![]() An accomplished athlete, he excelled at gymnastics and even led his high school to a State Championship, but quit the team his senior year. He often did poorly in school despite being described by many as intelligent and courteous. He often got into arguments with his foster father. His crime, profiled in the 4 March 1966 issue of Time Magazine, inspired "Where are you going, where have you been?", a short-story by Joyce Carol Oates, and "The Lost", a novel by Jack Ketchum.Ĭharles Schmid was born to an unwed mother on 8 July 1942, and adopted by Charles and Katharine Schmid, owners and operators of Hillcrest Nursing Home in Tucson, Arizona. On MaSchmid was stabbed 20 times by his fellow inmates and died ten days later.Ĭharles Howard 'Smitty' Schmid, Jr (8 July 1942 - March 20, 1975), also known as The Pied Piper of Tucson, is a serial killer from the 1960's. In 1972 he escaped with fellow triple-murderer Raymond Hudgens and was recaptured within days. Thanks to a series of appeals his execution was stalled long enough to save his life when, in 1971, the US Supreme Court declared capital punishment unconstitutional. No one told authorities until Bruns, fearing that his girlfriend was next on Charlie's hit list, spilled the beans.įor the first killing Charlie got 50 years to life for the double murder he was handed the death penalty. The murders became an open secret with a bunch of Tucson teens. A boastful man, Charlie took his friend Richard Bruns to see the corpses. The next year, after realizing that murder could be fun, he killed his girlfriend and younger sister and dumped their bodies in the desert. His victim, a 15-year-old girl, was lured to the desert where he raped and killed her. March 31, after a night of serious drinking, he proclaimed that he was going to kill a girl and get away with it. A bizarre individual he became a cult hero of the disaffected youths of Tucson, Arizona. Known as the Pied Piper of Phoenix, Charlie was a little imp who dyed his hair black and drew a mole in his face to look meaner. On March 10, 1975, Schmid was stabbed 47 times by two fellow prisoners. When the state of Arizona temporarily abolished the death penalty in 1971, his sentence was commuted to 50 years in prison. Victims profile: Alleen Rowe, 15 / Gretchen Fritz, 17, and her sister Wendy Fritz, 13 AKA "The Pied Piper of Tucson" - "Smitty" Classification: Murderer
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