LANSING, Mich. -- Caril Ann Fugate says a nationally televised lie detector proves she was innocent in Charles Starkweather's bloody 1958 murder spree but the man who prosecuted her is convinced she was guilty.
'I feel vindicated.
I feel free,' Miss Fugate said Tuesday at a news conference at a Lansing motel. 'You can't know what it's like to be a person in history and everyone hates you. It's like being in an iron grip.'
Bailey said the test, aired Monday night, shows Miss Fugate, 39, told the truth and was not Starkweather's willing accomplice when he murdered 10 of his 11 victims.
Miss Fugate has contended she went with Starkweather only because she feared for the lives of her parents.
Miss Fugate, who has been living in the Lansing area since being released from prison in 1976, portrayed herself as a helpless victim of 'mass hysteria' in 1958 when she was tried as Starkweather's accomplice in a rampage through Nebraska and Wyoming which left 11 people dead.
She said once she realized that Starkweather had murdered members of her family, she would have gladly thrown the switch on the electric chair which was used to execute him. She was 14 at the time.
Miss Fugate said she would like an apology from Nebraska authorities, but did not indicate whether she expected one.
Nebraska Attorney General Paul Douglas, who helped prosecute Miss Fugate, said he still believes she was 'guilty as charged' of first-degree murder.
Miss Fugate, who works in patient transport at Ingham Medical Center, said she was 'living a quiet life, going about my business' when the 25th anniversary of the killings triggered a spate of news stories.
'That's when I said, 'That is enough,'' and asked for an appearance on the lie detector program.
