You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Gaesy Bundy Dahmer The Nightstalker VTK 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, Smidty My marriage to serial killer Charles Schmid, The Pied Piper of Tucson unveils an unforgettable tale of love, betrayal, and survival. Diane Lynch thought she had found her prince Charming when she met Charles Schmid, a charismatic and mysterious man who swept her off her feet as a teenager in the mid nineteen sixties. But her fairy tale quickly unraveled when her husband was arrested for multiple shocking murders that captured
national attention. Set against the backdrop of a rapidly changing America, this deeply personal memoir recounts Diane's journey from a young girl in love to a woman facing unimaginable revelations. Through vivid memories and unflinching honesty, Diane reveals how she navigated a life overshadowed by her husband's heinous crimes while striving
to protect her family and find peace. Written with co author Marshall Tarrell, this book offers a unique perspective on one of the most infamous cases in American history, shedding light on the devastating human cost of living with such a dark secret. Blending gripping storytelling with heartfelt reflection, Smitty captures the strength of a survivor who chose to share her voice after decades of silence. Smitty is a compelling and haunting story for those who seek a deeper understanding
of resilience in the face of unthinkable events. The book that were featuring this evening is Smitty, My Marriage to serial killer Charles Schmid, The Pied Piper of Tucson, with my special guest author Marshall Tarrell. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for this interview. Marshall Tarrell, Thank.
You very much for that introduction. It's a pleasure to be here.
Thank you so much, and congratulations on this book, Smitty.
Well, thank you. It was a easy well, it wasn't an easy book to write, but it came together pretty quickly, so most books take anywhere from two to three years. This one was done in about six months to a year.
Tell us about why you wanted to become involved in this project and this story. The genesis of this book project, Well.
It really starts, I want to say, around two thousand and nine. At that time I was writing a biography of the actor Steve McQueen and one of the people that I interviewed was a gentleman by the name of John Gilmour. And you'll hear John's name throughout this book. But John was a method actor of the fifties and new McQueen. And then as a result of our interview, in our collaboration on that, I got to know a
little bit more about him. Well, he became a very very well known writer and author, and one of the books that he did was on Charles Schmid, and so I read his book on Schmid, like I said, and nine twenty ten and it was fascinating, but you know, it was nothing that I wanted to pursue. And then fast forward to twenty twenty two, me and two other
partners wanted to start a documentary company. We put together a list of people and lo and behold who bubbled up to the top, but Charles Schmid because we wanted to focus on people in the Southwest and write about subjects of the Southwest, and the Schmid case was interesting because this was something. This was like the first south the Southwest, first serial killer, and this was a These were crimes that shattered the innocence of Tucson, Arizona. So
that's why we wanted to do that story. And as a result of the documentary, I was introduced to his widow, Diane Schmid, and as we were interviewing her afterwards, I said, you know, Diane, you've got a book in you. This is really quite an interesting book, and so she said, I'm all for it. So that's how it all started.
Take us back to Diane Schmidt former Diane Lynch and her early life in Iowa.
Well, Diane was one of nine children and her father held a series of odd jobs and they moved, I believe to Arizona because one of the children had asthma, and so the doctors told them that they should probably move to the Southwest where the the air in the climate was much drier. So Diane did so that's how they ended up in Arizona.
You talk about their meager existence. You say, dad had a series of jobs, but they even lost their home at once time and then were forced to go to a kuanzit hut. So tell us about their early life and poverty, and what type of child was Diane early on, Well.
She describes herself as pretty much a dutiful kid. She was. It's the second oldest child, second oldest daughter, and the first daughter got married at sixteen, and so Diane was left with all the chores that a mother would have, and that was changing diapers, cleaning the house, doing the dishes, taking on adult responsibilities at a very young age. And so when she met Smitty at age fifteen, he was a knight in shining armor and he was going to take her away from all that.
You describe. While Diane describes in this book meeting this young man for the first time outside of near Polo Verde High School, and he was in a car, and when he got out of that car, she said he struck an imposing figure. Tell us about the impression that he led in the relationship that ensued.
Well, Smittye was actually a very good looking guy. I remember Diane telling me specifically. You know, he cleaned up pretty good. He was known for wearing pancake makeup and imass scarra, and he painted a mole on his face, and he put lip, he put toothpaste on his lips, and had his hair in a pompadoor like Elvis Presley. But beyond that, when he wasn't putting on that face, he was actually a very good looking guy. He was small, he was five foot four, but he was very athletic.
He was a high school gymnast, a state champion gymnast. And so that day when she saw him, he struck again, like she said, an imposing figure. And when he rolled up in that sixty ford falcon that was metallic gold. You know, he made quite an impression.
Now, what was their relationship characterized by? He seemed to have a lot of free time. So tell us what that relationship? What did they do in their dating relationship that blossomed very very quickly.
Well, as you said, he had a lot of free time because he had parents who gave him a three hundred dollars three hundred a month dollars stipend. They owned a nursing home. They also had a second home right next door, and so they gave him that house. He pretty much they gave him the car, and then he got that three hundred dollars month stipend, which was a lot of money in nineteen sixty five. The only thing he had to do in return of some odd jobs
for his parents at the nursing home. But other than that, you know, what they did was they would meet every day at the at the Hamburger stand, and then they would go cruising a major boulevard and Tucson, and then they were stopped by friend's house and play records and he'd played the guitar, and it was pretty much care free.
You know that that moment in time in your teens when when you're you feel like a grown up and you've got freedom with a car, and you know you don't have any responsibilities, and still you have money in your pocket. So every day for her was just a day of freedom away from the house and away from all those household chores. So she liked that lifestyle and grew accustomed to it.
