Speaker 1: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 1: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 1: written about them. Gaesy Bundy Dahmer The Nightstalker VTK Every
Speaker 1: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 1: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 1: host journalist and author Dan Zufanski. Good Evening, Smidty My
Speaker 1: marriage to serial killer Charles Schmid, The Pied Piper of
Speaker 1: Tucson unveils an unforgettable tale of love, betrayal, and survival.
Speaker 1: Diane Lynch thought she had found her prince Charming when
Speaker 1: she met Charles Schmid, a charismatic and mysterious man who
Speaker 1: swept her off her feet as a teenager in the
Speaker 1: mid nineteen sixties. But her fairy tale quickly unraveled when
Speaker 1: her husband was arrested for multiple shocking murders that captured
Speaker 1: national attention. Set against the backdrop of a rapidly changing America,
Speaker 1: this deeply personal memoir recounts Diane's journey from a young
Speaker 1: girl in love to a woman facing unimaginable revelations. Through
Speaker 1: vivid memories and unflinching honesty, Diane reveals how she navigated
Speaker 1: a life overshadowed by her husband's heinous crimes while striving
Speaker 1: to protect her family and find peace. Written with co
Speaker 1: author Marshall Tarrell, this book offers a unique perspective on
Speaker 1: one of the most infamous cases in American history, shedding
Speaker 1: light on the devastating human cost of living with such
Speaker 1: a dark secret. Blending gripping storytelling with heartfelt reflection, Smitty
Speaker 1: captures the strength of a survivor who chose to share
Speaker 1: her voice after decades of silence. Smitty is a compelling
Speaker 1: and haunting story for those who seek a deeper understanding
Speaker 1: of resilience in the face of unthinkable events. The book
Speaker 1: that were featuring this evening is Smitty, My Marriage to
Speaker 1: serial killer Charles Schmid, The Pied Piper of Tucson, with
Speaker 1: my special guest author Marshall Tarrell. Welcome to the program,
Speaker 1: and thank you very much for this interview. Marshall Tarrell, Thank.
Speaker 2: You very much for that introduction. It's a pleasure to
Speaker 2: be here.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, and congratulations on this book, Smitty.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. It was a easy well, it wasn't
Speaker 2: an easy book to write, but it came together pretty quickly,
Speaker 2: so most books take anywhere from two to three years.
Speaker 2: This one was done in about six months to a year.
Speaker 1: Tell us about why you wanted to become involved in
Speaker 1: this project and this story. The genesis of this book project, Well.
Speaker 2: It really starts, I want to say, around two thousand
Speaker 2: and nine. At that time I was writing a biography
Speaker 2: of the actor Steve McQueen and one of the people
Speaker 2: that I interviewed was a gentleman by the name of
Speaker 2: John Gilmour. And you'll hear John's name throughout this book.
Speaker 2: But John was a method actor of the fifties and
Speaker 2: new McQueen. And then as a result of our interview,
Speaker 2: in our collaboration on that, I got to know a
Speaker 2: little bit more about him. Well, he became a very
Speaker 2: very well known writer and author, and one of the
Speaker 2: books that he did was on Charles Schmid, and so
Speaker 2: I read his book on Schmid, like I said, and
Speaker 2: nine twenty ten and it was fascinating, but you know,
Speaker 2: it was nothing that I wanted to pursue. And then
Speaker 2: fast forward to twenty twenty two, me and two other
Speaker 2: partners wanted to start a documentary company. We put together
Speaker 2: a list of people and lo and behold who bubbled
Speaker 2: up to the top, but Charles Schmid because we wanted
Speaker 2: to focus on people in the Southwest and write about
Speaker 2: subjects of the Southwest, and the Schmid case was interesting
Speaker 2: because this was something. This was like the first south
Speaker 2: the Southwest, first serial killer, and this was a These
Speaker 2: were crimes that shattered the innocence of Tucson, Arizona. So
Speaker 2: that's why we wanted to do that story. And as
Speaker 2: a result of the documentary, I was introduced to his widow,
Speaker 2: Diane Schmid, and as we were interviewing her afterwards, I said,
Speaker 2: you know, Diane, you've got a book in you. This
Speaker 2: is really quite an interesting book, and so she said,
Speaker 2: I'm all for it. So that's how it all started.
