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You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Geesy Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Good Evening. The year was nineteen sixty five. The Beatles, Elvis Presley and the Righteous Brothers filled the airwaves. Television shows like the Adventures of Oz and Harriet and The Andy Griffith Show mirrored the innocence of life in the dusty city of Tucson, Arizona. But the sun baked desert surrounding Tucson was hiding a sinister secret. A psychopath named Charles Schmidt, later nicknamed the Pied Piper of Tucson by Life magazine, would steal that innocence away, along with the
lives of three beautiful teenage girls. In this first hand account, written in nineteen sixty seven, Richard Bruns shares the evolution of his friendship with Schmidt, the details of getting involved way in over his head, and how he finally summoned the courage to blow the whistle and the deadly rampage that shocked the nation and changed the city of Tucson forever. The book they were featuring this evening is I a Squealer, The Insider's account of the Pied Piper of Tucson Murders,
with my special guests, journalist and author Lisa Espitch. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for agreeing to this interview.
Lisa Spitch, Hi, Dan, thank you for inviting me on.
Thank you very much, very very interesting story. Indeed, first off, we spoke earlier and tell us about the genesis of this book, how it came to be that this book from nineteen sixty seven. Tell us was it originally published, tell us what you did, what was the discovery was, and how it came to be this book I a Squealer.
My father in nineteen sixty seven wrote the book. He was the star witness for the prosecution. He's the one that blew the whistle on the case. And he was a friend of Schmid and he wrote the story to clarify his side of the story because he was very involved at the time he was twenty years old, didn't really know what to do with it. Once he was done writing it, really was ready to move forward with
his life, and so it got boxed away. Forty years later, which was about ten years ago, my sisters and I were at my mother's home and we were going through old photos and my mother had us going through old boxes of school papers and art from when we were kids, and my sister pulled out a bound manuscript and my mother said, oh, that's the story your father wrote about the Charles Schmid cases. Well, we weren't aware that he
ever wrote anything about it. We also knew very little about the cases because it's not something that was really that my parents talked to us about that as we were growing up. So I was very intrigued. I took it home and read it right away and was really overcome with the story, realizing everything that my father had gone through and how he was so much more involved
with Schmid and these cases than I ever knew. And I really thought the way he wrote his story was beautiful, just how he wrote, and I went to him with it and, you know, shared with him that we had the book and that I had read it. I think he thought by now the book had completely disappeared forty years later. You know, you assume things just get thrown out, and he really just wanted it back. At that time.
I think he was surprised that it still existed and surprised that I had just read it, and so I gave it back to him, and more time passed. Eventually it was brought up again, and I really my two other sisters had never gotten a chance to read the book, and so I wanted them to be able to read it. But he said at that time that he couldn't find it. He didn't know what he did with it. He may have thrown it out. So we were pretty devastated because this was a piece of his history that could never
be retrieved again. And so but moved forward. And then in twenty fourteen we were helping him to move and my sister found the manuscript and so he allowed me to take it back and hold on to it. And I mentioned to him again that you know, you really should share your story with the world. I mean, this is your side that's never been shared before. And he
didn't have any interest in doing that. He didn't want to open this all back up, But then recently, over the past couple of years, the story kept coming to the surface. Local media did a few stories on the Charle Schmid cases again, which kind of brought it back up. And then most recently, the Discovery Channel did on a
crime the ID on Crime or Crime on ID. They did a story on the Pipe Piper and of Tucson, and my dad was really frustrated at that episode because they portrayed him in such an over the top way, and they also, according to my dad, you know, some of the facts were just almost fabricated. There were things that they talked about that just didn't happen. And I said to him, you know, again, you have your story
available to share. If anyone's interested in this, your side should be out there with all the other resources, and he finally agreed. And so at that point I had already written my own book in twenty ten, and so I had the connections available to get it out there, and so Twin Feather Publishing here in Tucson published it. It released on March twentieth of this year, and so it's been an exciting process.
Absolutely, I'm no doubt. Now you talk a little bit about Tucson at that time in the eighties, and maybe you could tell us a little bit about the area that we're talking about, the neighborhood or the area of Tucson we're talking about, but also your father tell us when this story goes on, what is your age or your father before we talk about how he met his friend Charles Schmid.
So you mean in the sixties when he was here before this all started.
Absolutely, yeah, Okay, so.
Here in Tucson. You know, Tucson was not a huge city at that point. It really would be considered sort of an old dust town. It wasn't very big and there wasn't a lot for kids to do. My father was thirteen when he moved out here with his family from Columbus, Ohio, and so the area that we're talking about there. I don't know what the actual number of people living in Tucson at that time was, but it certainly was not a big city, and you know, it was very much if you think of an innocent town.
It reminds me of you know you mentioned at the beginning, you know, like the show, the Andy Griffith Show, you know, something like that, sort of an old dusty town where you know, it was very innocent and there wasn't a whole lot going on.
When you talk about your father at that time, what was he really like in terms of how experienced or inclined to be a bad guy or a good guy. What was he really like at that time?
So he had met Charles Schmid at the age of fifteen, he wasn't a real experienced kid. Now I do know that he had. He met Charles Schmid right after he had gotten out of a reform school, and he was really sent to the reform school because he was just sort of unruly. He was just starting to get in trouble. Nothing serious, but at that time, you know, his parents felt like that was, you know, the right thing to do.
He got sent to a reform school to just sort of get his life streightened out, and so he'd had a rebellious side definitely when he got out of reform school. It was shortly after that that he met Charles Schmid. So I would say that my dad at that time was fairly innocent in the fact that what he was getting in trouble for was nothing that you would consider really serious. But he definitely had a rebellious side that his parents maybe struggled a little bit with.
And the impression that your father had and the basically the persona that people knew of Charles Schmidt was what at that time. You talk about the transformation years later, a few shorts years later, but at that time, what was he like? What was the impression that other people and young people had of him, and even parents had of Charles Schmid.
So my father was fifteen when he met Charles Schmid. Charles Schmid was eighteen, so he was three years older than my father, and Charles Schmid had dropped out of school, so he was a grown man at that point, but he really still hung out with high schoolers and teenagers. He had a very big following here in Tucson, Charles Schmid did when my father first met him. He came
from a wealthy family. He was adopted that came from a very wealthy family that owned a nursing home here in town, and they gave Charles Schmid pretty much everything he wanted. He had a beautiful, brand new convertible car. He had a three hundred dollars a month allowance at that time, which in nineteen sixty four three hundred dollars was a lot of money, and so he had all of this money to spend and to show off, and he's threw parties and he always had girls around. He
was a very athletic guy. He was a gymnast in high school before he had dropped out, and a very successful gymnast that led Tucson High School into a championship. And he was a good looking guy, very charismatic. He was very short, he was five to three, which for you know, a man is quite short, but very good looking with very piercing eyes. And the girls just really were attracted to him, and there was something just very charismatic about him. And from what my father explains, parents
really liked Charles Schmid too. He had this again very charismatic and also parents trusted him. They kind of looked to him as a role mom for their kids, and so it was very interesting dynamic between all of the teenagers and him. Even though he was older, they very
much followed him and looked up to him. And so when my father met him and Charles Schmid started to befriend him, you know, I can see why my father was drawn to that friendship because, you know, here's somebody who is much older with girls all around, you know, always at parties, gorgeous car and so it was a great friend in my dad's view to have and hang out with.
