Hopewell Valley Student Podcasting Network

Show Name: Real Cases, Fictional Minds

Episode Title: Teenage Killing Spree

You are listening to Real Cases, Fictional Minds, the podcast with your host(s) Jaylli Kushi.

In this episode of Real Cases, Fictional Minds the Podcast we discuss: Season 6 Episode 13 of Criminal Minds titled “The Thirteenth Step” and how it's based on Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate who were a duo of teenagers on a killing spree.

Today, we are going to start with something different. I went to a fellow Criminal Minds fan and asked them a couple of questions about their favorite show. I have Paola here, who has been watching Criminal Minds since it first came out in 2005, and I'm just going to ask her a couple of questions.

Question: Who is your favorite serial killer in the show? And why?

Answer: The serial killer with the split personality, where one personality didn't know that the other was killing people.

Question: What is your opinion on some of the fictional serial killers being based on real-life ones?

Answer: I think it is really interesting that some killers are based on real-life ones, and I think about all the research the writers have to do in order to make those specific episodes.

Question: Which one of the agents do you think has the biggest impact on solving the crimes?

Answer: I would have to go with Agents Reid and Garcia because of the great attributes they bring to the team.

Segment 1: The Thirteenth Step

The episode starts in Montana. A couple gets triggered while shopping at a gas station and decides to kill eight people in the store, and when leaving, they blow up the store. The team goes over the case and decides that there was no robbery or motive, and that spree killers often repeat themselves, so it’s bound to happen again soon. When they arrive at the crime scene, they learn that this couple has been killing for a little longer than they realized, and they are now up to fourteen victims. Agents Reid and Prentiss learn that the killers used guns and a crowbar to kill their victims. Meanwhile, Agents Morgan and Hotch are at the crime scene and they find rice all over the ground but no rice bags in the gas station, and this leads them to believe that they were just freshly married because throwing rice is a tradition to do after you get married, and this leads them to conclude that this killing spree is a part of their honeymoon. Agent Garcia finds thirty-one couples who have records and are freshly married, and she also finds out that they have been killed in gas stations before and took most of their anger out on the store clerk. The scene switches to the unsubs but the girl is alone in the car while her husband sits in an AA meeting to talk about his alcoholism, and while in the meeting the husband gets triggered by questions being asked in the group and he decides to kill everyone there, and while the wife is out in the car a man approaches her and triggers her enough to kill him, and after she kills him she joins her husband in the meeting and finishes killing everyone, and the couple flees into the night after another killing spree. The team arrives at the crime scene and guesses that the unsubs met at an AA meeting, and they think that they are really struggling with sobriety, and they are on their final steps, which are seven, eight, and nine, which are acknowledging your shortcomings, accepting responsibility, and making amends, but these unsubs are taking all these steps too literally. The scene switches to the unsub and the wife is trying to convince her husband that they need to go through with the next steps, and the watchers learn that the husband has trauma from his father and might be the reason because of all this, so the wife is implying that they go directly to the source to solve their problems, which is his father. The team gives a profile to the police for the unsubs, late teens to mid twenties, and they believe that they have recently been married, and they see that alcohol is playing a big role in these killings allowing them to kill freely and without thinking, and they are killing surrogates who represent deep-seated wounds, and they most likely met at alcohol support center and they are getting sexual charges of these spree killings, and them going from killings in gas stations to randomly an AA meeting suggests that one of them might have a slight moral compass in order for them to get help, and one of them is a sociopath and the other is a psychopath. The scene switches to the unsubs arriving at the husband’s house to find his father who opened the door for them and was immediately held at gunpoint and forced back into his home, and because the AA meetings are anonymous the team decided to call Garcia to see anyone who accessed the meetings website last night, and she finds a guy named Ray Donovan, a twenty-seven year old who has been in and out of foster care since he was ten, and last year he was given a restraining order by an ex-girlfriend which is not his partner. The team decides to call the home address of his biological parents, and back at his father’s house Ray is too drunk to even hear the phone ringing, and Ray has both his parents at gunpoint confronting his father about molesting him but his father denies it, and before Ray gets to ask his father one last time his wife decides to shoot his father, and the team arrives to the crime scene and finds out that the wife is the one who killed his father. Agents Hotch and Reid interview Ray’s mother, and she tells them she remembers the name of his wife, that Ray kept calling her Syd, and the unsub is seen driving and fighting, and we can see that Ray is mad at Syd for taking his father’s life because he was the one who wanted to do it. Agent Garcia is trying to find out what Syd’s real name is, and she finds a Sydney Manning who, like Ray, was in and out of foster homes. She filed for a marriage certificate two days ago, and the team finds out that Sydney was pulled out of her home because her father molested her, making him next on their kill list. The couple is now in Washington in Sydney’s hometown, and they stop at another gas station where her father is the store clerk, and Sydney is holding her father at gunpoint while Ray records her threatening him, and Ray gets triggered and starts beating her father when all of a sudden a little girl comes from around the corner asking them what they are doing to her dad. Agents Morgan and Prentiss go to Sydney’s home to find a new wife of her father to get his work address which is the gas station, and the unsubs are just about to leave with the little girl after killing Sydney’s father when Morgan and Prentiss arrive at the gas station, and a shooting happens and Sydney gets shot, and Agent Hotch calls the inside phone of the gas station in order to get in touch with Ray inside with his shot wife. Two hours have passed and Ray and Sydney are still inside and they demanded a car to take them to Aruba in order to get away, and they still have the little girl hostaged inside with them keeping her as leverage, and Agent Morgan goes to the door with the alcohol Ray asked for in order to cooperate with them so they don’t kill the little girl. Agent Morgan is on the phone with Ray telling him that his ex-girlfriend was murdered, and Ray initially thought that she had taken her own life but soon learns that Sydney is the one that killed his ex-girlfriend with heroin, and Ray gets triggered and kills his own wife, and Ray lets the little girl go and drives a car with his dead wife in the passenger seat out through the store and is killed by the agents.This makes it a powerful episode for comparing the dramatized version of a remorseful killer to the historical case that it echoes.