She talks about and writes about what that relationship was like and how romantic he really was, and he even Serenador. You talk about did he looked like Elvis and he sang. But he really did have aspirations to be a rock musician, he said. And he would have flowers and candy and serenaded her. And she noted that his behavior was always positive and supportive and he was never any negative side to anything she saw from him in their dating relationship.
That's correct, She said. He was nothing but a complete gentleman. He would open doors for her, pull out chairs for her again, a lot of flowers, serenading her with Elvis Presley song, she said, are you Lonesome Tonight? Was his favorite song? And you know, he was just nothing but a gentleman. So she didn't see any cracks in the facade whatsoever in the in the beginning of the relationship.
Now, you're right that even though she was fifteen years old, she had to have approval from her parents like anybody else. How did her parents feel about Schmitty as he called himself, And what about when she finally met his parents, Catherine and Howard.
Well, her parents her father was a World War Two veteran who was involved in Pearl who got injured in Pearl Harbors. So she said that he was a very very hard guy to fool and Smitty almost won him over immediately, so that gives you some sort of idea to his charisma. And you know, in regard to the mother, he won her over as well, because she cooked the food and then he would quietly slip away and then help her do dishes and start a conversation with her. So you know, you talk about a guy who made
all the right moves. And then of course when they were he would also help out with the little children and play with them on the ground, and so so not only did he woo Diane, but he wooed her parents. Now, his parents were the kind of the complete opposite. The mother, Catherine was what's the word I want to use. She was kind of a dynamo. She was a helicopter mom, and Smitty was adopted, so she'd always wanted a young boy, and so from from day one she catered to him
and she carried that into adulthood. Now, the father, he was a very very nice gentleman, but he was a bit detached and mom ruled the roost. And so his name was Howard, and so Howard anything that Catherine did, he just kind of kept his mouth shut to keep the peace. So that is the sort of. That is how Smitty grew up with those two completely opposite parents.
Now, you're right that Diane would hang around Schmitty's place, and there was a person that she was introduced to early on this Paul Theodore gin or Gin, And he was a childhood friend of Smitty who was staying at his place and he had just been released from prison. So you read about the story of what he tells Diane regarding this friend, Paul Gin.
Yeah, Paul, and this is a very well known story in Tucson.
I think when.
Paul was thirteen or fourteen, he and his buddy decided that they were going to camp out in the woods or run away from home and camp out in the woods. Well, the second day of being in the woods kind of came around and they were starting to get hungry, so they had their hunting rifles with them, so they decided that they would pull somebody over and rob them. And so they actually they actually pulled over a man in the military who was coming down from Mount Lemon. He
had guarded the that area. Anyway, Paul pulled out a gun and put shoved it in his face, and then the gun accidentally went off and then shot this gentleman in the cheek and killed them. And they decide that they're going to try to cover up their crime, and they take the money in his wallet, they stuff him in the back seat and then they roll his car to the side so that nobody can see it. But you know, after a day or two, they were just
they were done. So when the police came by, they held up their hands and they confessed to what they did. So Paul Ginn went away for about a period of five years, and so when he gets out, the first person that he stays with is Charles Schmid. So it's interesting that you have a murderer staying with a future serial killer.
And what's very very interesting is right away, somehow, for some reason, he is adamant that he doesn't think that Smithy should be going out with this woman, Diane, saying that she was too young.
Correct. And you know, the thing is is is it is a bit shocking because for the times, it was not unusual for a fifteen year old girl to date a twenty two year old guy. Today we'd be shocked, but back then it happened quite frequently. But yes, in his mind that he felt that schmidty was too old for this young girl. You know, it's a mystery as to why he was so upset about it, because, you know, perhaps it was a sense of self preservation. If Schmidty married her, then where would he live.
Yes, at that time, Smitty had a best friend, as he called him, a person named Richard or Richie Bruns. Diane, what was her impression of this Richard Bruns when she had met him.
Well, she didn't like him because she felt that he drank too much, and she felt that he was a bit of a hanger on. And so Schmidty was the kind of guy that would befriend younger people who were very, very impressionable and didn't have much going on in their lives. And in the case of Bruns, he was a juvenile delinquent who had a pretty extensive record. Again, he didn't want to give up Smitty, and so Diane seemed to be an intrusion in all of his friends' lives.
You're right, just jumping ahead for a second, that the author that you spoke about, John Gilmour, for his book The Tucson Murders, this person had something to say about what he had done in his previous criminal life. What did the John Gilmour have in his book about that, Well, he.
Said that Bruns had broken into some homes, had taken some checks from his father, you know, just typical juvenile, delinquent stuff. Later on it was proven that he had gone out with a young lady who broke up with him and then he was stalking her. But he had claimed that that Smitty was threatening her life and that he was just trying to protect her because he felt that Smitty was trying to kill her. So again, a
lot of petty crimes. The interesting thing is he later on became a respectable teacher of youth and turned his life around.
And when you spoke about that, it was not unusual to be in a relationship or get married at fifteen sixteen years old at that time nineteen sixty five, but they could not get legally married at She could not get married at fifteen years old at that time in Tucson, Arizona. So what was the other what was the alternative?
Well, the Lordsburg, New Mexico was a place that for some reason you could get allowed you were allowed to get married at the age of fifteen, but that was I think three hours away. Or they could get married in Nogalis, Mexico, which was only an hour away. So that's what they chose to do. They ended up getting married in Nogalis, and that's the actual cover of the book. Is there they're getting is their wedding photo just outside of the Nogles court house.
You have in the book. The as Diane saw it, a very romantic gesture picking out the rings and him proposing. Can you tell us just a little bit about that account.