You talk about that they originally met through a person. Did you call Paul G? Just last name G? And that would nearly end this story five years before you talk about who Paul G was and his earlier background, not so earlier background. What was Paul G involved with the police force.
So Paul when he was younger, and my father met Paul at the reform school that my father was at. But Paul had been up in a mountain area where people would hang out with water and stuff like that, and him and another friend, and I believe Paul was about the same age as Charles Schmid, so at that time when this happened, he would have been about fifteen.
And him and another guy decided that they wanted to rob somebody at gunpoint to get their money, and so they stopped a car on the road there wasn't any other cars around, and to rob this man who was driving the car. Somehow, in the midst of that, the gun, my understanding is, accidentally went off and killed this man. And so I don't think that they went into it intending to kill him, but they did end up killing this man and so it was a bungled robbery and
ended up a murder. He was under age and so he definitely did jail time for it. But that was his background. Paul g.
You have that the his character was and like you say, you talk about in this that your father noticed this real decline in his behavior and his character and some of the things that he admired about him weren't there a few years later, but you talk about it. He had these privileges from his parents, but then their parents' business, this nursing home, fell on bad economic times. So what happens in terms of his character and his status when you know this allowance and all these perks are no more.
Yes, so yes, they they're nursing him. Nursing home went into foreclosure and they ended up with a different nursing home across town, but much more lower scale, not as
so they were not as well off anymore. The one thing that Charles Schmid did have at that new home that they moved into is there was a small cottage home on the property, and so Charles Schmid got his own house and so he was able to kind of throw his own parties and be his own man without his parents in the same home, so that would be the one perk he had, But he did lose all of this money in the great car that he had.
And Charles Schmid, from reading my dad's story and talking to my dad, clearly was starting to struggle with his own persona and who he was. He was still so attached to this teenage world yet he was a grown man, and instead of being able to, I guess, move on into being a real man and moving on with his life, he was kind of stuck in this world of the teenager and I think that he had a real internal battle with who he was and what he was going
to do and how to move forward. And so I really gather that from reading my dad's story and talking to him that there was definitely an internal struggle with himself trying to figure out who he was and really started to kind of change and evolve as he was getting older, and I think he was just really lost.
You have a telling sort of story that stories about how he is conning his mother more and more. But after a while even his mother doesn't believe some of the stories because he's this notorious pathological liar, it seems, but he talks about the attending classes at university. Meanwhile, tell us what the reality was in terms of what he was doing with his mother and what he was saying in school. What was the reality of what he was actually doing.
So his mother agreed to pay for him to go to the University of Arizona, and he had her convince that he was really going to the u of A at least for a certain amount of time, so she gave him all of the money for books and classes and all of this. My dad has shared with me that when Smitty was enrolling, he actually had He had paid my father a certain amount of money to go for him to the u of A and sign up
for these classes. So he paid my dad to spend the time to do this so that he could show his mom he was enrolled in all of the classes. So my dad was pretending to be Charles Schmid and getting all of that enrolled. Of course, Charles Schmid never showed up to any of the classes, and for a certain amount of time, his mother was giving him money to go to school, and you know, probably proud that he was going to uvais clearly at some point, you know, it all kind of was, you know, realized, and she
stopped giving him the money. But for a certain time he had or convinced he was going to school, and so he would leave to go to school. She would be giving him money, and then he and my dad would just be hanging out all day at restaurants or hanging out doing whatever while she thought he was going to school.
Before this as well, you notice some of the devolution of his is a character in that you talk about white lipstick and sun tan pills and dying of the arm hair and chest hair. Tell us a little bit more about this lipstick that he or pardon me, this behavior he's exhibiting to a friend like your father, who sees him quite often. Yeah.
So, like I mentioned, when he first met Charles Schmid, he really was just kind of a charismatic, good looking guy. And as he started getting older and again I think he was trying to figure out who he was. He really was into Elvis Presley and started trying to kind of look like Elvis Presley, but in a really bizarre and distorted way. He was dyeing his hair black, and his chest hair is black, and even his eyebrows and everything.
He would die, he would sit under a sun lamp and get really suntan and wear really white chapstick or something on his lips. He started painting a mole on his cheek, which started out like a little pinhole mole, and over time it just kept growing bigger and bigger, until it finally was almost like a quarter size mole
on his cheek. I think one of the most unusual things about Charles Schmid that everyone always writes about is because he was short, he was trying to make himself taller, and so he would wear these boots that would be oversized for him, and he would stuff the boots with tons of rags and whatever he could get into the boots so that he was almost walking on like high heels or stilts, almost And so he practiced walking in these boots, and by doing that, he added between three
and six inches to his heights to make himself taller. And you know he really was when you see pictures of him of what he became. You can google pictures, and he became very bizarre. I mean, you can look at him and right away you can see that he was at one time a good looking guy, but just went really over the top with this persona that he was creating of himself.
You also talk about that he was a real nonconformist and that one time he came and ripped up and burned a bible in front of in front of your parents' place, in front of your father's home. So there was that behavior that's very very disturbing as well.
Right, Yeah, he definitely did things that were disturbing as far as you know. As you mentioned he tore up a bible and burned it in front of my father's home.
At that time, he was very abusive to a cat in front of my father, which really freaked my father out because he basically picked up this cat and was swinging it by its tail and hitting it against a wall, and had turned to my father and said you feel compassion why and just really always doing started really pressing the boundaries on everything and really showing a side of himself that was a bit frightening and telling about what was going on in his mind.
You talk about the did he's twenty three years old at this point. Then he's still hanging around with teenagers fifteen fourteen, and just a little bit older tell us about Wendy and her sister and how it comes that they are that they get to know or they know Charles Schmidt and your father tell us about this little group of friends.
