The Pied Piper of Tucson

Charles Schmid was the real life Arnold Friend. Charles was a five foot four resident of Tucson Arizona known for his uncanny ability to attract the ladies. Self conscious about his height he would stuff his boots with rags and flattened pop cans. He wore his dyed black hair slicked back and he wore makeup on his face along with thick chap stick. The ladies were not hard to come by if he was around.
Charles didn’t have a lot going for him. He was a high school dropout due to being suspended for stealing and he never had the desire to go back. But still the girls were constantly being lured into his arms. His tactics were to tell them many compliments along with a sad story that he was either dying or had once been crippled. Playing this pity card obviously made the girls feel bad and made them eventually fall into his trap. Three girls however never recovered from this fall.
Alleen Rowe was fifteen and a sophomore in high school. She had befriended one of Charles’ lady lovers named Mary French. Charles was known to talk crazy sometimes and apparently this night his talk was about murder. Earlier on Alleen had rejected a date with Charles’ friend John Saunders, but Charles decided that he wouldn’t be refused. Eventually Mary, John, and Charles talked Alleen into going out with them late that night after her mom had left for work. They picked her up and drove her to the desert. There they killed her by bashing her head with a rock and then they buried her. Her mother called the police but they weren’t much help, they didn’t have enough evidence or clues to pursue the missing teenager. Instead they just assumed it was just another runaway teen.
Gretchen and Wendy Fritz were Charles’ next victims. The Fritz sisters were sixteen and thirteen, Gretchen being the eldest. Gretchen was a skinny blonde trouble maker and knowing that only made Charles more interested in her. Gretchen was raised in a wealthy family but didn’t feel like anyone really cared about her. She became furious when she learned that Charles had many other girlfriends and fiancés even. Charles shortly after received news that both Mary French and Gretchen thought they were pregnant with his baby. The evening of August 16th 1965 the sisters went out to see the latest Elvis movie and that night they never came home. Their father, Dr. Fritz, hired a private detective named William Helig. Helig never found any substantial evidence for the girls’ case.
Richie Bruns was a close friend to Charles. Charles confided in him and asked if he would help bury the two bodies. Bruns not taking Schmid serious went along. When they arrived on the scene Bruns quickly figured out that Charles was for real. He helped bury what was left of the girls and they left. Bruns’ conscious wouldn’t leave him alone. He left town for awhile but shortly returned and let the Tucson police in on everything he knew about Charles’ murders. They later found skeletal remains of the sister’s bodies.
Charles was shortly after arrested and put on trial. The murders of the Fritz sisters gave him the death penalty. The trials didn’t stop there. When Alleen Rowe’s trial began Charles told one of the cops he wanted to take the them to the grave site. After several attempts they found her remains and dug up her skull along with the rock that he had used to kill her. The cases of Gretchen and Wendy Fritz along with Alleen Rowe finally came to a close.
Charles was sent to the penitentiary to await his death for the murders of the girls and after several attempted escapes was beat to death by a couple fellow prisoners. Charles, the smooth talker, Schmid was pronounced dead on March 30th 1975 and buried at the prison’s cemetery.
-Hannah H