Speaker 1: Take us back to Diane Schmidt former Diane Lynch and
Speaker 1: her early life in Iowa.
Speaker 2: Well, Diane was one of nine children and her father
Speaker 2: held a series of odd jobs and they moved, I
Speaker 2: believe to Arizona because one of the children had asthma,
Speaker 2: and so the doctors told them that they should probably
Speaker 2: move to the Southwest where the the air in the
Speaker 2: climate was much drier. So Diane did so that's how
Speaker 2: they ended up in Arizona.
Speaker 1: You talk about their meager existence. You say, dad had
Speaker 1: a series of jobs, but they even lost their home
Speaker 1: at once time and then were forced to go to
Speaker 1: a kuanzit hut. So tell us about their early life
Speaker 1: and poverty, and what type of child was Diane early on, Well.
Speaker 2: She describes herself as pretty much a dutiful kid. She was.
Speaker 2: It's the second oldest child, second oldest daughter, and the
Speaker 2: first daughter got married at sixteen, and so Diane was
Speaker 2: left with all the chores that a mother would have,
Speaker 2: and that was changing diapers, cleaning the house, doing the dishes,
Speaker 2: taking on adult responsibilities at a very young age. And
Speaker 2: so when she met Smitty at age fifteen, he was
Speaker 2: a knight in shining armor and he was going to
Speaker 2: take her away from all that.
Speaker 1: You describe. While Diane describes in this book meeting this
Speaker 1: young man for the first time outside of near Polo
Speaker 1: Verde High School, and he was in a car, and
Speaker 1: when he got out of that car, she said he
Speaker 1: struck an imposing figure. Tell us about the impression that
Speaker 1: he led in the relationship that ensued.
Speaker 2: Well, Smittye was actually a very good looking guy. I
Speaker 2: remember Diane telling me specifically. You know, he cleaned up
Speaker 2: pretty good. He was known for wearing pancake makeup and
Speaker 2: imass scarra, and he painted a mole on his face,
Speaker 2: and he put lip, he put toothpaste on his lips,
Speaker 2: and had his hair in a pompadoor like Elvis Presley.
Speaker 2: But beyond that, when he wasn't putting on that face,
Speaker 2: he was actually a very good looking guy. He was small,
Speaker 2: he was five foot four, but he was very athletic.
Speaker 2: He was a high school gymnast, a state champion gymnast.
Speaker 2: And so that day when she saw him, he struck again,
Speaker 2: like she said, an imposing figure. And when he rolled
Speaker 2: up in that sixty ford falcon that was metallic gold.
Speaker 2: You know, he made quite an impression.
Speaker 1: Now, what was their relationship characterized by? He seemed to
Speaker 1: have a lot of free time. So tell us what
Speaker 1: that relationship? What did they do in their dating relationship
Speaker 1: that blossomed very very quickly.
Speaker 2: Well, as you said, he had a lot of free
Speaker 2: time because he had parents who gave him a three
Speaker 2: hundred dollars three hundred a month dollars stipend. They owned
Speaker 2: a nursing home. They also had a second home right
Speaker 2: next door, and so they gave him that house. He
Speaker 2: pretty much they gave him the car, and then he
Speaker 2: got that three hundred dollars month stipend, which was a
Speaker 2: lot of money in nineteen sixty five. The only thing
Speaker 2: he had to do in return of some odd jobs
Speaker 2: for his parents at the nursing home. But other than that,
Speaker 2: you know, what they did was they would meet every
Speaker 2: day at the at the Hamburger stand, and then they
Speaker 2: would go cruising a major boulevard and Tucson, and then
Speaker 2: they were stopped by friend's house and play records and
Speaker 2: he'd played the guitar, and it was pretty much care free.