Yes, he took her to a pawn shop, and believe it or not, that pawnshop is still in existence in Tucson. So he took her under the guise of, hey, I want to go there and get a guitar. And so they go there. They they're by the counter where they hold all the rings, and then all of a sudden, he gets down and kneels down on one leg, on
one knee and says, will you marry me? And she says yes, And so the ripe of the rings and he says, well, you pick out something for you and pick out something for me, And that was kind of it.
You talk about the write about the wedding and Catherine was not too enthused, but she was a good seamstress and helped adjust the dress and for the wedding, and Diane felt it was the it was a beautiful moment,
and loved the wedding completely. But there was a scene right at the wedding that she writes about that she had heard the content of a conversation of really a tense conversation at this wedding, but didn't really put it together for many years and many circumstances and situations later tell us about this, this altercation or this incident at their wedding evening.
Well, yes, they got married during the day, and then they had a nice luncheon in Mexico, and then they come back to Catherine and Howard's house for a nice reception where friends who weren't able to go to Nagaus could drop by. And one of the people that dropped by was Richard Burunts, and he was heated. He couldn't he couldn't believe that Schmidi got married, and so he pulled Smitty aside, but within Diane's earshot, and said, what are you doing? You know what what about the girls?
And Smitty looked at Diane and smiled and was trying to, you know, trying to keep it, keep it cool, and said, well, what about the girls? And he said, you know the girls that we buried. And I think Diane at that time, again she was fifteen, couldn't really kind of comprehend what was going on or what was said, or if they were playing around or what have you. But that's what she did here, you know, what about the girls that
we buried? And so Schmitty then puts his arm around Bruns and walks him outside, and so she's kind of left with what was that all about? But you know, this was her wedding night. So what she chose to do is ignore it, bury it, put it away. That was a lot easier than trying to figure out what was being said.
The Jesus says, an eye opportunity to stop to hear these messages. Now, you say, and she writes that she just chucked it up at that time too, that Richard Bruns was unhinged, and like you say, put it away for another time. But you say that. Five days later, she's awoken at three am and Smitty, her husband, has a knife to his chest and he's rambling something about God punishing him.
Correct she wakes up, like I want to say two or three am, and at the foot of the bad he's got a butcher knife up to his chest. And at first she couldn't really quite understand what she was seeing. And finally she was startled and woke up and said what are you doing? What are you doing? And he said, well, God, God's gonna punish us. She said, what are you talking about. God's gonna punish us for what we did. And she says,
we didn't do anything, schmitty. And then she talked him out of taking the butcher knife away from his chest. And again, in her mind she thinks that perhaps he just had a nightmare or a bad dream or is sleepwalking, and again kind of chooses to ignore that something is wrong.
And so again, just like with the Richie Brunn situation, she chose to pack that away and store it away and ignore it because you know, she's living this life of bliss, because they were married for seventeen days and every day, you know, they'd wake up in the morning and have breakfast and sleep in. And then they had their house and they were buying new things for the house,
and every day was a new adventure. So again, in her fifteen year old mind, you know, it's a lot easier to ignore what's in front of her than deal with reality.
Like you say, she saw nothing coming, but better and better days each day, each romantic day spent with her husband in this loving environment. She was taking his bachelor pad and adding a woman's touch, buying new things, like you say, for this place. But then on November tenth, you say, you write that they start off it's a very nice day, and Smittie is outside ready to do some yard work. In fact, he goes out in the morning and does some and then right around lunch, and
right after lunch he comes in and he's disturbed. Tell us what he's disturbed about.
Particularly well, he thinks that he sees undercover officers circling the street. And the interesting thing is, I've got a copy of the police report. So everything that she told me is corroborated in the police report. And so he's outside and he walks back inside and he says, something's not right, and she goes, what are you talking about. She goes, I don't know. I feel like we're being watched, And so she goes, well, who are we we being watched by? And so he said nothing, and then he
gets on the phone. We don't know who he's talking to, and he's telling this person on the other line, Diane, here's the police aer here. They're surrounding the house. And then as soon as she hears that, she hears a knock on the door and she opens it and there's five police detectives there and they say that they're there for Smitty and they have a warrant for his arrest for murder. And so she gets the jolt of her life.
So they walk into the house, they tell Smitty to hang up the phone, they handcuff him, and he has whisked away, and so she's just kind of left to wonder what is going on.
Yeah, she writes that, Diane runs across the street to notify Catherine of what's happened with the police, and you write then, on the way to the police station, one of the lieutenants, the lieutenant Dupnicks, tells Smitty that he had a statement from his friend, Richard Bruns. What does he say Richard Bruns has said about Smitty.
Well, I'll get to that in a second, but here's what happened. So Schmidt. So when Bruns, if you recall he was charged not charged but he was accused of stalking the young lady, and the judge sends him back to Ohio to separate the two. And when he's in Ohio, he tells his grandmother what he and Schmidty did that, and that was that they had buried Schmitty had killed these young ladies, and that they had buried the bodies,
that the skeletons or the skeleton remains. And so the grandmother then tells him that he needs to be call police in Tucson and let them know, and so that's how the case breaks wide open. But in the car, a Dupnik tells Schmitty that Bruns has told them everything in hopes that you know that Schmidty will break down, and Schmitty doesn't. He says, no, Bruns was the one who actually killed these people. And so he says, well, I'll put you two together and you two can hash
it out. And so again it's all there in the police report that duth Nick allows these two to see each other and then right away that they're accusing each other of this crime. And so Schmitty says, I'll say no more. I'll have my attorney speak in court. And so from that point on Smitty doesn't see another day of freedom.
You talk about the newsworthiness of this story, and especially why is because the daughters of the Fritzes, the Gretchen and Wendy Fritz, there was a renowned cardiologist in Tucson, doctor James Fritz, So that just added to the importance of the story. How big a story did this become? Very quickly?
