Charles Howard Smitty 'Schmid, Jr. (July 8, 1942 - March 30, 1975), also known as "The Pied Piper of Tucson," was an American serial killer. His crime was profiled by journalist Don Moser in his article "The Pied Piper of Tucson", featured in the March 4th edition of 1966 Life magazine and is the basis for "Where did you go, where have you been?", short story by Joyce Carol Oates. In 2008, The Library of America chose the Moser article to be included in the second-century retrospective of the American True Crime.
Video Charles Schmid
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Charles Schmid is an illegitimate son adopted by Charles and Katharine Schmid, owner and operator of Hillcrest Nursing Home in Tucson, Arizona. She had a difficult relationship with her adoptive father, who was later divorced by Katharine Schmid. When Schmid attempted to meet his biological mother, she angrily told him never to return.
He did badly at school, but was portrayed as a handsome, intelligent and polite person. The accomplished athlete, he excelled in gymnastics and even led his high school to the State Championship, but quit the team in his final year.
Just before graduation, Schmid steals equipment from a school machine shop, and then suspended. He never goes back to school. He starts living in his own residence on his parent's property and receives $ 300 a month's allowance. Her parents left her to walk on their own with new cars and motorcycles. He spends most of his time at Tucson's Speedway Boulevard, taking the girls and drinking with friends, though he tends to be a loner. His best friends are Paul Graff, who lives with him, John Saunders, and Richie Bruns.
Schmid is a short man wearing cowboy boots filled with newspapers and flat tins to make him look taller. She uses lip balm, makeup pancakes and creates an artificial mole on her cheek. He also stretched his lower lip with tongs to make it resemble Elvis Presley's face. She is called "Pied Piper" because she is charismatic and has many friends in the Tucson teen community. Women love it and she often meets them at the Speedway area in Tucson. For the time being, teenage club members will keep their murder secrets.
Maps Charles Schmid
Murder
On May 31, 1964, Charles Schmid decided to kill Alleen Rowe, a high school student who lives with his divorced mother. Schmid's girlfriend Mary French has convinced Rowe to go with Schmid's friend John Saunders, but Schmid intends to kill Rowe, to find out what it's like to kill someone.
Schmid and his friends take Rowe to the desert, where Schmid and Saunders kill him. Before killing Rowe, Schmid told Saunders to rape him, but Saunders was gay, and he could not do it. When the murder took place, Mary French was waiting in the car and listening to the radio. After that three people buried him. When Alleen disappears, his father tells his mother that he feels he has been killed and left in the desert. The mother, Norma Rowe, went to the police and was told that she needed more evidence before they could go looking in the desert.
One of Schmid's many girlfriends is Gretchen Fritz, daughter of a leading cardiac surgeon and community leader in Tucson. Schmid told Gretchen that he had killed Alleen Rowe. There were also rumors that Fritz knew about the previous unfounded murder that Schmid should have done. When Schmid decides to break up with Fritz, he threatens to use that information against him. Schmid strangled Gretchen Fritz and his sister Wendy on August 16, 1965.
Schmid told his friend, Richard Bruns, that he killed the nuns and showed Bruns the bodies, buried in the desert at random. Bruns becomes increasingly afraid that Schmid will kill his girlfriend. In the end, Bruns fled to Ohio because her boyfriend's parents were convinced that she was harassing him. Bruns lives with his grandparents in Ohio and tells them everything he knows about the murder, and flies back to Tucson to assist with the investigation.
Trial
The mid-1960s media focused on the Schmid case and court. Magazines Life and Playboy sent reporters to Schmid court. Time did a feature on contemporary life in Tucson and the killing of young women. F. Lee Bailey, a celebrity attorney who was involved with the Boston Strangler and Sam Sheppard cases in the 1950s and 1960s, was brought in for a consultation.
In 1966, Schmid was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Rowe's body was discovered in 1967. When the state of Arizona temporarily abolished the death penalty in 1971, Schmid's sentence was reduced to 50 years in prison.
After inkarserasi
Schmid attempted to escape from prison several times, eventually succeeding on November 11, 1972, when he and another serial killer, Raymond Hudgens, escaped from Arizona State Jail. They detained four hostages on a farm near Tempe, Arizona, for a while, ate at Sonic, then split up, and were eventually arrested again and returned to prison.
In the early 1970s, he became interested in poetry. He sent his work from prison to a professor at the University of Arizona, Richard Shelton. "For all the wrong reasons, I criticized his work and found that he was quite talented," Shelton said.
Death
On March 10, 1975, Schmid was stabbed 47 times by two fellow prisoners. After the loss of eyes and kidneys, he is said to have died as a result of the attack on March 30, 1975, but his body was stolen from the morgue. After his death, Schmid's mother chose a prison funeral for his burial, believing that if he was buried in a public cemetery, his tombstone might have been damaged. She received Catholic funeral in prison, even though she was not in a coffin.
After Schmid's trial and conviction, Katharine Schmid and her husband are both indebted to his son's legal team more than they have. As a result, they end up living in near poverty in Coolidge, Arizona.
Books and Media
In 1966, Joyce Carol Oates published a short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", About a teenage girl who is fascinated and threatened by a male predator; he was inspired in part by the Schmid case. The story is dedicated to Bob Dylan because Oates is also inspired by his song "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." The story is adapted into the 1986 Smooth Talk movie, in which the character Schmid, Arnold Friend, is played by Treat Williams.
The 1971 film The Todd Killings is based on the Schmid case, such as the 1994 movie Dead Beat and the 2005 film The Lost, adapted from a novel by Jack Ketchum.
Acting director Actress Rose McGowan 2014, Dawn , was inspired by the events surrounding Alleen Rowe's murder. It stars Tara Lynne Barr in the role of Dawn Rowe, Hannah Marks as Mary French and Reiley McClendon as Schmid.
The young adult thriller Half Love with Death (Merit Press 2015) by Emily Ross was inspired by the Schmid case.
A Crime to Remember describes the case in episode 2014 "The Pied Piper".
I, a Complainer: The Insider Account of "Pied Piper of Tucson" The murder by Richard Bruns is the first-hand record of a murder by a childhood friend of Schmid whose information resulted in Schmid's arrest and conviction.
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia