Starkweather's Car

Some symbols or artifacts in a true crime story seem to achieve a certain notoriety of their own. In "In Broad Daylight" it was Ken McElroy's 1980 Silverado. In "Starkweather" it's also a vehicle: Charlie Starkweather's 1949 Ford. Charlie and Caril fled Lincoln on January 27, 1958, in the car, and abandoned it in the snowy mud after Charlie killed a local farmer. The Ford, with a gaping hole where the grill should be, seems to project the menace of its past.

The retreating lawmen seem to want nothing to do with the Ford.