Well, this became an international story as it went to trial because what happened was is that Life magazine was assigned to it and they devoted sixteen pages of its and if you recall Live magazine was more of a photo magazine with you know, some illustrations. They devoted an
entire sixteen pages to this case. And once everybody read that story, then then it became an international news and then you had you had publications in France and London, and then of course you had the La Times and the Arizona Republic, Playboy and News and Time Week all over it. And it just became this international story because a part of it was the idea of somebody that was a serial killer who just decided to kill for
the thrill of it. And then you also had this added element that there were a lot of young people around that knew either about the crime or knew that Smitty was most likely involved, and they kept their mouths shut because the code at the time was you don't say anything to adults. You don't say, you don't write out, you don't write out your friends.
You have a famous photo, and I've got to say right now, just I wanted to remark that you have a astounding collection of photos, including this famous photo of Smitty, Charles Smitt, stepping out of a squad car, and this was in the Tucson Daily News. So I have to again remark what a incredible collection of photos you have provided in this book.
Well, thank you. A lot of those photos came from the police report, because they had a collection of I want to say, about one hundred photos, all in the glossy black and white. But that particular photo that you're referring to is a typical, almost like a purp walk photo, where then you know the police most likely call the newspaper and say, hey, we got this guy. We're going to bring him down to police. As soon as we
open the door, you snap that photo. And that's exactly I think what happened Schmid was taken downtown to the
Downtown station as soon as he stepped out. Now keep in mind he was working in the garden, so he was wearing like this green jumpsuit with these cowboy boots stuffed with rags to make him appear taller, because he was about five foot four, and he was hot and he was sweating, and he had this pancake makeup running down the space, and he had this bandage on his nose because he kept telling people that he broke it in a Harley accident, and the painted en mole, so
he looked pretty freakish. So this was the first image that the public saw of him, and it was pretty frightening.
You're right that now that he was all locked up and unavailable for any more photos for the time being, that Diane Schmidt became the target. And she foolishly went back to the house. Wanted to get back to the house that had been ransacked, but the media had swarmed the place looking for her specifically.
Right, and Schmittie told her specifically is stay out of the limelight because they're going to be wanting to take your picture. And the interesting thing in this in this case was that there were now television cameras allowed in the courtroom. No cameras allowed in the courtroom, but once you stepped foot outside of the courtroom, you were fair game.
And so he asked her not to come, but she wanted to be a good wife and show up, and sure enough they started taking her picture and then she became aknown entity within Tucson.
Now we you write about the co accused, John Saunders, but again it's a little complicated. John Saunders is in jail as well, in solitary confinement. Part of the feature of this book, too, is the correspondence that Diane has with her husband and her person that she was still and remained in love with Charles Smith. So first explain John Saunders being in prison and tell us a little bit about these letters that are featured in this book.
Well, Saunders, here's what happened. So the first killing, Smitty killed three people, Aline Roe and Gretchen and Windy Fritz. He killed Aline Rowe first, and that was basically a thrill kill. He wanted to see what it felt like to kill somebody, so he enlisted John Saunders, who was his buddy, and again another outcast, and then his then girlfriend Mary Ray French. Mary French lived four doors down from Aline Rowe, and he used her to lure her out to say, hey, we're all going on a double
date after your mom goes to work. Aline Roe's mother was a night nurse, so she left around eight or nine o'clock and then they lured out lurd Aline Rowe to come go driving with them and go out into the desert and drink. And so there's two different versions
of how she was killed. Saunders says that that he initially lured her out into the desert, tried to have sex with her, hit her over the head with the rock but didn't quite kill her, and then he called Schmitty down and then he strangled her and then they buried her. That was Saunders's version, and Schmidty's version was is that that Saunders hit her over the head of the rock and killed her and then he helped him bury her. So that was really never really quite but
the blame did. The blame went to both men because Schmitty was also convicted for that, but Saunders was convicted for that as well. To get to the correspondence, so as soon as Smitty is behind bars, he writes Diane almost daily, and so a lot of these letters have been preserved, and there's also letters that he sent to the warden later on when he went to jail. And then of course we have a lot of his original
poetry in the book as well. It gives you all a very very personal, close up look at him and then what was going through his mind.
You're right that the trial was set for February fifteenth, nineteen sixty six, and Diane is just a trusting and supportive a wife at this point, waiting for and believing that her husband will get out of these charges and return back home to her. You say, the media attention in this case is overwhelming, and as we described, all these premiere periodicals like Life and Time, magazine, Newsweek all were interested in this case. You talk about the response
from Catherine and Howard. They have some means at that time, and they put up a retainer for an attorney five thousand dollars at that time. You right that that's fifty thousand dollars equivalent today. Tell us about this attorney that they pick this attorney Tinny.
Well, yes, they picked a guy Namedilliam Tinney who had just come out of law school about five years previously, he was more of a general practitioner attorney. I don't think he'd ever handled a murder case before, but it's pretty much the best money that they could buy at the time. So Diane felt that he was just a notch above a quarter pointed attorney. And so he he he was going up against a very, very experienced prosecutor by the name of William Shaeffer the third and so you know, given.
How Schmidty looked and acted, and yeah, in all the evidents that they had, you know, they had they had the testimony.
Of Bruns, Saunders and French. I mean, everything was pretty much stacked against Schmitty. I don't know if they could have hired anybody better who could have gotten him off. But that's that's kind of the cards that that they had to play.
Let's use this as an up to need to stop to hear these messages. Let's talk about the trial that began February fifteenth, nineteen sixty six. The judge ruled that there'll be no TV cameras or photographers and the media was in full force. International media from around the world was attending. Tell us some of the dynamics that were evident at this trial with prosecutor Schaeffer versus William Tinney.