So Charles Schmid did have a group of friends that my father was not really connected to. Charles Schmid had many more friends than my father. So my father really had Charles Schmid as a close friend, but only had a few other friendships where Charlis Schmid had many friends and he had multiple girlfriends he had, So Wendy and Gretchen actually their friendship came later on the Mary French who was one of his girlfriends, and John Saunders, one
of his friends. Those are the two that he actually started to convince and did end up convincing to murder with him. And so he had a group of friends that he actually was able to convince to start to really kind of sway to a dark side with him. And so my father really wasn't necessarily a part of those friendships, but definitely there was another side of Schmid that he was having some other friends get involved in things with him.
You talk about that they had convinced John Saunders and Mary French and Mary French was his girlfriend and she was quite young as well, right, fifteen years older?
Yeah, some many French was younger.
Yes, Now tell us about the what happens to Gretchen and at what point? And then what does your father know initially and then what does he find out and how.
So Wendy, Wendy and Gretchen. Actually the first girl who ends up getting murdered is actually Eleene Rowe. So Eleene Rowe is a girl that Charles Schmid convinced John Saunders and Mary French to murder with him. So Charles Schmid had decided that he wanted to kill somebody and see what it felt like, and somehow convinced these other two to do it with him. And so John Saunders and Charles Schmid had created they were looking for someone to
murder a young girl. And Charles Schmid had actually created a list of possible girls to kill, and they had decided on one of the girls on the list, Aleene Rowe. And so Charles Schmid convinced Mary French, one of his girlfriends at the time, to go to Eleene Roe's home and convince her to go out with them, with the impression that she was going to be going out with John Saunders while Mary would be with Charles Schmid. So
Mary did convince Alene Rowe to go out. One night they had waited for Elene Roe's mother to go to work. Alene Rose's mother was a single mom and worked as a night nurse, and so they waited for her mom to leave for work, and then Mary French went to her window and convinced her to come out, which she did, and they drove out to the desert to supposedly drink
beer and ended up murdering Alene Rowe. Mary French waited in the car while John Saunders and Charles Schmid walked off to the desert with her and ended up raping her and then murdering her by hitting her over the head with rocks or a rock.
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What did they do with her body?
They buried the body. So they went back up and got Mary French and told her that they had killed her. And then the three of them dug a grave and buried her body and buried all of the evidence. And then shortly after, about six months after that is when Charles Schmid told my father that he had done this
with Mary French and John Saunders. My dad, I think believed him, but at the same time didn't know what to believe with Charles Schmid because he was such a storyteller and he was always telling over the top stories. So I think my dad at that point had seen the changes in Schmid and probably didn't doubt that he
really did this. Of course, he didn't have any real evidence, didn't know where the body was, didn't know any of the details to like lead somebody to a bo but he was told that they did it, and so my dad had that information and now was you know, holding on to that information in his mind, realizing just how insane Charles Schmid was becoming or had become.
What was the progress with police in terms of Saunders and Mary French being suspects or Charles Smith being suspects in the Aileen rogue case? What were police doing, where were they looking, and who were they suspecting with anyone?
At that time in Tucson, there were a lot of runaways, and so Eileen Roe's mother knew that something happened to her daughter, and she knew that her daughter didn't run away, and she was constantly trying to get the police to do more. The Tucson Police department at that time really was really writing it off as a runaway case and kept telling her, you know, we have this happening with all kinds of teenagers. She's going to come at, you know,
don't you know. They were trying to brush it off, and Eleen's rou's mother knew that that just wasn't the case. The police did question many of the teenagers, including Charles Schmid. I'm not sure if they ever questioned Mary and John. I know that they did question Charles Schmid. They talked to pretty much everybody you know at the school that might have known her, and really there was nothing for them to go on, and so they just kept believing
that this was a runaway case. And really the Aline Rode case just sort of dwindled away for the police department and was kind of written off as a runaway case. Sadly.
You talk about also that at some point he starts talking their friends. Your father and Schmid are friends, and he starts asking him certain questions. He doesn't come out with it immediately, but what are the things he starts talking to him about in terms of Gretchen and her disappearance? What does he have to or pardon me, what what does he have to say about even Aleen Rowe?
So, as I mentioned, he did confide in my father that he murdered Aleen Rowe, and he you know, my father writes, you know, about times where he's sitting in Charles Schmid's home and you know, he's he's looking at this man that he used to you know, be friends with and look up to, and he's starting to really fear and watching him progress into something very again bizarre. But he does also share that at some point Charles Schmid even tried to convince my father to murder a
family with him. You know, I think it of course didn't go anywhere, and my father, you know, would just constantly sort of listened to Schmid and listened to him talk and kind of brush things off. But it was clear to my father from things that Schmid was saying that he just was no longer the person that my father knew when he was younger. And you know, my father did realize that that Charles Schmid had pretty much you know, lost his mind, and he was afraid of him at that point.
Tell us about the two sisters, Gretchen and Wendy first, and tell us what their relationship was to your father, and Charles smidt before you tell us what happened to Gretchen.
So, Gretchen he met at a public pool. Charles Schmid met at a public pool about six months after Eleen Rowe was murdered and really fell smitten for her. She was a very beautiful, blonde young girl who also, like Charles Schmid, came from a well to do family. She had a father who was a renowned heart surgeon here in town, and so she came from a family with a lot of money, and they just sort of really fell for each other pretty quickly and started dating each other.
There is a point now, Wendy is her younger sister who hung out with her a lot. She was several years younger, and so that's who Wendy was. So the Fritz sisters would be around Charles Schmid quite often. And eventually Charles Schmid decides that he's going to take Gretchen out and show her Alene Rose body, or at least where the burial is, because he, according to what he tells my father, is he wanted to see if Gretchen would still love him even if she knew. This is
who he was. So he took Gretchen out to Alene Roe's body and showed her and told her what he had done. And at that point, you know, Gretchen, you know, told him that she would love him no matter what. But she started really holding that over Charles Schmid's head. And so she started really kind of trying to pull the reins in and control what Charles Schmid was doing and making rules for him and constantly telling him that if he didn't do what she wanted him to do,
she was going to go to the police. She started really holding this over his head, and that's when the dynamic between Gretchen and Charles Schmid really started to change and it became kind of a love hate relationship at that point.
Now, in all of this, at some point, Gretchen and Wendy disappear. What does your father's surmise from that? Now, with this escalating bizarre behavior and some of the things he's already said, what is he surmise? And again, what did the police do in terms of suspects.