Speaker 2: You know that that moment in time in your teens
Speaker 2: when when you're you feel like a grown up and
Speaker 2: you've got freedom with a car, and you know you
Speaker 2: don't have any responsibilities, and still you have money in
Speaker 2: your pocket. So every day for her was just a
Speaker 2: day of freedom away from the house and away from
Speaker 2: all those household chores. So she liked that lifestyle and
Speaker 2: grew accustomed to it.
Speaker 1: She talks about and writes about what that relationship was
Speaker 1: like and how romantic he really was, and he even Serenador.
Speaker 1: You talk about did he looked like Elvis and he sang.
Speaker 1: But he really did have aspirations to be a rock musician,
Speaker 1: he said. And he would have flowers and candy and
Speaker 1: serenaded her. And she noted that his behavior was always
Speaker 1: positive and supportive and he was never any negative side
Speaker 1: to anything she saw from him in their dating relationship.
Speaker 2: That's correct, She said. He was nothing but a complete gentleman.
Speaker 2: He would open doors for her, pull out chairs for
Speaker 2: her again, a lot of flowers, serenading her with Elvis
Speaker 2: Presley song, she said, are you Lonesome Tonight? Was his
Speaker 2: favorite song? And you know, he was just nothing but
Speaker 2: a gentleman. So she didn't see any cracks in the
Speaker 2: facade whatsoever in the in the beginning of the relationship.
Speaker 1: Now, you're right that even though she was fifteen years old,
Speaker 1: she had to have approval from her parents like anybody else.
Speaker 1: How did her parents feel about Schmitty as he called himself,
Speaker 1: And what about when she finally met his parents, Catherine
Speaker 1: and Howard.
Speaker 2: Well, her parents her father was a World War Two
Speaker 2: veteran who was involved in Pearl who got injured in
Speaker 2: Pearl Harbors. So she said that he was a very
Speaker 2: very hard guy to fool and Smitty almost won him
Speaker 2: over immediately, so that gives you some sort of idea
Speaker 2: to his charisma. And you know, in regard to the mother,
Speaker 2: he won her over as well, because she cooked the
Speaker 2: food and then he would quietly slip away and then
Speaker 2: help her do dishes and start a conversation with her.
Speaker 2: So you know, you talk about a guy who made
Speaker 2: all the right moves. And then of course when they
Speaker 2: were he would also help out with the little children
Speaker 2: and play with them on the ground, and so so
Speaker 2: not only did he woo Diane, but he wooed her parents. Now,
Speaker 2: his parents were the kind of the complete opposite. The mother,
Speaker 2: Catherine was what's the word I want to use. She
Speaker 2: was kind of a dynamo. She was a helicopter mom,
Speaker 2: and Smitty was adopted, so she'd always wanted a young boy,
Speaker 2: and so from from day one she catered to him
Speaker 2: and she carried that into adulthood. Now, the father, he
Speaker 2: was a very very nice gentleman, but he was a
Speaker 2: bit detached and mom ruled the roost. And so his
Speaker 2: name was Howard, and so Howard anything that Catherine did,
Speaker 2: he just kind of kept his mouth shut to keep
Speaker 2: the peace. So that is the sort of. That is
Speaker 2: how Smitty grew up with those two completely opposite parents.
Speaker 1: Now, you're right that Diane would hang around Schmitty's place,
Speaker 1: and there was a person that she was introduced to
Speaker 1: early on this Paul Theodore gin or Gin, And he
Speaker 1: was a childhood friend of Smitty who was staying at
Speaker 1: his place and he had just been released from prison.
Speaker 1: So you read about the story of what he tells
Speaker 1: Diane regarding this friend, Paul Gin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Paul, and this is a very well known story
Speaker 2: in Tucson.