Well, Tinny had his hands full in Schmidy's case. I mean he looked again, there was the appearance of him. There were a lot of stories that were already coming out with Life magazine. The floodgates really kind of opened, and so everybody in Tucson had already been tainted, I
guess you could say, or they knew about Schmid. There wasn't anybody that didn't know about Charles Schmid, and so it was really really difficult for Tinny to try and get a fair shake for Schmid because Tucson at that time, I say, had like an Old West hangover, and that the justice system there when somebody committed a crime, they were going to do everything that they could to put this person either behind bars or put them to death.
And so in this case, this trial only lasted eleven days, and so there wasn't really much time either for Tinney to create a case defend a case because he was arrested Schmid. He was arrested in November and he was going to try out in February, and that case only lasted eleven days, So kind of gives you an idea that this was everything was being done very swiftly and very quickly.
You're right that the testimony of John Saunders, Mary Ray French, and Richard Brown's was crucial to prosecuting Charles Schmidt. And Charles Schmidt did not testify at his trial. William Tiney did not want to have him up on the stand defending himself, and the courts were by virtue of these
people receiving plea agreements for their testimony. Basically, the courts agreed and believed the accounts that they had in their participation in these murders, and Charles Schmidt's participation in these murders, which was deemed far more serious than these three defendants.
That's correct. With their testimony and with their agreements in place, and combined with the fact that Schmidty did not defend himself, I would think it would be pretty easy for a trial to convict him.
What was the media depiction of Charles Schmidt and this trial.
Well, their depiction was not only on the mark, but there were also rumors as well. So for example, you know, they they painted him as this this freakish guy who and this was all again on account of Life magazine. This freakish guy that that dressed up like Elvis, that wore heavy pancakes, makeup, imasscra and that you know, he was a he was a rebel, but an older guy that liked to hang out with the younger people so
that he could manipulate them. But there were also rumors of sex orgies, that he belonged to the Hell's Angels, that he was a former male prostitute, and you know, all these sorts of things that just painted him as a as a bad guy. And so all these rumors were also started by the teenagers who wouldn't talk. So because the fact that that there was no that that there were no cameras allowed in the courtroom, a lot of the reporters did their reporting outside and get their eyewitnesses.
Were basically a lot of teams who were basically spouted off rumors. So some of the rumors were true, some of them were false, but everything kind of got thrown in there in the mix.
Now you talk about that, we mentioned John Gilmore again, and Smitty had chosen John Gilmore to write a book about his account about his case and his trial. And you say that Gilmour was a former actor turned freelance journalist, screenwriter, and author who had befriended the likes of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe.
Gilmore was younger than most of the newsmen, so right away Schmitty felt a kinship to him. He looked like a young Tony Curtis. And so when Gilmore walked up to him and said I'd like to hear your side of the story, Schmidty basically leaped out of his chair and says, I've been waiting for someone like you so
that i could tell my story. And so they developed this relationship where he would give Gilmore these letters from Diane, give these letters from everybody to give an insight as to how he was living inside of the jail, what was going through his mind. It was somebody that Schmiddy could say, hey, I'm innocent. So he felt like with Gilmore he had at least one person on his side.
You're right that John Gilmore sat with Diane at the trial itself as well. Tell us about how long the jury deliberated for you say the trial lasted eleven days. Only tell us about the jury deliberations and the verdict, Well, memory serves me.
I think the jury deliberation was only three hours and it came right near the end of the day, and so they found him guilty of first yary murder and the sentence was death. And that death sentence, I believe was like a month away, so you know, didn't today's society, it's you know, definitely is at least a good twenty to thirty years away. But back then it was very, very swift.
There is a second trial as well, and that is for Allen Rose's death.
Even though Aline Rose was the first one that was killed the discovery of Wendy and Gretchen Fritz because it was first because Bruns was able to lead them because he was because he was involved in the burial of their dead bodies, so he was able to lead police to them right away. Now, he I think he had either heard or that he had heard Smitty confess to
Aline Roe, but he didn't know where she was. So that's why that case was prosecuted first, and then Schmitty was prosecuted for Alien Roe second.
So at some point after this conviction, Charles Schmitt says to authority that he'd like to lead them to Allen Rose's body, and also at that time for Diane, it's a crucial turning point because for many, many years it was incredible denial and just support of her husband. But the facts that were undeniable were released in Life magazine. But also she heard at trial, so there was no more denial in terms of the culpability of her husband, Charles Schmidt.
That's correct. And in the second trial he was actually defended by E. F. Lee Bailey, and Bailey was fresh off of the Shepherd case and thought that he could get some more capital from defending Schmidty because now that Lack magazine had covered him, Bailey thought that he could apply the same sort of magic to the Shepherd cases he did to schmid But what he found out real quickly was that there was a certain a justice system and Tucson that just didn't take very well to outsiders.
So once he realized that he wasn't going to do really much of anything for Schmidty, he tried to talk him into taking a plea deal, and basically that's what Schmidty did, And a day after Schmitty took the plea deal, he decided that he was going to show authorities of the body where they could find Ali Rowe, and that's exactly what happened.
Now you write about Mary's testimony, Mary ray French's testimony. So again we've had bits and pieces from you about what exactly happened. What was her version of what happened in Schmitty's involvement.
Well, in regard to when Aline Rowe was killed again, she when they brought her out, They brought everybody out to the desert. The car stops and then Saunders takes alien Roe out into the desert. Well, well, Mary and Schmitty stay in the car and then and then she hears a screen. She knows what's happening because they talked about it. And then Schmitty runs out and then finds
Aline Rowe with her head hit by a rock. And so what she claims is that Schmitty comes back to the car and says, we killed her, and then he starts breathing heavily, and then he kisses her on the lips and it was sort of a turn on for him. So that's what she had testified to. So again it's it's a little bit money. Did Schmitty actually kill her or was he involved in the burying of her body. I personally believe that it was Schmitty who did it.
