Killers_ The Most Barbaric Murderers of Our Time - Cawthorne, Nigel [5]
On Sunday 19 January 1958 there was a terrible row. Caril was putting on weight and her family feared she was pregnant. When Starkweather turned up, Caril told him that she was sick of his wild ways and that she never wanted to see him again. He did not take her seriously. He had already arranged to go hunting jackrabbits with Caril’s stepfather, Marion Bartlett, two days later, and he figured that he would see her then.
On the morning of 21 January 1958 Starkweather helped his brother Rodney out on the rubbish round, then went to check that his room was still padlocked. It was. His hunting rifle was inside and he had to borrow Rodney’s, a cheap, single-shot, .22 bolt action rifle. He took some rugs he had scavenged from his rubbish round with him to Belmont Avenue and gave them to Caril’s mother, Velda, as a peace offering. Velda was not appeased. As Starkweather sat cleaning his brother’s rifle in the living-room, she told him that her husband Marion was not going hunting with him and that he should leave and never come back. When he did not respond, according to Starkweather: ‘She didn’t say nothing. She just got up and slammed the shit out of me… in the face.’ As Starkweather ran from the house, he left the rifle. A few minutes later, he returned to collect it. Caril’s father was waiting. ‘The old man started chewing me out. I said to hell with him and was going to walk out through the front room, and he helped me out. Kicked me right in the ass. My tail hurt for three days.’
But that was not the end of it. Starkweather walked down to the local grocery store and phoned the transport company where Marion Bartlett worked. He told them that Mr Bartlett was sick and would not be in for a few days. Then he drove his car over to a friend’s house nearby, left it there and walked back to Belmont Avenue. Caril and her mother were still yelling their heads off when Starkweather turned up. Velda accused him of making her daughter pregnant and began slapping him around the face again. This time he hit back, knocking her back a couple of steps. She let out a strange cry – ‘a war cry’, Starkweather thought. Marion Bartlett came flying to the rescue. He picked Starkweather up by the neck and dragged him towards the front door. But Starkweather was younger and stronger. He kicked the old man in the groin and wrestled him to the ground. Bartlett managed to slip from Starkweather’s grasp and went to look for a weapon. Starkweather thought he had better do the same.
As Starkweather hurriedly slipped a .22 cartridge into his brother’s hunting rifle, Marion Bartlett ran at him with a claw hammer. Starkweather fired, shooting the old man in the head. Velda Bartlett grabbed a kitchen knife and threatened to cut Starkweather’s head off. Starkweather reloaded the rifle, but Caril grabbed it from him. She threatened her mother, saying she would blow her to hell. The older woman did not take her daughter’s threat seriously and knocked her down. Starkweather grabbed the rifle back and shot the old woman in the face. He hit her with the butt of the gun as she fell, then hit her twice more.
Caril’s two-and-a-half-year-old sister Betty Jean was screaming. Starkweather hit her with the rifle butt too. She screamed all the louder, so Starkweather picked up the kitchen knife and threw it at her. He said he aimed for the chest, but the knife pierced her neck, killing her. Caril then pointed out that her stepfather was still alive in the bedroom. Starkweather went through and finished Marion Bartlett off, stabbing him repeatedly in the throat.
The house fell quiet. Starkweather reloaded his gun and sat down to watch television. ‘I don’t even remember what was on,’ he later told police. ‘I just wanted