Speaker 1: I think when.
Speaker 2: Paul was thirteen or fourteen, he and his buddy decided
Speaker 2: that they were going to camp out in the woods
Speaker 2: or run away from home and camp out in the woods. Well,
Speaker 2: the second day of being in the woods kind of
Speaker 2: came around and they were starting to get hungry, so
Speaker 2: they had their hunting rifles with them, so they decided
Speaker 2: that they would pull somebody over and rob them. And
Speaker 2: so they actually they actually pulled over a man in
Speaker 2: the military who was coming down from Mount Lemon. He
Speaker 2: had guarded the that area. Anyway, Paul pulled out a
Speaker 2: gun and put shoved it in his face, and then
Speaker 2: the gun accidentally went off and then shot this gentleman
Speaker 2: in the cheek and killed them. And they decide that
Speaker 2: they're going to try to cover up their crime, and
Speaker 2: they take the money in his wallet, they stuff him
Speaker 2: in the back seat and then they roll his car
Speaker 2: to the side so that nobody can see it. But
Speaker 2: you know, after a day or two, they were just
Speaker 2: they were done. So when the police came by, they
Speaker 2: held up their hands and they confessed to what they did.
Speaker 2: So Paul Ginn went away for about a period of
Speaker 2: five years, and so when he gets out, the first
Speaker 2: person that he stays with is Charles Schmid. So it's
Speaker 2: interesting that you have a murderer staying with a future
Speaker 2: serial killer.
Speaker 1: And what's very very interesting is right away, somehow, for
Speaker 1: some reason, he is adamant that he doesn't think that
Speaker 1: Smithy should be going out with this woman, Diane, saying
Speaker 1: that she was too young.
Speaker 2: Correct. And you know, the thing is is is it
Speaker 2: is a bit shocking because for the times, it was
Speaker 2: not unusual for a fifteen year old girl to date
Speaker 2: a twenty two year old guy. Today we'd be shocked,
Speaker 2: but back then it happened quite frequently. But yes, in
Speaker 2: his mind that he felt that schmidty was too old
Speaker 2: for this young girl. You know, it's a mystery as
Speaker 2: to why he was so upset about it, because, you know,
Speaker 2: perhaps it was a sense of self preservation. If Schmidty
Speaker 2: married her, then where would he live.
Speaker 1: Yes, at that time, Smitty had a best friend, as
Speaker 1: he called him, a person named Richard or Richie Bruns. Diane,
Speaker 1: what was her impression of this Richard Bruns when she
Speaker 1: had met him.
Speaker 2: Well, she didn't like him because she felt that he
Speaker 2: drank too much, and she felt that he was a
Speaker 2: bit of a hanger on. And so Schmidty was the
Speaker 2: kind of guy that would befriend younger people who were very,
Speaker 2: very impressionable and didn't have much going on in their lives.
Speaker 2: And in the case of Bruns, he was a juvenile
Speaker 2: delinquent who had a pretty extensive record. Again, he didn't
Speaker 2: want to give up Smitty, and so Diane seemed to
Speaker 2: be an intrusion in all of his friends' lives.
Speaker 1: You're right, just jumping ahead for a second, that the
Speaker 1: author that you spoke about, John Gilmour, for his book
Speaker 1: The Tucson Murders, this person had something to say about
Speaker 1: what he had done in his previous criminal life. What
Speaker 1: did the John Gilmour have in his book about that, Well, he.
Speaker 2: Said that Bruns had broken into some homes, had taken
Speaker 2: some checks from his father, you know, just typical juvenile,
Speaker 2: delinquent stuff. Later on it was proven that he had
Speaker 2: gone out with a young lady who broke up with
Speaker 2: him and then he was stalking her. But he had
Speaker 2: claimed that that Smitty was threatening her life and that
Speaker 2: he was just trying to protect her because he felt
Speaker 2: that Smitty was trying to kill her. So again, a
Speaker 2: lot of petty crimes. The interesting thing is he later
Speaker 2: on became a respectable teacher of youth and turned his
Speaker 2: life around.
