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They drove up towards Meyer’s farmhouse, where Starkweather planned to stay the night. But Caril insisted they turn back. When they did, the car got stuck in the mud again. It was already dark so they abandoned the car and headed back to the derelict school, intending to spend the night in the cyclone cellar. On the way they were offered a lift by 17-year-old Robert Jensen, the son of a local store-owner, and his fiancée, 16-year-old Carol King. When Starkweather explained his car trouble, Jensen offered to take them to the nearest service station where they could telephone for help. As they got in the back seat, Jensen asked why they were carrying guns – Starkweather had the .22 and Caril the sawn-off shotgun. Starkweather insisted they were not loaded.

Starkweather later claimed that, at this point, he toyed with the idea of ringing the police and turning himself in. But when they reached the service station, it was closed. On their brief acquaintanceship, Starkweather had already decided that these two high-school kids were exactly the sort of people he hated – clever, popular at school, conservative, middle class. Jensen was a football player. King was a cheerleader, drum majorette and a member of the school choir. They planned to get married once they graduated. It struck Starkweather that if he turned himself in, Jensen would get the credit. He could not bear the thought of this chubby, all-American boy being fêted as a hero.

He put his gun to the back of Jensen’s head and told him to hand over his wallet to Caril, who emptied it and handed the money to Starkweather. He then ordered Jensen to drive them back to Lincoln but after a couple of miles, he changed his mind and told him to drive back to the derelict school where they had been stuck earlier that day. He said he was going to leave Jensen and King there and take their car – a dark blue, souped-up 1950 Ford with whitewall tyres.

When they got there, Starkweather left Caril in the car, listening to the radio, while he marched his prisoners off at gunpoint As they walked down the steps into the cellar, Starkweather shot Jensen from behind. Later he claimed that Jensen had tried to grab the gun but, when the body was found, there were six shots in the left ear. Starkweather made several conflicting statements about how King died. He was alone with her for 15 minutes and claimed to have shot her when she started screaming. Later he claimed that Caril had killed her.

Carol King was killed with a single shot from behind. When their bodies were found the next day, Jensen was found lying on his stomach in a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs. King was partly nude and lying on top of him. Her coat had been pulled over her head, her jeans and panties were round her ankles. And her back was scratched and streaked with mud as if she had been dragged across the floor. She had been stabbed viciously, several times, in the groin, The autopsy found internal damage to the vagina, cervix and rectum. It had been caused by a rigid, double-edged blade that could not have been Starkweather’s hunting knife. But doctors found no semen and no indication of sexual assault. Starkweather at first said that he had raped King, but later admitted only to having been tempted to rape her and pulling down her jeans. Caril, he insisted, had then murdered and mutilated King in a fit of jealousy.

Starkweather closed the heavy storm doors on the cellar and went back to Jensen’s car. But it, too, was stuck in the mud. He and Caril managed to dig it out by about 10.30 p.m. Starkweather claimed that he was now determined to abandon his killing spree and give himself up to the police, but Caril talked him out of it. They headed back to Lincoln to see if the Bartletts’ bodies had been discovered yet.

Squad cars lined Belmont Avenue and Number 924 was crawling with policemen. Starkweather slowly drove by. Then he headed west out of Lincoln with the vague idea of finding refuge with his brother Leonard who lived in Washington State,