I think that my personal belief is that Saunders hit her over the head of the rock but didn't kill her, and then Schmitty then walked out there and strangled her and together they buried her. And I believe that that kind of corroborates with what Mary French said in court.
Now, what problem the audience doesn't know and we haven't explained, is how is it that Gretchen Fritz and Wendy Fritz get involved in all of this murder.
Well, Gretchen and Schmidty start seeing each other in I want to say, July of sixty five, and they have a very tempestuous relationship, and Schmidty claims that she was so jealous that she'd call him night and day, and that to get her off, to get her off his back, he decided that he would give her a piece of information that will allow her to trust him. And he claims that he told Gretchen about Ali Rowe and actually took her to the body, and that for a while
it bonded these two. But then he claims that but she took that information and used it against them. And would use it and threaten him, and so by the time that their relationship had reached its end, she was out one night with her sister Gretchen, and they both went to see, ironically, an eldest Presley movie at the driving called Ticklemy and at the concession stand, she bumped into somebody who said she heard a rumor that Schmidty
was hosting a party. And so Gretchen had called Schmitty either from the driver or PayPal, and said I'm coming over, and he said, no, don't come over. So she did come over with her sister Wendy, and so Gretchen and Schmitty have an argument in his kitchen and he pulls out an electrical cord for a guitar string and strangles her. And then Wendy is watching TV doesn't even realize what's
going on. So he has to make a decision what he's going to do, and he decides that he's going to kill young Wendy, who thirteen at the time, and so he kills both of them and loads both of them in his trunk and then takes them out into the desert and then dumps their bodies.
Let's use this as an opportunity to stop to hear these messages. Now let's get back to Charles Schmidt is sent to prison. He has a death penalty, but things are moving towards state and also federally federal government for banishing the death penalty. Tell us about that progress and how it affects Charles Smith's sentence and case.
In Schmidt's case, he kept getting delays, and then we get to the point of nineteen seventy two where the Supreme Court rules of the death penalty is cruel and unjust, and it was the same it was the same ruling that allowed the Manson family not to be sentenced to death.
So Schmidty was on death row and then released then into general population as a result of this, and as it turned out through my research, I found that that being on death row was a lot easier for prisoners than general population because they only had to deal with a limited amount of people, and they have a lot
of they had a lot more freedoms. And then Schmidt, he actually didn't didn't necessarily want to be released in the general population, so that caused quite a bit of problems for him, because you know, he had killed three young girls and that didn't go over so well with a lot of the prisoners.
So he's not content to He doesn't like the idea of spending his life in the rest of his life in prison. He didn't like the idea of the death penalty, doesn't like the idea of life in prison. What does he have plans to do? And what does he do?
The first plan he makes is with a guy named Robert Smith. They make a death pact. They decide that the death penalty is lifted, they're gonna cut each other into bits with hacksauce and that's and so Schmidt had a hacksaw on his leg and when the guard just happened to be walking by and saw Robert Smith saw him into Smitty's leg and caught that before it actually happened, but Schmitty had about thirty stitches in his leg. And then when that didn't work, then Schmidty decided two attempts
to break out of prison. Second time around, he was successful and made a clean break for a couple of days. And actually that's when he sees Diane in person for the last time. He asked her to go to Mexico and she said, I can't. I'm married now and I have kids. But she said take my car, and he said, I can't take a car, and you have children now, And so he decides that he is going to hop
on a freight train bound in Mexico. And then he actually ends up going through the Tucson train station and one of the cops that that used to was one of his Bibles and gymnastics spotted him and arrests him, and then he goes back to prison.
Yeah, it's very interesting the description that Diane has for you can't say it's not one of the most romantic things you might have read. You know, this prisoner on the run but risks everything to meet up with his loved one one more time. They make love, they spend time together, and then selfishly he says that he lets her go and understands what she has to do.
Right. He was like that with her. You know, he could be a monster in his life regarding all these other people, but with Diane, he was very tender and caring. She seemed to be the one pure thing in his life. So that was that's what always struck me about their relationship.
With this second escape and his capture, it that Charles had a change of mind, a change of heart, and started to do things differently. And there was a change in leadership or of the warden at this prison that helped Charles make this change of heart.
Well, there are two things. He started taking poetry classes under a professor, well known professor by the name of Robert Shelton. Shelton claims that poetry had tenderized his heart and made him start thinking differently and made him start looking at what he did regarding these crimes and face face adulthood for the first time. And then this new warden that you mentioned had come in and he had
a tough reputation. But Schmidty started a letter writing campaign, and we've got a lot of those letters in the book saying give me one chance, give me one chance, make me an outside trustee, which means that he had certain privileges that he didn't have to live in the prison population. He could live in dormitory style living quarters inside the grounds, but not within the general population. And
it was a really, really choice position. And after eighteen months after he broke out, he was able to convince this warden to give him outside trustee status, which meant he could get a job and one of his jobs was to tend to the animals, the dog trackers, and he could actually take these dogs outside of the prison
walls to a veterinarian about ten miles away. So there were a lot of people that would have been horrified in the state of Arizona to know that Charles Schmid could go freely to and from the prison in this car to take these animals to the vet. And on his way to the vet, his mother moved right near the prison, and he could drive by her house and wave to her and see her. So a lot of people don't know this.
You read about the visiting that Diane did sometimes her sister, but also she also went initially with Catherine and Howard to visit, so they were regularly He was regularly visited by family as well as Diane in his imprisonment for most of it.
That's correct. In the beginning, Diane writes that they could actually hug and touch each other and freely converse with each other. And then after a couple of years, when I think that there was there was a drug issue there, and so in order to cut off the drug pipeline, they put up class partition. They couldn't touch each other, but they could talk. But you know, for her, she lived for those moments, so that that was fine with her.