Speaker 1: And when you spoke about that, it was not unusual
Speaker 1: to be in a relationship or get married at fifteen
Speaker 1: sixteen years old at that time nineteen sixty five, but
Speaker 1: they could not get legally married at She could not
Speaker 1: get married at fifteen years old at that time in Tucson, Arizona.
Speaker 1: So what was the other what was the alternative?
Speaker 2: Well, the Lordsburg, New Mexico was a place that for
Speaker 2: some reason you could get allowed you were allowed to
Speaker 2: get married at the age of fifteen, but that was
Speaker 2: I think three hours away. Or they could get married
Speaker 2: in Nogalis, Mexico, which was only an hour away. So
Speaker 2: that's what they chose to do. They ended up getting
Speaker 2: married in Nogalis, and that's the actual cover of the book.
Speaker 2: Is there they're getting is their wedding photo just outside
Speaker 2: of the Nogles court house.
Speaker 1: You have in the book. The as Diane saw it,
Speaker 1: a very romantic gesture picking out the rings and him proposing.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us just a little bit about that account.
Speaker 2: Yes, he took her to a pawn shop, and believe
Speaker 2: it or not, that pawnshop is still in existence in Tucson.
Speaker 2: So he took her under the guise of, hey, I
Speaker 2: want to go there and get a guitar. And so
Speaker 2: they go there. They they're by the counter where they
Speaker 2: hold all the rings, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: he gets down and kneels down on one leg, on
Speaker 2: one knee and says, will you marry me? And she
Speaker 2: says yes, And so the ripe of the rings and
Speaker 2: he says, well, you pick out something for you and
Speaker 2: pick out something for me, And that was kind of it.
Speaker 1: You talk about the write about the wedding and Catherine
Speaker 1: was not too enthused, but she was a good seamstress
Speaker 1: and helped adjust the dress and for the wedding, and
Speaker 1: Diane felt it was the it was a beautiful moment,
Speaker 1: and loved the wedding completely. But there was a scene
Speaker 1: right at the wedding that she writes about that she
Speaker 1: had heard the content of a conversation of really a
Speaker 1: tense conversation at this wedding, but didn't really put it
Speaker 1: together for many years and many circumstances and situations later
Speaker 1: tell us about this, this altercation or this incident at
Speaker 1: their wedding evening.
Speaker 2: Well, yes, they got married during the day, and then
Speaker 2: they had a nice luncheon in Mexico, and then they
Speaker 2: come back to Catherine and Howard's house for a nice
Speaker 2: reception where friends who weren't able to go to Nagaus
Speaker 2: could drop by. And one of the people that dropped
Speaker 2: by was Richard Burunts, and he was heated. He couldn't
Speaker 2: he couldn't believe that Schmidi got married, and so he
Speaker 2: pulled Smitty aside, but within Diane's earshot, and said, what
Speaker 2: are you doing? You know what what about the girls?
Speaker 2: And Smitty looked at Diane and smiled and was trying to,
Speaker 2: you know, trying to keep it, keep it cool, and said, well,
Speaker 2: what about the girls? And he said, you know the
Speaker 2: girls that we buried. And I think Diane at that time,
Speaker 2: again she was fifteen, couldn't really kind of comprehend what
Speaker 2: was going on or what was said, or if they
Speaker 2: were playing around or what have you. But that's what
Speaker 2: she did here, you know, what about the girls that
Speaker 2: we buried? And so Schmitty then puts his arm around
Speaker 2: Bruns and walks him outside, and so she's kind of
Speaker 2: left with what was that all about? But you know,
Speaker 2: this was her wedding night. So what she chose to
Speaker 2: do is ignore it, bury it, put it away. That
Speaker 2: was a lot easier than trying to figure out what
Speaker 2: was being said.
