Nigel Cawthorne - Killers: The Most Barbaric Murderers of Our Times

Killers

The most barbaric murderers of our times

Nigel Cawthorne

Copyright Nigel Cawthorne, 2006

The right of Nigel Cawthorne to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

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Contents

Introduction
Murder is close to the human heart. We have all said in anger or irritation Ill kill you or I could have killed so-and-so. No matter how little we meant it, everybody wonders at one time or another whether they could actually kill. How can we be sure that no murderer lurks within?
Once that anger wells up inside, who can know how far things could go? Can you be sure that you could control that murderous rage? What would happen if you had too much to drink? Or if stress made you snap? And if you killed once and got away with it, would the temptation to murder again be too much?

Then again we are all potential victims. You are not even safe in your own home most murders occur within families or on the streets even in broad daylight there could be a sniper on the roof intent on killing whoever steps into their sights. At night, things get worse. A sex killer could be lurking in the shadows. A murderer eager to kill for Satan or some other perverted cause might be climbing in through that unlocked window. Nowhere is safe.
It is not just your own safety that you have to worry about. Your friends and family are also at risk. Ian Brady and Myra Hindley the Moors Murderers preyed on defenceless children, torturing and murdering them for their own perverted gratification. Myra Hindley is now dead and Ian Brady, unrepentant, still refuses to reveal where all the bodies are buried, despite the evident distress of the families of their victims. More recently two American high-school students went on a rampage, slaughtering their fellow pupils: even at school our young ones are at risk.
The UK, America and Australia have all been terrorised by hideous killings: in England sullen loner Michael Ryan devastated the quiet village of Hungerford with inexplicable acts of murderous violence; America was horrified by the actions of a lone sniper who picked off innocent victims in Austin, Texas; and in Australia a gang of lesbian vampires killed their victim to drink his blood. There have also been those killers who were motivated by an overwhelming sexual desire. In the 1960s the Boston Strangler used his sexual charisma to talk his way into womens apartments and, often persuaded them to take their clothes off and have sex before he murdered them. The Yorkshire Ripper followed his nineteenth-century namesake by slaughtering prostitutes or those who he thought were prostitutes. He claimed he was doing Gods work.
Ted Bundys insatiable libido sent him on a nation-wide killing spree and Dennis Nilsen killed men he had picked up so that they would not leave him. He then dissected their bodies, cooked them and flushed them down the toilet. Jeffery Dahmer came up with another solution. He ate his victims.
Like Brady and Hindley, couples can become so deeply involved that they will kill anyone who gets in their way even family members. Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend Caril Fugate killed her family, before going on a killing spree which has inspired several films. No one is sure how many people were murdered by Fred and Rosemary West as they usually picked on transients who no one would miss, and the case of Dr Harold Shipman, who killed at least 215 people proves that sometimes you cannot even trust your own family doctor.
Emanuel Tanay, a professor of psychiatry at Wayne State University, pointed out that murder is not the crime of criminals, but that of ordinary citizens. The great majority of murders are family affairs, committed by outwardly ordinary people who never murder or commit any other crime except on the one fateful occasion. And when the psychotic killer strikes, the result is often wholesale slaughter.

Killers details these shocking cases and takes you inside the minds of the people who committed these horrendous crimes. Are they inhuman beasts who are beyond compassion or understanding? Or are they human beings just like us, but who have simply overstepped a line? You decide.
In the meantime, be on your guard. Anyone around you could be a potential killer. There may even be one lurking inside.

Chapter

Natural Born Killers

Name: Charles Starkweather

Accomplice: Caril Fugate (the youngest woman ever to be tried for first-degree murder in the US)

Nationality: American

Number of victims: 11 killed

Favoured method of killing: Shooting, stabbing

Born: 1938

Reign of terror: December 1957

Stated motive: general revenge upon the world and its human race

Executed: 25 June 1959

Charles Starkweather was born on 24 November 1938 in a poor quarter of Lincoln, Nebraska. He was the third of eight children seven boys and a girl. His father, Guy Starkweather, was a convivial man who liked a drink. A handyman and a carpenter, he suffered from a weak back and arthritis, and could not always work. His wife, Helen, a slight, stoical woman, worked as a waitress and, after 1946, became practically the sole provider for her large family.

Although the Starkweathers knew little of their roots, the first Starkweather had left the old world in the seventeenth century, sailing from the Isle of Man in 1640. The name was well known across the mid-West and there was even a small town called Starkweather in North Dakota. Somehow the name Starkweather seemed eerily redolent of the wind sweeping the Great Plains.

Charles Starkweather had happy memories of his first six years, which he spent playing with his two elder brothers, Rodney and Leonard, helping around the house with his mother and going fishing with his dad. But all that changed in 1944 on his first day at school. When they enrolled at Saratoga Elementary School, all the children were supposed to stand up and make a speech. When it came to Starkweathers turn, his classmates spotted his slight speech impediment and began to laugh. Starkweather broke down in confusion. He never forgot that humiliation.

Starkweather soon gained the impression that the teacher was picking on him, and he believed that the other children were ridiculing him because of his short bow-legs and distinctive red hair. Later, from his condemned cell, he wrote: It seems as though I could see my heart before my eyes, turning dark black with hate of rages. On his second day at school he got into a fight, which he found relieved his aggression. He claimed to have been in a fight almost every day during his school life, though his teachers remembered little of this.

Despite his high IQ Starkweather was treated throughout his school career as a slow learner. It was only when his eyes were tested at the age of 15 that it was discovered he could barely see the blackboard from his place at the back of the class. He was practically blind beyond 20 feet.

Starkweather felt that life had short-changed him. He was short, short-tempered, short-sighted and short on education. He was forced, by poverty, to wear second-hand clothes. Classmates called him Little Red and he remembered every perceived slight. It made him as hard as nails.