So Gretchen and Windy did disappear in August of nineteen sixty five. They went to a drive in movie and never came home and my father did suspect that Charles Schmid had done something, and it was a short time after that Charis Shmid did confide in my father that he had killed Gretchen and Wendy, which my dad was thinking probably did happen, but again didn't have any proof
or anything. Now that the police had questioned. Gretchen's family did not care for Charles Schmid and they had kept trying to keep Gretchen from seeing Charles Schmid, and when she disappeared, the Fritz family really did believe that Charles Schmid was, you know, the co written why their daughters disappeared. So the police did question Charles Schmid as well as all of the other teenagers that knew them and from the school, and again there wasn't any anything for them
to pin Charles Schmid on these cases. And there was also a lot of speculation that they too had run away, and there were a lot of stories that were coming out of sightings of seeing Gretchen and Windy in different areas, so there was still again that belief, just like with Eleen Rowe, that they may have run away. So the police weren't sure what was going on there They definitely
questioned everybody that they could. There wasn't any evidence that any foul play had happened until they they did find her car at a hotel. But even with the car, there was a lot of evidence to go off of. They did find Gretchen's car with her personette, which was very questionable of why the car would have been left behind. But you know, I think back when I read this, I realize all of this was happening in the sixties, where you know, there wasn't the things that we have now.
You know, there's no DNA evidence, there's no cell phone records or computer records, and so at that time, you have somebody missing, and if you don't have a smoking gun and you don't have you know, a body, you really don't have anything to go on. And so I see where the Tusom police were just stuck and didn't know what happened to the girls.
You talk about a very interesting situation too, that's demonstrative to your father about Charles Schmidt and sends your father on some strange behavior. According to other people and officials, he has a girlfriend named Kathy. Kathy has a history of a relationship which he is friendly called Smitty, So tell us a little bit about that. And because of that relationship and because of the things that Smitty is telling your father, what does your father do in response?
So, as you mentioned my father, there was a girl named Kathy that my father had been dating, and Kathy had confided in my father, And this was a short time after both Gretchen and Wendy had turned up missing as well, and Kathy confided in my father that something was happening at night. Somebody was messing with her screen and making noises outside of her window, and it had
her frightened. My father had decided that he was going to get to the bottom of this and see what was going on, and so he hung out on her street one night, kind of watching her house and was getting ready to leave. He had been there for quite some time, and then saw Charles Schmid's car coming down the road. At that point, he had a Ford Falcon sprint that he would drive, and so he was coming down the road and saw my father and pulled up to my father and acted as if he was looking
for my father. But my dad at that point just knew that Charles Schmid now had his sights on Kathy. He was convinced that she was going to be his next victim. And once he started feeling like, you know, Kathy was in danger, he became really obsessed with watching over Kathy to protect her. And really he became you know, day and night, he held a vigil in front of her home and on her street to watch over Kathy
and make sure that nothing would happen to her. And he was convinced that he was the only one that was going to be able to prevent Charles Schmid from getting to Kathy. And of course, for Kathy's family and for the neighborhood, this was very concerning. And so my dad, you know, obviously they could see he was obsessed with
this girl. They didn't know why he was obsessed, and so he really became you know, to the police, somebody to really watch because he was watching over Kathy all the time, and you know, it really ate up my dad. I mean, he just was obsessed. And he admits that he became just completely obsessed, and of course it destroyed
his relationship with Kathy. And but he was obsessed with watching over her and trying to prevent Charles Schmid from getting to her, and that became his obsession for several months.
You talk about this vigil and then one night he gets a call from his friend Smitty inviting him to a party. Now, why would he go in terms of since he's guarding Kathy. And then tell us a little bit about this party and what was said and what your father learned.
Yes, so it had been quite a while since my dad had really been hanging out with Charles Schmid, because my dad was spending all of his time trying to protect Kathy from Charles Schmid and kind of watching over her in her home. And so one morning, Charles Schmid called my father and said he was having a party
at his house and invited my father. And at first my father you know, turned it down, did not, you know, but he really kind of convinced my dad, And after my dad you know, considered it, realized, well, if he's with Charles Schmid, then Charles Schmid can't be you know, after Kathy. So my dad really believed as long as he was with one of them at all times, then
Kathy was safe. And so he did agree to go to the party and that night, I mean that day he watched over Kathy's home like he always did, and then that night he headed to Charles Schmid's else for the party, and you know, he writes about getting there and at first there was no one there and the panic that he felt, you know, just feeling like he had really been had in Charles Schmid, you know, tricked him.
And my father was dropped off at the party by his parents, so he didn't have a vehicle, and he felt very, very concerned. At that point. People did start showing up for the party. Charles Schmid did show up for the party, but it's just it, you know, when you read it, you realize just the panic he felt not being able to watch over her all of the time, and he was just so convinced that Charles Schmid was going to kill Kathy.
Now at this party too. This is an incredible development that Smitty arrives with some guys in suits around his age, so he's a little bit older than everyone else, and these guys are nicely dressed. And you say, your father recognizes these people from the newspapers, So who are these people and tell us about this incident.
So Joe Banano, who is was the crime boss for the Banano crime family, which is one of the Big Five you know, crime families in the United States. Joe Banano had moved here with his family, and so there was a lot of news always kind of showing Joe Banano and his family. And these men showed up and my father recognized them from actually the people who showed up, he didn't recognize. It was once he was taken somewhere.
So there were two people in suits with Charles Schmid, and Charles Schmid asked my father to come outside with him. My father went outside and Charles Schmid told him that these people are from the mafia and they want to question him about Gretchen and Wendy, and that they want meant him to come with them, And of course that completely frightened my father, and you know, Charles Schmid convinced him that he would be safe and he would be
with him. And so Charles Schmid and my father went in the car with these two men from the mafia, who later turned out to be Joe Banano Junior, the youngest son of Joe Banano, and another man from the mafia.
They drove them to an apartment here in town. In that apartment was Salvatore Banano, otherwise known as Bill Banano, who was the oldest son of Joe Banano and then Joe Bataglia, and he did recognize them from the papers because they had been in the papers, and so he did realize he really was with these mafia mobsters in this apartment. And so it was a very frightening thing.
And they were questioned by them for some time about the girls, and my father at that point Schmid had confided in him at that point that he had killed Gretchen and Wendy. So my father knew that Schmid had said he had killed Gretchen and Wendy, but my father just kept denying he knew anything, and just really felt like he was in quicksand at that moment and getting
deeper and deeper into all of this. And so from my father, you know, he just quickly found himself really in over his head in this whole thing.
What did Smitty say in terms of when they asked about Gretchen and Wendy, and they said they wanted to find information out, they wanted to question these people. They also warned them if they you know, if they didn't, if they did lie at all, they would be in big trouble. What does Smitty pull out of the out of his hat in terms of a plausible place where Gretchen and Wendy might have gone.
