These 1950s murders were the original true crime obsession. 'The 12th Victim' is a new take

Caril Ann Fugate got a raw deal.

That’s the premise of “The 12th Victim,” a four-part Showtime documentary series based on the 2014 book by Linda M. Battisti and John Stevens Berry (both Battisti and Berry participated at length in the series).

And it makes a compelling case, not just for Fugate’s relative innocence — she accompanied infamous serial killer Charles Starkweather on a 1958 killing spree in Nebraska and Wyoming that left 11 people dead, including Fugate’s 2-year-old sister — but in exposing the shoddy detective work and prosecution involved in convicting Fugate.

Yes, it’s yet another entry in the true-crime carousel, something of which audiences just can’t get enough. And some segments of the series are in fact devoted to the rise of true crime. 

But this isn’t just any murder.

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The Starkweather murders inspired films like 'Badlands' and 'Natural Born Killers'

These murders helped ignite the genre and is more ingrained in popular culture than probably any other killing spree. It is, after all, the inspiration for films like “Badlands,” “Kalifornia” and “Natural Born Killers,” along with many others. Bruce Springsteen wrote the song “Nebraska” about the killing spree from Starkweather’s point of view, after seeing “Badlands” on TV.

In almost every telling of the story, Fugate — a 14-year-old girl when the murders took place — is depicted not just as Starkweather’s willing accomplice, but perhaps even the mastermind behind the spree. In fact, he testified against her. 

Even so, Starkweather and Fugate are typically portrayed as a Bonnie-and-Clyde couple, two romantics on the run. “The 12th Victim” tells a vastly different story.

'The 12th Victim' tells a different story

Any true-crime story about the Starkweather killings is going to be interesting, given the level of notoriety, still. “The 12th Victim” also boasts a different take on the murders, taking Fugate’s side.

Director Nicola B. Marsh lays out the details of the murders in the grisly fashion associated with the genre — and they are grisly. Starkweather, 18, fashioned himself after James Dean. His motives for the killings remain unclear. Which is not surprising; he changed his story several times, eventually implicating Fugate.

If you only watched the first episode, you might think the series was similarly inspired by the lovers-on-the-lam motif.

It’s not. Marsh tells the rest of the story as someone sympathetic to Fugate. 

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Both Starkweather and Fugate were convicted of first-degree murder; Fugate was the youngest woman in U.S. history tried and convicted on the charge. As the series progresses, we learn more about the mistakes police made, and how prosecutors seemed eager to take Starkweather’s word over Fugate’s.

“The 12th Victim” also suggests that Fugate was treated differently because she was a woman — a girl, actually. This seems clear; her conviction appears to have been preordained. But Fugate would be a model prisoner, all while claiming that in reality she was Starkweather’s hostage, afraid to flee him. The series follows her through her later life (she is still alive but appears in the series only in archival footage).

'The 12th Victim' is also a fascinating look at media coverage of the era

But it’s also fascinating from a media standpoint — to see 1950s TV reporters talking to law-enforcement officers, the access they get, the willingness on the part of prosecutors to talk so freely.

It’s also a primer on some of the more curious TV fads of the 1970s and ’80s. Fugate appeared on attorney F. Lee Bailey’s show “Lie Detector,” which is pretty much what it sounds like, in 1983. She shows up all over the place, with the now-ancient graphics and grainy footage — it seems like a completely different age from when the murders took place. And in terms of media, it was.

That, along with the occasional juxtaposition of real-life news clips alongside snippets of the films the case inspired, make “The 12th Victim” more interesting than it might otherwise have been — and a reminder that the Starkweather murders seemingly will never stop drawing us in.

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'The 12th Victim'

Premieres 9 p.m. Friday, Feb. 17 on Showtime, with a new episode every Friday. All four episodes available on demand and on streaming platforms for Showtime subscribers on Feb. 17.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk.

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