And of course for Schmitty, he got to see his parents and Diane, so he had a support system while he was in prison.
They also talk about Smitty talking to a journalist named ken Burton about the conditions and prison, but also just and just a general correspondence with this journalist.
Correct. You know, schmidy befriended a lot of journals, but for some reason he and ken Burton hit it off. And so Burton had been asking him to write a piece about what it was like, what it was like for life behind bars, and so he asked Smith if he could write it, and Smith said no, I'll tell you what I'll do is I'll write it and then
you edit it. And so, for whatever reasons, Burton held on to these writings for like three or four years after Schmid passed away, and then they were released and then it gave everybody this insight into what Schmid had endured behind bars.
You talk about Diane realizing and recognizing that Charles had this new found purpose in life through this poetry and through helping other people come to these poetry workshops and all his newfound sense of optimism that he would maybe some day be be released. But he also wanted to get married again because at one point he advised Diane to get a divorce just so that the press and everyone else would stop hounding her. And now he said
he wanted to get married again. Diane was very, very pleased, and he wanted to change his name to Paul David Ashley right.
He wanted to change his name because he felt he was a new person. One of the poems that he wrote was called an Unfinished Man, and that he talks about now he's changed, He's unfinished and he's evolving. He was going to start a new life as a poet and start all over again as fresh as a brand new person. That was the reasoning behind the name change and getting married again, because he felt like a completely new man. Now.
You were writing about the transformation that Charles undergoes in prison, but a big part of that is this warden card well and some of the strides in penal achievements as you write, and so as a result, Charles pens a glowing year in review column for the Prison newspaper about the changes that Cardbo had made. What was the response from some of the inmates about this glowing review.
Well, they weren't too happy. They are very very anti authority figures, so you know, they had they had this credo that we're right and the prison authorities are wrong. But adding to this was that this op ed was picked up by the Arizona Republic in the Tucson Daily Star. It just blew up all of a sudden. Schmid is now seen as this poster boy for reformation. So it makes the warden very happy, but it doesn't necessarily make the other prisoners very happy.
Diane didn't realize it at the time, but he would be her last visit with with Charles, and at that time she in retrospect she saw said that he had said something regarding doctor Fritz and retribution. What does he have to say to Diane about that?
Well, she claimed that what he said to her was he just kind of brought it up out of the blue. You know, doctor Fritz could get to me at any time if he wanted to. And she said, what are you talking about? He goes, I'm just you know, just saying.
And again she didn't really think much about that. Of course, it didn't hit her until much later on when everybody was trying to figure out, you know, who was behind Spinney's demise.
What did she find out? But also in relation to what Smitty had said in retrospect, how did she put it together?
Well, she found out that doctor Fritz was the heart doctor of the Mafio, so Joseph Bonano. And when Schmidty was originally thought to be this is before his arrest and Schmidty and Bruns were together, they were paid a visit by Joe Bonano Junior and a couple of his henchmen. This was in sixty five and this was also brought up in court testimony, and they actually had the pictures
of these two guys that they took. They took schmid and Bruns to San Diego, San Diego area, because schmid told these gentlemen that he hadn't seen Gretchen or Wendy, but he thought that perhaps that they were in that area because the last time she called him, she called the brag you know, that she was with another guy and she was at the beach in San Diego. So he said, well, you know, you should probably go look there,
and they said, no, you're gonna come with us. So these guys actually take Schmid and Bruns to Sandy Diego for a couple of days looking Wendy and Gretchen. So that was the association.
Interesting you write that in the start of nineteen seventy five, Diane was employed in Tucson, but she also had a real batch of depression after she lost her employment, and so she didn't see Smitty for quite a while. And then she on March twentieth, saw the news and the newscast.
That's correct, she saw where Schmitty was stabbed. Now, initially it was reported twenty three times, but the autopsy showed that it was he was stabbed forty seven times, and so he was still alive, but it didn't look like he was going to make it. And then the ambulance on one of the prison officials asked him who did it, and he said, well, how bad am I? He goes, I don't think you're going to make it, Smitty, and
he said, you know it was. He listed these two gentlemen, Dennis Eversol and a guy named James Farrah, these two gentlemen, and they happened to be his friends, and they happened to be his outside trustee doormates. They didn't live in the same room, but they lived in the same orders at the same area, so they were also trustees. And they knew him for a period of several years, so they were really good friends. So that's what he couldn't believe. When he got to a hospital, he told his mom,
these guys were my friends. So he found it very hard to believe that they would do this to him, and for no reason, because an eyewitness saw them walk into his room with shanks and hooks and they stabbed them. He didn't have a chance to defend himself. And they had shanked them pretty good forty seven times.
They had stabbed them once in the eye, and you have the chapter I for an eye. But also that very interesting that it was found out that there was a gun smuggled and official gun smuggled in rather than just jailhouse weaponry.
But that was later. Yes, But but he was saying Schmidier had said that in this article with ken Burton, that he that he penned that guns were they're called zip guns because they would make them out of wood and rubber bands, but they acted like real guns, and they'd make them in the wood in the metal shop. So he said he thought that perhaps thirty percent of all the prisoners were armed with weapons, not only just shanks, but with thirty percent with guns.
Pardon me too. What I meant was the the knife had been smuggled into the prison and it was not a homemade ship.
That's correct. Yeah, the Knight the knife, one of the knives was smuggled in. It was I believe it was double bladed, and it was it was meant to cause damage.
There was an investigation by the warden, and so they did get to Eversoul and Pharah and did sentence them. Interestingly, what they got was a concurrent sentence, which really wouldn't count.
