Early Life
Starkweather was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, the third of seven children to Guy and Helen Starkweather. The Starkweathers were a respectable family with well-behaved children of working class background. The family always had shelter and other resources. Guy Starkweather was by all accounts a mild-mannered man; he was a carpenter who was often unemployed due to rheumatoid arthritis in his hands. During Guy's periods of unemployment, Starkweather's mother supplemented the family income by working as a waitress.
Starkweather had attended Saratoga Elementary School, Irving Middle School, and Lincoln High School in Lincoln. In contrast to his family life, Starkweather possessed no kind remembrances of his time of going to school. Starkweather was born with genu varum, a mild birth defect that caused his legs to be misshapen. He also suffered from a speech impediment, which led to constant teasing by classmates. He was considered a slow learner and was accused of never applying himself, although in his teens, it was discovered that he suffered from severe myopia that had drastically affected his vision for most of his life.
The sole aspect of school in which Starkweather excelled was gym. It was gym class wherein he found a physical outlet for his growing rage against those who bullied him. Starkweather used his newfound physicality to begin bullying those who had once bullied him, and soon his rage stretched beyond those who had bullied him to anyone whom he happened to dislike. Starkweather soon went from being considered one of the most well-behaved teenagers in the community to one of the most troubled. His high school friend Bob von Busch would later recall:
| “ | He could be the kindest person you've ever seen. He'd do anything for you if he liked you. He was a hell of a lot of fun to be around, too. Everything was just one big joke to him. But he had this other side. He could be mean as hell, cruel. If he saw some poor guy on the street who was bigger than he was, better looking, or better dressed, he'd try to take the poor bastard down to his size. | ” |
After viewing the film Rebel Without a Cause, Starkweather developed a James Dean fixation and began to groom his hairstyle and dress himself to look like Dean. Starkweather related to Dean's rebellious screen persona, believing that he had found a kindred spirit of sorts, someone who had suffered torment similar to his own whom he could admire. Starkweather developed a severe inferiority complex and became self-loathing, believing that he was unable to do anything correctly and that his own inherent failures would cause him to live in misery.
Read more about this topic: Charles Starkweather
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