He tries to convince the Mafia that Gretchen went to California, and he tells them that he actually is the one that helped Gretchen learn how to run away, and so he tells them that he's the one that told her she could go to California where she could make herself look older and blend in. And he tells the mafia that he even taught her, you know, all the things to do to run away, and he was sure, you know, he told the mafia he was sure that her and
Wendy were in California. And there was recently a vacation that Gretchen and Wendy had gone to with their family, and she had met a boy there in California, and she admitted to meeting somebody in California and told Smitty about it, and Smitty shared that with the Mafia and told them that she had been dating this guy, and he's sure that she went there to be with him in California, and so he just kind of kept sticking to that story as the conversation ended with those mob people.
They told Schmid that they were going to come and get him the next day and take him to California to look for the girls. So I don't know if they really believed Schmid or if they were calling his bluff, but they did come the next day and they took him to California to find Gretchen and Wendy.
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they want some information regarding these two missing girls. They call his bluff or they believe that he may even help them find her in San Diego or somewhere in California. So what's the next thing that happens with these two mobsters? And what is your father thinking about this entire thing, knowing that that his friend Smitty knows a lot more than he is saying.
So I should mention that same night when they left, because I mentioned they did come and take him to California. But a very important piece of the story happened that
night when they left the apartment. And so they left the apartment and they were dropped off at Hamburger Joint and they started talking about the meeting and what Charles was going to do if he was picked up by the mafia, and Charles Schmid, you know, confided to my father that the thing he was really worried about is that he had never buried Gretchen and Windy and they were just laying out where he had left them in
the desert. And my father was shocked by that and said, what do you mean you didn't even bury them, And at that point, he still wasn't one hundred percent sure that they didn't run away and that he wasn't telling stories. And my father decided to call his bluff at that point so that he could find out the truth. And my father said to him, you know, I'm in this now too. I just spent you know, the evening talking to these mobsters and if you didn't really bury the girls,
we need to go out there and bury them. And really his main reason of doing that is he wanted proof that the girls really had been killed, and Charles Schmid was telling the truth, and you know, to unfortunately, he was telling the truth, and my father was taken out to the desert where Charles Schmid had buried the bodies, and my father ended up in the middle of a situation where he really was trying to help bury the
two girls. And you know, that happened that night after visiting the mob, and so at that point my father did know for sure the truth. My father did know that Charles Schmid had done this, but he also at that point felt like he was now in over his head and could be into a lot of trouble. And when they left the desert that night, they were unsuccessful in burying the bodies because the desert ground was so hard.
But Charles Schmid did tell him, you're in this as deep as I am now, and my father believed that. And my father believed that now that he, you know, had been there to the site and had seen the bodies and tried to help Schmid bury the bodies, you know, he believed that he was now too deep this to really go to the police himself, because he thought that he could go to prison. So you know, at that point, he really was lost himself in what the right thing
to do was. And he my father continued his vigil of Kathy's home and then Charles Schmid was picked up by the mafia the next day and taken out to California to look for the girls. My understanding is they all ended up getting picked up by the police on a beach walking around showing pictures of Gretchen and Windy, and Charles Schmid was sent back home here in Tucson, and so that's what happened from that point with them.
The reason that mafia was even involved in this is that Gretchen Fritz, you know, I mentioned her father was a heart surgeon. He was a heart surgeon for Joe Binano, so he had that connection to Joe Bernano and was his surgeon and so so you know, the understanding is that Gretchen's father got Joe Bernano involved to try and help him find his daughters, and that's how the mafia got involved in all of this.
Now you talk about the how things progress with your father and this information, So what happens with your father and this information and what does he do next?
So he doesn't do anything with the Gretchen and Windy information. Now that he's been out to the bodies, he's convinced that he himself is going to be in a lot of trouble and could even go to prison for having even tried to help bury the bodies. And Charles Schmid really had him convinced that he was in it just
as deep as him. Now he continued to even more deeply now that he knew for sure that Charles Schmid had killed these girls, he he was even that much more afraid for his own life, for Kathy's life, and was really watching over her still. And the family was able to finally get a restraining order and the courts told my father that he needed to go and live with his grandmother in Columbus, Ohio for six months so that he would be pulled away from Kathy and her neighborhood.
And so that's what happened next. So my father was pulled out of Tucson by the courts and sent to live with his grandmother in Columbus, Ohio. Which is when he really panics because now he really has no control over what Charles Schmid does and what he could do to Kathy and becomes panicked.
And as a result, what does he do to try to protect Kathy And how does he have this I don't know, reversal and this you know, there is a sort of a code, and especially young people adhere to these things of he's my friend, he once was my friend. How does he grapple with some of these things, and what's the turning point? And how does the turning point? You know?
I think thank god he was and to Columbus, Ohio, because I you know, it's hard to say where this this all would have gone had he not been pulled away from the situation to really realize that the only thing left for him to do was to call the authorities. And so he was only in Columbus, Ohio for a couple of days and just couldn't take it anymore, couldn't, you know, handle what might happen to Kathy, and felt like if he didn't do something, he was going to
end up killing Kathy. And so he did end up calling the Tucson police and telling them what happened, and they the next day came and got him and flew him back to Tucson, and he took them out to the bodies of Gretchen and when to show him And so that's when it all really came to a head and my father was able to finally have the courage to do what he needed to do and call the authorities.
He was agonizing, and he talks about that agonizing night and then the feeling he has after he does do the right thing.
Yeah, he had a very strong relief, like the weight of the world had been taken off of his shoulders. You know, I do realize in reading this and now understanding you know, what he was personally and emotionally going through with all of this. You know, he really did believe that he single handily was the only one that was going to be able to protect this girl. And you know, so to finally know that he's now come
out with it and it's out of his hands. And at that time, he did believe that he was going to be in a lot of trouble and he would probably go to jailer prison for even trying to help bury the bodies. But he was ready to just you know, get this out and and protect her. And so he felt a complete relief once once he came out with it.
You also talk about too, that that he schmedi told your father to grab their shoes, one of the girl's shoes as well, and your father thought this was a sure attempt to have his fingerprints, And again also he noticed something. Later. We finds out later that sunglasses that he never wore happened to be at the at this gravesite as well.
Yes, so I don't know that my dad was putting it together at the time that night that they went out there, But there was a time where Smitty had turned to him they were away from Windy Wendy's body, and he told my father to pull the shoe off
of her foot and throw it. I don't know if all my dad, you know, talks about is that he didn't want to do that, but Charles Schmid seemed to be testing him to see if he was going to touch the shoe, and he was afraid that if he didn't do in the moment what Charles Schmid told him to do. You know, here they were in the desert, he already killed these two girls. He thought for sure Charles Schmid would kill him if he didn't do as he was told, and so he took the shoe off
of her foot and threw it. He also had told my dad to wipe the other girl's shoe off, which my dad did do with his handkerchief and then tossed the handkerchief. And then as you mentioned later when they went back to the bodies and my dad took the police to the bodies, a pair of my dad's sunglasses were at the scene. And you know, my dad never went out there. He only been out there the one time at night with Charles Schmid, and he didn't understand
how his sunglasses could have got out there. So he really after the fact, realized that he believes Charles Schmid was starting to set it up to make him look like he could have been the murder, and so he, you know, in hindsight, realizes that this may have been all a part of Charlis Shmid's plan to pitness on my father, which is what Charles Schmidd tries to do once it all comes out.