That's correct, And a year later Eversoul was actually killed in a prison riot by a gun. Pharah was also shot by that same individual. Now there were rumors that he was wheelchair bound and that the state didn't necessarily want to take care of him, and so he was released in nineteen eighty two, which was you know, he killed two people and he only served a total sentence of twelve years. So I always found that was kind of curious.
What about Diane, She writes in this book, after this devastating news. What does she do in her own life afterwards?
Well, I mean she at that point, I think she was married five times. And keep in mind her second husband, she had to go up to Oregon and leave Tucson because she which run out of town. But you know, a couple of months to their marriage, he was out with a couple of buddies. He hit a guardrail and he was the driver, and the guardrail glanced up through the windshield, decapitated him and then killed another person. So
she had been through five marriages. You know. The first gentleman of Schmid, you know, he goes away to prison for as a serial killer. The second one is decapitated. The others are drinkers or people that just left her in the middle of the night. So she's had a run of really bad luck, you know, a series of mental breakdowns. You know, she had just just a really serious run of bad luck. As far as I'm concerned.
In this book, she credits any kind of recovery. She doesn't talk about closure, but any kind of recovery to her faith in God. And she talks about obviously the cathartic power of writing this book and finally coming to grips with some of her emotions regarding Charles Schmidt.
Yes, as a matter of fact, you know, her kids didn't want her to do this book. I decided that I was going to meet up with them just to see, you know what, you know, what their issues were, and they were definitely legitimate issues. And I brought my mother along. And my mother at the time was eighty four years
old and my mom is a woman of faith. Diane's daughter, you know, brought up her list of reasons and my mom, who was a very very sweet lady, said, you know, Diane's kind of kept this inside of herself for all these years and hasn't done her any good. Do you think maybe that if she talked about it and wrote about it, it might be cathartic. And then my mom asked if we could all pray about it, and so we did that. That kind of did it. The daughter said, okay,
let's try it. So now we're in that phase where the book was released, and I think Diane couldn't be happier because she got to tell her story finally.
Yes, and just intummation, how does she reconcile this love affair that continued right till his death, despite the heinous murders that he was responsible for.
I think she reconciles it with I was his wife, I said till death to his part, she wanted to be faithful to him, and you know, she is actually still in love with him. She recognizes what he did, and so it doesn't really make a lot of sense
to a lot of people. She doesn't necessarily feel that it doesn't have to make sense to anyone but her, and so she believes that Smithie is still the love of her life, and that was the first love of her life, and that will always remain regardless of what he did.
Yes, I think that's what I got from it as well, that she describes a period of time when she was totally in love with this person, and that love continued because of the way he had treated her in the relationship and once he was imprisoned as well, So this remained the strongest and most purest love that she had ever experienced in her life by far.
That's correct, And I think that's probably the only way you could sum it up. I mean, it doesn't make sense to a lot of people, but again, it makes sense to her, and that's what she holds on too.
In the end, you talk about just a little bit about where are they now? You talk about flee Bailey, but also very interestingly a book called I a Squealer, an Insider's account. Can you tell us about how that book came to be?
Well, Bruns had wanted to tell his story, so he wrote. He immediately wrote, like I think, one hundred page manuscript, like a year after these murders took place, so that was fresh in his memory. Nothing ever happened, and so he just kind of put it away in storage and then his daughters found it, dusted it off, I think in twenty seventeen or twenty eighteen, and they published it.
You know, it was very, very insightful. One of the most unbelievable stories out of that book was that as Smitty was being dropped off the prison in Florence, Bruns happened to be their hitch hiking and he said And I talked to Bruns on the phone and he said to me, I said, God, that that scene where he's being driven to prison and you're you're leaving town as
he's entering town. I said, that's just stunning. I said, what was like, did you make Eincott eye contact and he goes we did, but there was nothing there in his eyes. He just looked glazed and looked past me like he couldn't believe it. Wow, Yeah, it was. It was a It's it's an interesting book. It's a good book, and I would recommend that as well.
Absolutely. Olana, thank you very much for coming on and talking about your extraordinary book with Diane Schmidt. It's Smitty, My marriage to serial killer Charles Schmid, the Pied Piper of Tucson. You are a renowned author of many previous books. Can you tell us about the new book project that we spoke about before this interview.
Yes, actually, this book is actually in the can and it's ready for publication. I did a book about the first bio ever on a celebrity hairstylist, Jay Sebring. I did it with his nephew, Anthony D. Maria. And for years people had written about Jay because he was best known as a murder victim of the Manson family. You know, after he was murdered, a lot of these really strange and weird rumors came out about him that turned out
to be completely false. So I had access through anty to all the family photos, all the documents how he built up this incredible business. He was actually the first gentleman to introduce men's hair design to the United States. A lot of people think that it was either Vidal sas Soon or somebody else, but Jay was actually the very first. He had a clientele that was a who's who Hollywood, Frank Sinatra, Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, the rat Pack.
He had everybody. He was the first guy that charged one hundred dollars a haircut when at the time people were getting barbers were getting three dollars and fifty cents. So he completely revolutionized the industry. Today, I think it's like a twenty billion dollar industry. He's the guy that started it, but nobody knows who he is. So that's the book that we've written.
Very interesting, and your other books that people could take a look are on Amazon as well for those that might want to take a look further. Can you do you have a website or do you any social media?
I do some social media. I tease the book out. I've made some short little film clips. But yeah, that's Marshall Tarrell on Facebook. They can follow me there and of course they can Get the book at Genius Books Publishing dot com or Amazon dot com.
Sounds great. Thank you so much, Marshall Terrell for coming on and talking about Smitty, my marriage to serial killer Charles Schmidt, the pied Piper of Tucson. Thank you very much, very much for this interview, and you have a great evening and good night. Thank you very much, thank you,