Speaker 1: The Jesus says, an eye opportunity to stop to hear
Speaker 1: these messages. Now, you say, and she writes that she
Speaker 1: just chucked it up at that time too, that Richard
Speaker 1: Bruns was unhinged, and like you say, put it away
Speaker 1: for another time. But you say that. Five days later,
Speaker 1: she's awoken at three am and Smitty, her husband, has
Speaker 1: a knife to his chest and he's rambling something about
Speaker 1: God punishing him.
Speaker 2: Correct she wakes up, like I want to say two
Speaker 2: or three am, and at the foot of the bad
Speaker 2: he's got a butcher knife up to his chest. And
Speaker 2: at first she couldn't really quite understand what she was seeing.
Speaker 2: And finally she was startled and woke up and said
Speaker 2: what are you doing? What are you doing? And he said, well, God,
Speaker 2: God's gonna punish us. She said, what are you talking about.
Speaker 2: God's gonna punish us for what we did. And she says,
Speaker 2: we didn't do anything, schmitty. And then she talked him
Speaker 2: out of taking the butcher knife away from his chest.
Speaker 2: And again, in her mind she thinks that perhaps he
Speaker 2: just had a nightmare or a bad dream or is sleepwalking,
Speaker 2: and again kind of chooses to ignore that something is wrong.
Speaker 2: And so again, just like with the Richie Brunn situation,
Speaker 2: she chose to pack that away and store it away
Speaker 2: and ignore it because you know, she's living this life
Speaker 2: of bliss, because they were married for seventeen days and
Speaker 2: every day, you know, they'd wake up in the morning
Speaker 2: and have breakfast and sleep in. And then they had
Speaker 2: their house and they were buying new things for the house,
Speaker 2: and every day was a new adventure. So again, in
Speaker 2: her fifteen year old mind, you know, it's a lot
Speaker 2: easier to ignore what's in front of her than deal
Speaker 2: with reality.
Speaker 1: Like you say, she saw nothing coming, but better and
Speaker 1: better days each day, each romantic day spent with her
Speaker 1: husband in this loving environment. She was taking his bachelor
Speaker 1: pad and adding a woman's touch, buying new things, like
Speaker 1: you say, for this place. But then on November tenth,
Speaker 1: you say, you write that they start off it's a
Speaker 1: very nice day, and Smittie is outside ready to do
Speaker 1: some yard work. In fact, he goes out in the
Speaker 1: morning and does some and then right around lunch, and
Speaker 1: right after lunch he comes in and he's disturbed. Tell
Speaker 1: us what he's disturbed about.
Speaker 2: Particularly well, he thinks that he sees undercover officers circling
Speaker 2: the street. And the interesting thing is, I've got a
Speaker 2: copy of the police report. So everything that she told
Speaker 2: me is corroborated in the police report. And so he's
Speaker 2: outside and he walks back inside and he says, something's
Speaker 2: not right, and she goes, what are you talking about.
Speaker 2: She goes, I don't know. I feel like we're being watched,
Speaker 2: And so she goes, well, who are we we being
Speaker 2: watched by? And so he said nothing, and then he
Speaker 2: gets on the phone. We don't know who he's talking to,
Speaker 2: and he's telling this person on the other line, Diane,
Speaker 2: here's the police aer here. They're surrounding the house. And
Speaker 2: then as soon as she hears that, she hears a
Speaker 2: knock on the door and she opens it and there's
Speaker 2: five police detectives there and they say that they're there
Speaker 2: for Smitty and they have a warrant for his arrest
Speaker 2: for murder. And so she gets the jolt of her life.