You talk about the police, once your father comes forward, they also ask him to do something that is very very difficult for this former friend that is suddenly turning on his friend or released. He has those mixed feelings. What do they get him to do in terms of what they call a confrontation and what happens as a result in that confrontation.
Yeah, they right away at the desert, when they went to the bodies, they right away started telling father that they wanted him to confront Charles Schmid to see what they could get Charles Schmid, you know, once they knew that, once Charles Schmid knew my father had gone to the police, that Charles Schmid might come forward and confess. And my father kept saying, he's never going to confess. You know.
My dad didn't believe that Charles Schmid would confess and was afraid to confront him because, you know, he just it was very hard for him to go forward to the police and really he felt like this would be the end of it. So when I talk about that relief, he felt it was because now he did his part, he let the authorities know what was going on. But now they were pushing him to go into the room where Charles Shmid was being held at the police station and to confront him so that they could try to
get Schmid to confess. And it was very difficult for my father to walk into that room. And he writes about and I think my father did a great job of writing his emotions in that time, because you really feel the fear that he felt walking into that interrogation room and having to face Charles Schmid, and the look that Charles Schmid gives him when he walks in, knowing
that my father, you know, had turned him in. And then as they sit down, Charles Schmid, you know, right away starts to try and turn the tables and say, you know, why did you do this, Richie, you know, and basically trying to you know, make it sound as if my father had done this and was trying to
depend it on Schmid. And so that was a very frightening and difficult confrontation of the two of them because now he had to look Charleis Schmid in the eye and you know, really face him after going to the police with all of the information, and my father was very afraid of Charles Schmid by then.
You also talk about that once Charles Schmidt is arrested from the information that your father gave that, the ordeal obviously is not over for your father. In terms of public reaction, and yeah, just public reaction. What was a public reaction for somebody that was we know, heroic and coming forward. What was the treatment he was getting during all of this?
So it was extremely negative and you basically had two different aspects of it. On the one hand, you had a lot of people speculating why didn't he come you know, forward sooner and if he wasn't involved, he would have come forward sooner, you know, and all of that story.
And because Charles Schmid and Charles Schmidd defense attorney tried to claim that it was my father who really killed the Fritz sisters, there was a lot of you know, media and stories because that was a very you know, that's a great story, you know, to tell, and so the newspapers, some of them really ran with that story. And so you had a lot of people in Tucson who believed maybe he really did do this, or maybe
he really was more involved than what he says. So you had that side of it, and then surprisingly, you had this whole other side that treated my father horribly for coming forward. And so you know, my father has shared with me how you know, after this all happened and the trials were going on, you would have people going by his home and throwing things at the house and calling him a rat and a sink and a
squealer and all of this stuff. And you know, instead of realizing that he came forward to stop somebody who was murdering girls, instead he was treated like he did something wrong by writing on Schmid, and so he was kind of having it come at him from both angles. And so it was a very traumatic and difficult time for him because he was completely treated as an outcast and a you know, I really, I honestly can't imagine going through that and having a whole city treat you.
You know, he felt like the whole city was treating him a certain way, and so that was a very very difficult time for him.
Now, these trials weren't put together, weren't lumped together, they were separate. You talk about John Saunders and Mary French and the very very disturbing testimony of these people, and it explains how this seemingly charismatic Charles Schmidt convinced these people to do what they did tell us about what they say in court, testify to about Charles Smith and murder of Alene Rowe.
So both Mary and John did. Actually, Mary French did go on the stand and she did tell the whole story and how it happened and how he did convince
her to get Elene Rowe to come out. Her attorney did try to claim that she because she was so young and Charles Schmid was so much older, that she really couldn't be held responsible because he was so much older and she was so smitten with Schmid, and so they tried to, you know, really say that she was too young and innocent to really be held accountable for that.
Although she was found guilty of her part, John Saunders actually pleaded the fifth and didn't end up testifying, but Mary French's testimony was really enough to show that Charles Schmid had convinced them to do this act and was clear that he was the mastermind of it and controlling the whole situation. And so the first trial was for Gretchen and Windy, but they really counted on Mary French and John Saunders to show with the ellen Row case
that he was capable of murder. And that's when it came out that that Gretchen knew about the ellen Rowe killing, which is why she kind of held it over him, and that was the reason he ended up killing her. Unfortunately, Wendy, her younger sister, just happened to be with her, So unfortunately Wendy was killed with Gretchen as well. So you know, you think about a family that had two daughters and
they both were killed. You know, it's just tragic. But and then there was a lot of teenagers that came on the stand and what I really realized, and I think this is where the Pied Piper of Tucson title really comes in, because so many teenagers came onto the stand and talked about Charles Schmid and these cases, and you know, they were so connected to Charles Schmid and
defending Charles Schmid. And there were even kids that admitted that they were planning on something to do to my father, possibly kill him, just because he came forward to the police. And so there was this whole giant protection of Charles Schmid that you really realize. You know, he had this connection with teenagers that people were willing to keep a secrets and protect him to no end.
There wasn't the media talk too of again misinformation, but talk of a sixty member sex club. So how did this rumor and where did they did they derive this salacious rumor from.
So there were a ton of stories that were happening at that time, and my dad talks about, you know, after this all happened, that the media was just kind of out of control with all of these stories, and so there were tons of stories that came out about how there was, like you said, this giant sex club and that this is where this all you know, came about in these killings, and you know, all of it,
according to my father, was all fabricated. There was no there was never any you know, sex club or these
these things that people were talking about. But you know, a story that was already so sensational and crazy and frightening, they felt this need to even amplify it even more and to create even more drama around it, and so there were tons of different stories that were coming out that you know, I think my dad feels like it was like they had to figure out a reason why teenagers were keeping these secrets and that there had to
be something more to it. But the reality is this was just a very charismatic, psychopathic man that was able to get people to follow him and to keep his secrets. And but there was you know, all of these other sensationalized stories were just you know, not a part of it.
Now he talks about though to the second trial, and then an interesting i say, infamous attorney comes into play. So tell us how it comes that f Lee Bailey comes into the scene, and again the story looks like it's petering out. But there's much much more to this story, So tell us about Flee Billy and his contribution and what happens as a result of his representation.
