirt are from minor wounds suffered during his Wyoming capture.

Starkweather and his jailbait girlfriend blazed a path that left 11 people dead, including Clair's mother, stepfather, 2-year-old sister and eight others.
Their blood-soaked tale seeped deep into the public consciousness, inspiring Terrence Malick's 1973 film "Badlands" starring Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen and Bruce Springsteen's 1982 song "Nebraska."
Clair, girlfriend and collaborator of murderer Charles Starkweather, rides in a car with an older woman, 1958.

Al Fenn/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image

Clair, girlfriend and collaborator of murderer Charles Starkweather, rides in a car with an older woman, 1958.

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In late 1957, police found the first body of many bodies scattered throughout the region: a 21-year-old gas station attendant who has been robbed, abducted and shot to death, reported news.com.au.

Two months later, police found a married couple's bodies in an outbuilding. Their 2-year-old daughter, clubbed to death by the butt of a gun, was discarded nearby in a cardboard box. The death toll kept piling up.

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Starkweather was executed at 20. Clair, who maintained her innocence, was sentenced to life in prison.
But she only served 17 years before being paroled in 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that life sentences for minors were unconstitutional, reported the Detroit Free Press.
mwalsh@nydailynews.com

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