Segment 2: Teenage Killers

The real-life killing spree of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate took place in 1958 and shocked the entire Midwest. Charles Starkweather was born on November 24, 1938, in Lincoln, Nebraska. He was a rebellious teenager who dropped out of high school and worked odd jobs, but he was known for being violent and aggressive even as a teen. At 19 years old, he began a killing spree that would claim eleven lives in just over a month. Caril Ann Fugate, his girlfriend, was only 14 years old at the time. She had grown up in Lincoln as well, and her involvement with Starkweather would become controversial, with some saying she was a willing accomplice and others claiming she was forced to go along with him. The spree began on January 21, 1958, at the home of Caril’s family. Starkweather shot and killed her stepfather, Marion Bartlett, and her mother, Velda Bartlett, after being told to stay away from Caril. He also killed Caril’s two-year-old half-sister, Betty Jean Bartlett, clubbing her to death. Their bodies were hidden on the property, and Starkweather and Caril stayed in the house for several days, even putting a note in the window claiming the family was sick with the flu to avoid suspicion. The brutality of the murders shocked everyone who learned about them, especially because Caril, still a young teenager, was present the whole time. After leaving the Bartlett home, Starkweather and Fugate traveled to Bennet, Nebraska, where they stayed with Starkweather’s friend August Meyer. Starkweather killed the 70-year-old Meyer and his dog when Meyer offered to help them, beating the dog to death and breaking his shotgun in the process. Later that night, they picked up a young couple, 17-year-old Robert Jensen and 16-year-old Caril King. Starkweather raped King, then shot and killed both her and Jensen, leaving their bodies in a storm cellar. Afterward, they returned to Lincoln and sought shelter in the home of businessman C. Lauer Ward, where Starkweather killed Ward, his wife Clara Ward, and their maid Lillian Fencil. The couple fled Nebraska in Ward's car, traveling west toward Wyoming. On the way, near Ayers Natural Bridge, Starkweather spotted Merle Collison, a 37-year-old shoe salesman from Montana, parked on the side of the road. Starkweather shot Collison multiple times after demanding that he exit his car. Later, they encountered Joe Sprinkle in Casper, Wyoming. Sprinkle realized that if he didn’t act, he would be killed, and a struggle ensued over Starkweather’s gun. After running out of ammunition, Starkweather continued driving until a high-speed chase through Douglas, Wyoming, ended with his capture. During the chase, flying glass injured him, but he eventually surrendered to the police. Over the course of his spree, Starkweather killed a total of eleven people, including Robert Colvert, a 21-year-old gas station attendant killed on December 1, 1957, months before the main January spree. The victims ranged in age, gender, and background, which made the case even more terrifying for the public. After his capture, Starkweather confessed to all the murders, while Caril Fugate claimed she had been forced to participate under threat of death. She spent 18 years in prison before being paroled, while Starkweather was sentenced to death. He was executed in Nebraska in June 1959 at the age of 20. The Starkweather-Fugate killings left a lasting mark on American culture, becoming a symbol of teenage rebellion gone violently wrong and inspiring movies, songs, and even episodes of shows like Criminal Minds. What made it particularly chilling was how quickly and randomly the murders occurred, often targeting strangers, neighbors, and even family members. Charles Starkweather’s rage, combined with Caril Fugate’s presence, created a partnership that authorities would later describe as both tragic and horrifying. The spree ended in Wyoming, but the fear it spread across Nebraska and neighboring states lasted for years, and the story of their murders remains one of the most infamous examples of teenage violence in American history

Segment 3: Compare and Contrast

When you compare the Criminal Minds episode “The Thirteenth Step” to the real-life case of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, there are some clear similarities and differences between the two couples. Both were very young and romantically involved, and in both cases, one partner was more dominant while the other was influenced by them. Ray and Sydney, like Starkweather and Fugate, went on a killing spree that included both strangers and people connected to them personally, and in both cases, emotional instability played a big role in their actions. Both couples also started with a personal trigger—the fictional couple’s unresolved trauma and struggles with alcohol, and Starkweather’s conflict with Caril’s family—and then escalated to more random murders as their sprees continued. However, there are major differences. In the episode, Sydney is actively involved in planning and sometimes controlling murders, while Caril Fugate was only 14 and largely coerced. Ray and Sydney even held a hostage and tried to manipulate the situation, whereas Starkweather and Fugate’s murders were more impulsive, often targeting whoever was nearby, from family members to strangers. Another difference is the level of planning: the fictional couple tried to control the chaos and get away, while the real spree was shorter, less organized, and more random. Despite these differences, both couples terrorized their communities, showing how youth, influence, and unchecked rage can create deadly consequences. The Criminal Minds episode adds psychological depth and closure, but the real-life murders were far more chaotic and tragic, proving that reality can be even darker than fiction

Sign Off: Some killers hide in fiction, others walk among us… until next time on Real Cases, Fictional Minds.

Music Credits:

1. Intro/Outro: Deep Breath by KonovalocMusic
2. Transition: From the Underworld by KonovalocMusic

Connect with us on Social Media

1. @theHVSPN