Electric chairs in the United States have seen their fair share of killers who have murdered multiple victims. Sometimes, the killings take place over a long period of time (serial) or quickly (spree). In this article, you will learn of the death of a young spree killer that famously headlined the newspapers and another who infamously killed children.
Charles Raymond Starkweather
In a two-month road trip that spanned the states of Nebraska and Wyoming, Charles Raymond Starkweather was a spree killer who took his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, along for the ride. The duo was captured on January 29, 1958 and 17 months later, Starkweather was executed for his crimes. Fugate was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Starkweather committed his first murder in 1957 when a gas station attendant refused to let him pay for an item using credit. The next year, he would embark on a killing spree with Fugate that ultimately took the lives of 11 people, including Fugate’s mother, stepfather and her step-siblings.
In the beginning, Starkweather claimed that Fugate was his captive and she had nothing to do with the murders. But, he would change his stories many different times. When he finally testified at Fugate’s trial, he said she was a willing participant. Fugate told another story, saying she was held hostage and that Starkweather threatened to kill her family and that she did not know they were already dead. However, the judge presiding over her case did not believe her story and felt that she had plenty of opportunities to escape and get help.
Starkweather was only tried for the murder of Robert Jensen , a 17-year-old that he killed along with his girlfriend. He received the death penalty for this crime. Starkweather was executed in the electric chair at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln, Nebraska on June 25, 1959. As for his former girlfriend, she was paroled in June 1976 after serving 18 years at the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women. She was said to have been a model prisoner during her time in jail.
Albert Fish
Known as the Gray Man, the Werewolf of Wysteria, the Brooklyn Vampire, the Moon Maniac and the Boogey Man, Albert Fish earned a reputation as being a sadistic child killer who boasted about killing children in every state. He raped his victims and even practiced cannibalism. Fish gave a number of 100 victims, but it is unclear what he exactly refers to when he speaks of a victim. He was a suspect in at least five murders in his lifetime, but he only confessed to three killings that police were able to confirm.
When put on trial for the kidnapping and murder of Grce Budd, he was found guilty and sentenced to die in the electric chair. Fish was executed on January 16, 1936, in the electric chair at Sing Sing. After entering the chamber, he died three minutes later after receiving two jolts of electricity.