So right after the Gretchen and Wendy Fritz trials where Schmid was convicted to death for that, but then they right away after that had the Ellen Rowe case. Allen Rose's body at that point had still not been found, and Charles Schmid's attorney, his name was Kenny, he decided that he needed maybe some help trying to get this
case overturned or get it thrown out. And f Lee Bailey at that time was already becoming a really famous attorney because he had just finished the trial with if anyone had seen the movie The Fugitive, the True Case of the Fugitive, and so Sam Shepherd was his name, and so he had just come off the Sam Shepherd case and was able to get that case turned around
or thrown out. And so there was a belief that Flee Bailey could be the one to really get this case thrown out, and so they hired E. Flee Bailey to come on to the case, which created a huge media buzz here in Tucson, because again, as we talked in the beginning, Tuson was a very small, you know town, not a lot going on, and then suddenly you have this giant case that have become national news, and now you've got Flee Bailey coming to be on the case.
He was only here a short time. He spent a couple of days here, and as soon as he spent any time with Schmid, he knew that Schmid was guilty.
And he told the defense that, you know, there was no way they were going to get him off of this, and they convinced or E. Flee Bailey convinced Charles Schmid to plead guilty to the ellen Row case because he just said there was no way he was going to get off because he was, in Flee Bailey's words, he was insane and he knew that just from spending a short time with Charles Schmid.
Right. And you also talk about in March sixty six, as you say, Charles Schmidt junior, first degree murder for Gretchen Wendy Fritz death penalty gas chamber and his wife at that time, Diane fifteen years old, a sobbing at this trial. But then soon after Schmidt claimed something concerning Flee Bailey and this case takes a little twist and turn mm hmm.
So after he pleaded guilty to Aline Rowe shortly after that, because Aline Rowe they found even though they had no body, they said that she was beaten over the head with rocks. And that's what Mary French testified to Charles Schmid. Never confess, you know, at first, never really confessed. He never went on the stand, and so nobody ever really heard Charles
Schmid tell anything about the cases. And so then he decided that he wanted to take the police out to Elene Roe's body to prove that her skull had not been fractured. And his hope was that he could prove that the case really didn't happen the way they claimed, and that he could, you know, claim that John Saunders was the one that really killed Eleene Row and that he had nothing to do with it. So he agreed
to take them out to the bodies. He said that Flee Bailey cohersed him into pleading guilty and that he really wasn't and so he drove them out to the body of Elene Row and took them to the grave. But they did find that her skull was massively fractured, and therefore it did stand that he was still guilty.
You also talk about in nineteen seventy one, the US Supreme Court declares capital punishment laws in Arizona unconstitutional, Schmid's sentences commuted to fifty years. Then you talk about October seventy two, you talk about Schmid disappears from his maximum security prison cell, and there's some roadblocks set up, and the police search inside and out, and they find him a few hours later hiding in the prison welding shop. Tell us what happens in November seventy two, right.
So he did possibly attempt in October when they found him in the welding shop, to escape, but then in November, a month later, he did successfully escape. So, as you mentioned, his death penalty was commuted to fifty years because they
found the death penalty the unconstitutional here in Arizona. And once he was no longer sentenced to death, he was treated like every other prisoner and he was actually allowed to go off of the prison grounds and work as they let prisoners do on the you know, working on
the streets and things, picking up litter and stuff. So he was outside of the prison walls and ended up escaping with another triple murderer, Raymond Hudgens, And they did escape from Florence Prison, and they ended up taking several hostages from one of the little nearby towns and eventually they split up. Charles Schmid ends up heading toward Tucson,
and Raymond Hudgens is found going another direction. The place at that time had reason to believe that my father might be in danger, and so I was just a small toddler at that time. But they did take my father and us and my mother and we were all put under police protection because it was believed that he was heading towards Tucson. And they did end up finding Schmid in Tucson at a rail yard, and they ended
up taking him back into custody. But he did successfully escape from prison in November nineteen seventy two.
You talk about now in nineteen seventy four, all those appeals are exhausted. He changes his name legally to Paul David Ashley, and then in nineteen seventy five in March, tell us what happens to him in prison?
So in prison, two fellow inmates stab and beat him anywhere between twenty and forty stab wounds. They completely just you know, he ends up with a seven lung and an i that ends up having to be taken out, and you know, really just horribly stabbed in prison, and then ten days later he ends up dying from those those wounds. So he is killed by two fellow inmates. It's hard to say, you know, there's a it's never
really clear exactly why they did it. The confusing thing is both of these inmates that stabbed him were not in there for anything serious, and they both would have been out of prison in less than ten years. So there is speculation as Joe Bernano had been involved when they first were looking for Gretchen and Wendy. There is some speculation that it may have been a mafia hit for the Fritz family, but it's hard to there's no real clear answers as to why these two inmates attacked and killed him.
You talk about the sentences, well, I think we mentioned it, but John Saunders, nineteen years old at that time, pled guilty to secondary murder and he got a life sentence, and you talk about that that was as far as you know, about fifteen years and he was released, and then that Mary French received four to five years and then she was released in you say about three years, yes.
So she did three years time and then from what we know, she told reporters that she was going to Texas when she was released. And then John Saunders. There is a John Saunders who fifteen years after sentencing was released from Florence State Prison. He didn't receive a life sentence, but about fifteen years would have been what a life sentence really, you know what you served at that time.
So it's you know, it's assumed that that would be the John Saunders who did go to Floren's prison, but he was released fifteen years later.
You include something that's very very interesting at the end of the book, the twenty and seventeen interview with Richard Bruns. Your father tell us a little bit about this and what is learned from this interview, So.
He does share you know, I think one of the interesting things for me as a daughter to have read the story that and I think what makes this book really unique is it's written. It's written fifty years ago. If my father wrote this book today, it would not be the same story because people change after fifty years, their opinions of things and their feelings of things change.
When you read the book, you really do sense that there was a big struggle with my father in that he still really cared for Charles Schmid somehow, and you know, they were really close friends, and this was a real big struggle for him, you know, in in doing the interview to kind of update the reader on my father, now, you know, one thing that I really gather is that you know, he he has a much more cynical feeling toward Charles Schmid now than maybe he even did when
he wrote this so fresh and new after the cases. But he does share in his interview, you know, the things that happen after the cases and the struggles he had trying to you know, he had he had married shortly actually during one of the trials, the second trial he married. He had my older sister, and so he was trying to start a family and really struggled in Tucson. Every time he got a job and people would find
out who he is, he would get fired. He was just really having a hard time moving forward in his life and moving forward from these cases. He even you know, tried to go to Phoenix to find work there. Eventually
they did stay here and settle in Tucson. He eventually did go to the u of A and become a teacher, and you know, he was able to move forward forward in his life and you know, with a wonderful, loving father, and you know, it's amazing us growing up, this wasn't a part of our history at all, because it just
wasn't something that was talked about. And and so reading this book, I think for me that's what was so surprising to me is not even knowing all of this had happened, and then to read it from my dad's perspective. But he just talks in the interview about, you know, how he moved forward and you know, his life after the trials.