Speaker 2: So they walk into the house, they tell Smitty to
Speaker 2: hang up the phone, they handcuff him, and he has
Speaker 2: whisked away, and so she's just kind of left to
Speaker 2: wonder what is going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she writes that, Diane runs across the street to
Speaker 1: notify Catherine of what's happened with the police, and you
Speaker 1: write then, on the way to the police station, one
Speaker 1: of the lieutenants, the lieutenant Dupnicks, tells Smitty that he
Speaker 1: had a statement from his friend, Richard Bruns. What does
Speaker 1: he say Richard Bruns has said about Smitty.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll get to that in a second, but here's
Speaker 2: what happened. So Schmidt. So when Bruns, if you recall
Speaker 2: he was charged not charged but he was accused of
Speaker 2: stalking the young lady, and the judge sends him back
Speaker 2: to Ohio to separate the two. And when he's in Ohio,
Speaker 2: he tells his grandmother what he and Schmidty did that,
Speaker 2: and that was that they had buried Schmitty had killed
Speaker 2: these young ladies, and that they had buried the bodies,
Speaker 2: that the skeletons or the skeleton remains. And so the
Speaker 2: grandmother then tells him that he needs to be call
Speaker 2: police in Tucson and let them know, and so that's
Speaker 2: how the case breaks wide open. But in the car,
Speaker 2: a Dupnik tells Schmitty that Bruns has told them everything
Speaker 2: in hopes that you know that Schmidty will break down,
Speaker 2: and Schmitty doesn't. He says, no, Bruns was the one
Speaker 2: who actually killed these people. And so he says, well,
Speaker 2: I'll put you two together and you two can hash
Speaker 2: it out. And so again it's all there in the
Speaker 2: police report that duth Nick allows these two to see
Speaker 2: each other and then right away that they're accusing each
Speaker 2: other of this crime. And so Schmitty says, I'll say
Speaker 2: no more. I'll have my attorney speak in court. And
Speaker 2: so from that point on Smitty doesn't see another day
Speaker 2: of freedom.
Speaker 1: You talk about the newsworthiness of this story, and especially
Speaker 1: why is because the daughters of the Fritzes, the Gretchen
Speaker 1: and Wendy Fritz, there was a renowned cardiologist in Tucson,
Speaker 1: doctor James Fritz, So that just added to the importance
Speaker 1: of the story. How big a story did this become?
Speaker 1: Very quickly?
Speaker 2: Well, this became an international story as it went to
Speaker 2: trial because what happened was is that Life magazine was
Speaker 2: assigned to it and they devoted sixteen pages of its
Speaker 2: and if you recall Live magazine was more of a
Speaker 2: photo magazine with you know, some illustrations. They devoted an
Speaker 2: entire sixteen pages to this case. And once everybody read
Speaker 2: that story, then then it became an international news and
Speaker 2: then you had you had publications in France and London,
Speaker 2: and then of course you had the La Times and
Speaker 2: the Arizona Republic, Playboy and News and Time Week all
Speaker 2: over it. And it just became this international story because
Speaker 2: a part of it was the idea of somebody that
Speaker 2: was a serial killer who just decided to kill for
Speaker 2: the thrill of it. And then you also had this
Speaker 2: added element that there were a lot of young people
Speaker 2: around that knew either about the crime or knew that
Speaker 2: Smitty was most likely involved, and they kept their mouths
Speaker 2: shut because the code at the time was you don't
Speaker 2: say anything to adults. You don't say, you don't write out,
Speaker 2: you don't write out your friends.
