SEQUELS: Painful Answer

For ten hours the five women and seven men on the Nebraska jury struggled with their anguishing problem: what to do with soft-cheeked Caril Ann Fugate, 15, who accompanied bowlegged Badman Charles Starkweather, 19, on a ten-murder spree last spring (TIME, Feb. 10). Had Caril Ann, whose own mother, stepfather and half sister were among the victims, been a willing accomplice, as the prosecution maintained, and as Witness Starkweather, brought to the court from his death cell, testified? Or, as the defense claimed, had she been Starkweather’s terrified and unwilling hostage?

Last week at Lincoln the jury returned with its painful answer: it found Caril Ann Fugate guilty of first-degree murder, ordered her sentenced to life in prison.