Caril Ann Fugate, ‘50s Killing Spree Accomplice, in Car Crash (+Vintage Interview)

Caril Ann Fugate, ‘50s Killing Spree Accomplice, in Car Crash (+Vintage Interview)
Caril Ann Fugate, now Caril Ann Clair (L) and her then boyfriend Charles Starkweather, as shown in a pre-1958 photo on 'A Current Affair.' Starkweather went on a killing rampage in 1958, during which Fugate was allegedly his accomplice. (Screenshot/YouTube)
Tara MacIsaac
8/7/2013
Updated:
8/7/2013

Caril Ann Fugate, whose married name is Caril Ann Clair, was an alleged accomplice at the age of 14 to her boyfriend’s murdering spree in Nebraska. Now 70, she was in a car crash on Interstate 69 in Calhoun County, southern Michigan, Monday.

Clair was injured and her 81-year-old husband, Frederick A. Clair, was killed in the crash. The vehicle rolled several times after her husband seemingly lost control, according to the Lansing State Journal.

In 1958, her boyfriend at the time, Charles Starkweather, took her on a killing spree during which he murdered 10 people in Nebraska. The victims included a couple who stopped to offer a ride, a local farmer with whom Starkweather was acquainted, and Clair’s family—her mother, stepfather, and 2-year-old sister. 

It was rumored Clair calmly watched television as her family was murdered, a rumor she denied in an exclusive interview with A Current Affair.

“He had me in his clutches,” she said in the taped interview (see video below). “I was not a Bonnie and Clyde having fun as it was depicted. This is not true.”
Clair served 18 years of a life sentence, and was released from prison in 1975.

She said when he killed the farmer, the first of his victims, she realized, “I'd better be very careful and don’t cross him.”

When she had tried to break up with him before the murders, he had told her, she said: “If I can’t have you, I'll make sure no man ever has you.”

Interview With Caril Ann Fugate Clair on A Current Affair