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By Root 1149 0

over a thousand miles away. But after about three hours’ driving, before they had even crossed the state line out of Nebraska, they turned back and headed for Lincoln once more. Starkweather was tired, had a streaming cold and the car was not running too well. The idea was to rest up in one of the wealthy mansions in the country club area of town, steal a new car and make a run for it again the following night. Starkweather knew the area well. He had collected rubbish there and deeply resented its affluent residents. It was 3.30 a.m. when they arrived back in Lincoln. They parked up in the secluded street and took a nap. When they awoke in the early morning they began cruising the streets, hunting for a suitable property. Starkweather pointed out several possibilities before they settled on the five-bedroomed mansion belonging to millionaire industrialist C. Lauer Ward. It was just down the street from the garage Starkweather rented.

Mr Ward was the 47-year-old president of Lincoln’s Capital Bridge Company and Capital Steel Company, and had gone to work before Starkweather rang the doorbell. The 51-year-old maid, Lillian Fencl, answered the door. She had been with the Wards for 26 years and may have known Starkweather from this time as a rubbish man in the area. Starkweather and Caril brandished their guns and forced their way into the house.

Mrs Ward, a 46-year-old graduate of the University of Nebraska who was active in community affairs, was the only other person at home; the Wards’ 14-year-old son, Michael was at boarding school in Connecticut. By then the Bartlett murders were front-page news so when Starkweather ordered Mrs Ward and Lillian Fencl to carry on with their household chores, they readily agreed to cooperate. Meanwhile Starkweather went wandering about the mansion’s elegant rooms, amazed by their opulence. Before noon, he ordered Mrs Ward – not the maid – to serve him pancakes in the library, then petulantly changed his order to waffles.

While Starkweather was enjoying his late breakfast, 25 armed policemen were surrounding August Meyer’s farm. Starkweather’s abandoned car had been found nearby and the police were convinced the two fugitives were holed up there. A bulletin on the radio news said that they would be taken just as soon as the tear gas arrived. But when the gas cleared and the state troopers went in all they found was August Meyer’s dead body. The bodies of Robert Jensen and Carol King were found soon after. Within the hour a hundred policemen were combing the frozen countryside.

Around 1 p.m. Starkweather allowed Mrs Ward to go upstairs to change. When he went to check on her, he claimed she came out of her son’s room with a .22 calibre pistol and took a shot at him. She missed and turned to run. Starkweather threw his hunting knife at her. It stuck in her back. He dragged the groaning woman into her bedroom and put her on the bed. The Wards’ dog then began to worry him. He broke its neck with a blow from his rifle butt. Later, suspecting that Mrs Ward might try and make a phone call, he bound and gagged her and covered her with a sheet.

Later in the afternoon Starkweather called his father and asked him to tell Bob von Busch that he was going to kill him for coming between him and Caril. He also wrote a note, addressed to ‘the law only’, saying that he and Caril had intended to commit suicide after he had killed the Bartletts but Bob von Busch and others prevented them by coming round to the house.

Around 6 p.m. Mr Ward arrived home. When he came in through the kitchen door he was confronted by Starkweather brandishing a rifle. Ward made a grab for the gun and in the ensuing fight, the rifle fell down the stairs into the basement. Ward tumbled down after it, and Starkweather followed. Starkweather got to the gun first, and shot Ward in the back as he turned and ran back up the stairs. Despite his wounds, Ward kept going. He ran through the kitchen and the living-room and was opening the front door when Starkweather caught up with him. He shot Ward again, this time in the side of the