STARKWEATHER: A Chronicle of Mass Murder in the Fifties

by William Allen ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 30, 1976

Just the facts--and they're-all that's needed to hold your attention and suggest the deadly parallels: Charlie Starkweather, a nineteen-year-old Nebraskan, and Caril, a fourteen-year, old girl, went out on a Bonnie and Clyde shooting spree and murdered ten people during eight days in cold blood. (If you need further referrals, there was Paul Kavanagh's fictional variant--Not Comin' Home to You, 1974--and the movie Badlands.) However Allen has based some of his amplifying material on the study of criminologist James M. Reinhardt who visited Charlie frequently in prison. Charlie, who tried to look like James Dean, gave different renditions throughout. Actually there was an eleventh victim, a gas station attendant killed fifty days before the pogrom which took the lives of Caril's family and assorted others. Charlie went to the chair; Caril is still serving a (somewhat shortened) life sentence and the author adds a sad coda, after going to see her. . . . A non-exploitative, non-judgmental documentary of a sociopath as queer as ""a three dollar bill. . . like nothing I have ever seen.

Pub Date: March 30, 1976

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1976

Categories: NONFICTION