The 12th Victim

As far as the filmmaking style went it could have been better and more focused. But the actual story is good and it's about time that Carol got fair treatment! The system convicted her before she even went down trial. She has passed numerous lie detector tests and passed all of them and never once in all the years since 1958 has she ever changed her story. Most investigators will tell you that people are lying will change their story a lot. Furthermore, I knew Carol when I worked at the same hospital with her in Lansing and she was a sweet and loving person and everyone absolutely loved her. I have seen her cry many times over what happened to her and cried for the people who lost their lives, including her own family. I hope that she will get the part in that she deserves. I love you Caril and I was very proud to call you my friend.

This is probably the best documentary you will find on the Starkweather killings. Starkweather comes across, rightfully, as a unhinged evil monster yet, somehow, and we will never know why, acted out all this horror in some form of love bond with Fugate. And that is what has spawned so many movies, mostly bad, based on the duo.

The filmmakers have a ax to grind though. They want us to believe in Fugate's total innocence. They defeat this purpose in numerous ways. The film clips and pictures of Fugate during the time of her surrender and Starkweather's capture show a young girl with nothing but a cold, emotionless, blank face. There is zero indication that any of the absolute horrors had any effect on her in any way. In fact, she is wearing the expensive coat of the wealthy Lincoln wife that was brutally slain and bragging about how nice it is.

Fugate changes her personality the longer she is behind bars and the brutal realization that she may be there for life sinks in. The authorities saw this at the time.

The documentary does allow for some comments from non-believers in her innocence who feel she was in her element the whole time only giving up "when the jig was up" and that no one but Starkweather and Fugate really know what happened because they left no witnesses. A fair point.

Ultimately, the authorities in Nebraska in 2020 had the final word when they denied her pardon.

I consider this so-called "documentary" to be nothing more than a "mockumentary" in that it is so biased towards the ridiculously named "12th Victim", namely Caril Ann Fugate, that it presents a wholly unbalanced view in attempting to persuade viewers that she was completely innocent of complicity in all the crimes of which she was convicted by a jury of her peers. Indeed, I would go so far as to suggest that the biased views put forward in this series are extremely dangerous in that they suggest that trials with convictions that took place so long ago where most, if not all, of the participants have passed away should be regarded as "unsafe" when "modern standards" are applied.

If you think that a 14-year-old girl should have attempted to prevent a murdering madman from killing people, you should excuse yourself from the planet. Clearly she is not a murderer and was not in a position to prevent murders at the age of 14 with no one intervening on her behalf at any point with this monster.

The documentary was interesting and well made. I appreciated the clips that they included that put you in that time and place. I also appreciated that they narrated some interviews that they did not have original recordings for. Well I normally think a four-part documentary is too long, in this case I found it interesting to the end.

ABOUT MY REVIEWS:

I do not include a synopsis of the film/show -- you can get that anywhere and that does not constitute a meaningful review -- but rather my thoughts and feelings on the film that hopefully will be informative to you in deciding whether to invest 90-180 minutes of your life on it.

My scale: 1-5 decreasing degrees of "terrible", with 5 being "mediocre" 6- OK. Generally held my interest OR had reasonable cast and/or cinematography, might watch it again 7 - Good. My default rating for a movie I liked enough to watch again, but didn't rise to the upper echelons 8- Very good. Would watch again and recommend to others 9- Outstanding. Would watch over and over; top 10% of my ratings 10 - A classic. (Less than 2% receive this rating). For Lifetime Movies for Chicks (LMFC), drop the above scale by 3 notches. A 6 is excellent and 7 almost unattainable.

Again I believe its noteworthy to point out that I can not remark upon the actual subject matter (other than it definitely being worthwhile of being told, in terms of human interest), but merely the mechanics and technical aspects of the film ITSELF - {which is wierd because this is only true in cases of documentary films}

Here is my biggest issue, and it's a big one - shortly into episode one, we hear 'the words' of Starkweather read to us as if its the man's voice and inflection and cadance and emphasis, HOWEVER it's not the voice of Starkweather at all, nay, it's a voice actor and that's not fair - that's not kosher - that's BAD BUSINESS - especially considering they never do tell the viewer that it's an audible recreation

Similarly, much of it is filmed in what I like to call 'Confuse-a-Vison', where they smash cut quickly between and thru still photos and images that are circa 1950s but have zero connection to the actual case - mere filler shown under the guise that the viewer might see this and feel that the film maker has all of this never before seen footage - however once again this is NOT the case

Now I'm not saying this is unacceptable, however at no time are we told about these recreations but rather left to either be cowed into believing that we're watching and listening to authentic relics of the case when simply we are not

That all being said, for me, it's a massive detractor.