There's an interesting story in there that's very, very demonstrative and very visual, is that you her father was hitchhiking, still live in that home and hitch hiking for work, and there there is an event that is very that you know, it probably stays with him today, no doubt. So tell us about this fork in the road incident he was.
It was when he decided he was going to hitchhike to Phoenix. He didn't have a car, so he was hitch hiking to Phoenix to find work. And there was a small town that at that time you had to kind of travel through because our main highway hadn't been built yet. And so the small town he had been traveling through to get to Phoenix and was dropped off there and so was waiting for another ride from that point, and he was just waiting for a car to come
by to you know, continue hitchhiking along. And he on that same day that he was hitch hiking to Phoenix from Tucson, it was the same day that Charles Schmid was being transferred from Tucson to Florence State Prison, which you had to go through that same small town to get the Floren's State Prison. And as he was sitting there waiting for a ride, he saw an unmarked police vehicle coming down the road, and it turned out that it actually was the car that was traveling with Charles
Schmid in the back seat. And he watched the car go by, you know, with Charles Schmid, and you know, he writes about and again the way he writes that I can't tell the story the way you know that he shares his emotion in that, but you know, to be standing there trying to move forward in his life and to have that vehicle drive by with Charles Schmid in the back seat, who kind of looked past him but didn't seem to really register, you know, his mind
seemed to be somewhere completely different. But he watched him drive by, and it really was, what he says, one of the most traumatic moments of his life. It was just, you know, in fact, he couldn't even you know, he told me he couldn't even keep going to Phoenix. He ended up turning around and coming back to Tucson because he was so thrown and so shocked that this just happened.
And so it definitely was a traumatic moment, and you know, kind of very almost poetic the way this, you know, ends with them each going their separate ways, and just an unbelievable moment. Really.
You also talk about your father and the other characters, Mary French, John Saunders, Paul g what happens with in terms of speaking to those people again.
He really doesn't ever speak to them again. Now he does. Cafi continued to live in Tucson as well, and for a couple of different times, my father does end up seeing Kathy different places. They really just looked at each other. They didn't say anything. They've never spoken again. And Paul ended up a at least at some point. He was a delivery driver who actually delivered something to a print shop that my father was working at here in town,
and they saw each other. And so each time he saw these two people, I think there was you know, I think all of them wanted to move forward from these cases and the story, and so they see each other that they never say anything to each other, and then over time they just never did see each other again. So it could be that they just got older and maybe they saw each other but didn't recognize each other.
But you know, my understanding is that Kathy still lives here in Tucson, So you know, it's hard to say they could have seen each other and not known, but they all just, you know, kind of moved forward.
You say, this affected the city of Tucson, but memories fade. But this story has been revived several times over the years, hasn't it. And then you say that, yeah, your father thinks it's inaccurate and incomplete, but it has it has not gone away, this story, has it.
It hasn't and you know what always confused my father's you know, he says that he doesn't understand there's so many cases and so many stories of serial killers that killed many more people, you know, and are much more I guess, over the top stories, and he never quite understood what made what makes the story so interesting that people keep bringing it up. And I really think it comes down to the fact that, you know, you're talking about the town of Tucson that was such an innocent place,
and you know, Charles Schmid. These murders happened before Charles Manson, and so this idea that somebody could get a following and get teenagers to murder with him. And then when you look at the pictures of Charles Schmid and just see how you know, odd he was and how odd he looked. I think there's so many pieces to this story.
And then for my father's piece in it to have this question mark of you know, you have this other person that had this connection with Charles Schmid, and so I think it all creates just a really intriguing story that keeps, you know, surfacing, because I do think it was just so unique for the time, and while you know, I just I do think it probably is going to
just keep coming to the surface. It's been fifty years and it's you know, still coming to the surface, which is again why I really am glad that my father agreed to have his story out there, because at least his side can be known and heard, and I think that's so important for my father. As a daughter, I want that for him.
It seems that this story is prior to some of the other stories that are them an ad famous where teenagers have the phenomena of having at least an initial loyalty to their friends not to immediately run to the police when they've seen something like this, like murders. And also the idea that your father was criticized because he didn't come forward immediately. They said, well, why did it take a couple months? And so your father was always questioned about why why he didn't do something sooner.
Yeah, And I think the only thing that I would encourage people to think about, you know, when you hear this story or read the story, is and I mentioned it before, this was a different time when you know nowadays, if if I if I have a friend that confides in me that they murdered somebody, and I go to the police. You know, nowadays, if somebody knows who the suspect is, there's all of these dots that they can connect. There's you know, computers, and there's cell phone records and
DNA and all of this. This was a time when all my father had was a story, and nobody knows what would have come of that if he did go to the police. He had no proof of anything, you know, up into the time that he was shown the two bodies, and so it's easy from an outsider's perspective to look in and go, oh, well, you know, if he wasn't guilty of something, he would have gone to the police
right away. But the truth is, you know, he didn't have a lot to share except for a story, and at that time, you know, there wasn't a lot for police to put together. And so it would have been my father's word against Charles Schmid's word, and my father would have probably put himself into a lot of danger at that time, or at least that I'm sure he
was fearful of that. So I would just you know, ask people to kind of see it for the time that it was and understand as a young man, you know what you know It's easy to look from an outside and say that that's what you would have done, but you know it wasn't as simple as that.
There's a crucial scene in this book, the defining moment for your father, where he knows this information. He has told this information again, he's not quite sure if this isn't just part of elaborate lies. But then he does the test himself so that he knows himself in his heart of hearts and asks to see those bodies. So he's very clever and genius in being able to do something that will prove it to himself. And then once that has proven to himself, he does the appropriate thing. Yes,
very interesting. Yes, I want to thank you very much Lisa as Bitch for coming on and talking about your father's book. I A Squealer, The Insider's Account of the Pied Piper of Tucson Murders. For those that might want to do you have a Facebook page or a website for the book, how might people you go to?
If you go to AA squealer dot com is the website for the book, and there's a book trailer there. There's other things about the book and the story, and there is links to by the book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, but you can pretty much find the book anywhere books are sold. And I just want to tell you thank you so much for allowing me this opportunity to share the story.
Thank you, it has been a pleasure. It is an incredible story and I'm glad that you and your sisters brought this incredible story to light on. Behalf of your Father is a book that needs to be read. Thank you so much. Hope to speak to you again. Good thank you, Dan, thank you, good night.
Thank you