The true story of how a fourteen-year-old Nebraska girl was denied justice in a murder case that stunned the nation.

In 1958, nineteen-year-old Charles Starkweather gained notoriety as one of the nation's first spree killers. He murdered eleven people in Nebraska and Wyoming. After a week on the run, he was arrested, later convicted, and sentenced to die in the electric chair. Starkweather's girlfriend, Caril Fugate, fourteen, was with him throughout the murder spree. Was she his hostage or a willing participant in the murders that included her parents and three-year-old sister? This question still stirs debate more than fifty years later. Fugate claims she was too terrified to attempt escape—Starkweather had told her he would make a phone call and have her family killed if she disobeyed him. Unbeknownst to her, he had already murdered her family. A jury found her guilty of being an accessory to first degree murder. She was sentenced to life in prison; however, in 1976 she was paroled. Now, in The Twelfth Victim, attorneys Linda M. Battisti and John S. Berry, Sr. pull together years of research to tell how Fugate was a victim of both Charles Starkweather and the Nebraska justice system. Their book tells how the teenager was grilled by prosecuting attorneys for hours before ever being told she had a right to an attorney. The book details how Starkweather, who gave nine versions of how the murders occurred and had already been sentenced to death, became the chief witness against Caril at her trial. The authors also expose how Starkweather was coached for days by prosecutors on how to testify at Fugate's trial—including not telling the jury that he had planned to kill Caril on three separate occasions. It is a shocking story that has never been told.

John Stevens Berry, Sr. has appeared in court in twenty-four states, and two foreign countries. Following his military service, he was, in 1970 and 1971, briefly associated with the Henry B. Rothblatt Offices in New York, where he tried a number of high-profile cases. He returned to Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1971, and has continued to have a regional criminal trial practice. In 1986, he was Civilian Defense Counsel in the biggest drug bust in the history of Japan. He has conducted seminars for practicing lawyers in Kansas City, Missouri, and Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska, and has been invited to the Judge Advocate Generals School at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, to lecture on issues regarding criminal defense in the military. Mr. Berry has an AV rating through Martindale Hubbell and is also recognized by Super Lawyers for his high-degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. Linda M. Battisti is a trial lawyer for the Office of the United States Trustee, United States Department of Justice in Cleveland, Ohio. She is a graduate with a bachelor of arts degree from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida and received her law degree from Cleveland State University Law School. She lives in Cleveland.