Photo by File photo Charles Starkweather

His signature photo- a nearly foot-high pompadour, cigarette dangling out of his mouth – almost looks like a cover shot of James Dean, or, in modern times, Leonardo DiCaprio. Other photos, especially those of his trial, reveal a man whose suit-and-tie attire contrast heavily with his strange glare and firm, angry jaw line.

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Fifty years ago today, Lincoln native Charles Starkweather – high-school dropout, nihilist, James Dean wannabe, sadist, criminal celebrity, cold-blooded murderer of 11 people and twisted inspiration for no fewer than six movies, a Bruce Springsteen album and the works of Stephen King – was executed at the Nebraska State Penitentiary.

We won’t dwell on his murderous crime spree, his 13-year-old girlfriend and convicted (then paroled) co-conspirator, Caril Ann Fugate, or the odd fascination artists of all stripes seemed to have with the man. Times are troubling enough, crime is crime, murder is murder. Too many Nebraskans, touched by too many deaths in the last 50 years, know as much. And as The Misfit, a Starkweatheresque murderer in Flannery O’Connor’s famous short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” once said of pondering evil: “It’s no real pleasure in life.”

And yet, it happened, and, for some Nebraskans and especially Lincolnites, it was their “In Cold Blood” moment, the hour when a shadow stretched over this entire agrarian state of “The Good Life,” and sucked away all the innocence. We remember the end of Starkweather’s life, briefly, today.

Starkweather’s victims:

Robert Colvert

Marion Bartlett

Velda Bartlett

Betty Jean Bartlett (2), Marion and Velda's daughter

August Meyer

Robert Jensen

Carol King

C. Lauer Ward

Clara Ward

Lillian Fencl

Merle Collison