Speaker 1: You have a famous photo, and I've got to say
Speaker 1: right now, just I wanted to remark that you have
Speaker 1: a astounding collection of photos, including this famous photo of Smitty,
Speaker 1: Charles Smitt, stepping out of a squad car, and this
Speaker 1: was in the Tucson Daily News. So I have to
Speaker 1: again remark what a incredible collection of photos you have
Speaker 1: provided in this book.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. A lot of those photos came from
Speaker 2: the police report, because they had a collection of I
Speaker 2: want to say, about one hundred photos, all in the
Speaker 2: glossy black and white. But that particular photo that you're
Speaker 2: referring to is a typical, almost like a purp walk photo,
Speaker 2: where then you know the police most likely call the
Speaker 2: newspaper and say, hey, we got this guy. We're going
Speaker 2: to bring him down to police. As soon as we
Speaker 2: open the door, you snap that photo. And that's exactly
Speaker 2: I think what happened Schmid was taken downtown to the
Speaker 2: Downtown station as soon as he stepped out. Now keep
Speaker 2: in mind he was working in the garden, so he
Speaker 2: was wearing like this green jumpsuit with these cowboy boots
Speaker 2: stuffed with rags to make him appear taller, because he
Speaker 2: was about five foot four, and he was hot and
Speaker 2: he was sweating, and he had this pancake makeup running
Speaker 2: down the space, and he had this bandage on his
Speaker 2: nose because he kept telling people that he broke it
Speaker 2: in a Harley accident, and the painted en mole, so
Speaker 2: he looked pretty freakish. So this was the first image
Speaker 2: that the public saw of him, and it was pretty frightening.
Speaker 1: You're right that now that he was all locked up
Speaker 1: and unavailable for any more photos for the time being,
Speaker 1: that Diane Schmidt became the target. And she foolishly went
Speaker 1: back to the house. Wanted to get back to the
Speaker 1: house that had been ransacked, but the media had swarmed
Speaker 1: the place looking for her specifically.
Speaker 2: Right, and Schmittie told her specifically is stay out of
Speaker 2: the limelight because they're going to be wanting to take
Speaker 2: your picture. And the interesting thing in this in this
Speaker 2: case was that there were now television cameras allowed in
Speaker 2: the courtroom. No cameras allowed in the courtroom, but once
Speaker 2: you stepped foot outside of the courtroom, you were fair game.
Speaker 2: And so he asked her not to come, but she
Speaker 2: wanted to be a good wife and show up, and
Speaker 2: sure enough they started taking her picture and then she
Speaker 2: became aknown entity within Tucson.
Speaker 1: Now we you write about the co accused, John Saunders,
Speaker 1: but again it's a little complicated. John Saunders is in
Speaker 1: jail as well, in solitary confinement. Part of the feature
Speaker 1: of this book, too, is the correspondence that Diane has
Speaker 1: with her husband and her person that she was still
Speaker 1: and remained in love with Charles Smith. So first explain
Speaker 1: John Saunders being in prison and tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about these letters that are featured in this book.
Speaker 2: Well, Saunders, here's what happened. So the first killing, Smitty
Speaker 2: killed three people, Aline Roe and Gretchen and Windy Fritz.
Speaker 2: He killed Aline Rowe first, and that was basically a
Speaker 2: thrill kill. He wanted to see what it felt like
Speaker 2: to kill somebody, so he enlisted John Saunders, who was
Speaker 2: his buddy, and again another outcast, and then his then
Speaker 2: girlfriend Mary Ray French. Mary French lived four doors down
Speaker 2: from Aline Rowe, and he used her to lure her
Speaker 2: out to say, hey, we're all going on a double
Speaker 2: date after your mom goes to work. Aline Roe's mother
Speaker 2: was a night nurse, so she left around eight or
Speaker 2: nine o'clock and then they lured out lurd Aline Rowe
Speaker 2: to come go driving with them and go out into
Speaker 2: the desert and drink. And so there's two different versions
Speaker 2: of how she was killed. Saunders says that that he
Speaker 2: initially lured her out into the desert, tried to have
Speaker 2: sex with her, hit her over the head with the
Speaker 2: rock but didn't quite kill her, and then he called
Speaker 2: Schmitty down and then he strangled her and then they
Speaker 2: buried her. That was Saunders's version, and Schmidty's version was
Speaker 2: is that that Saunders hit her over the head of
Speaker 2: the rock and killed her and then he helped him
Speaker 2: bury her. So that was really never really quite but
Speaker 2: the blame did. The blame went to both men because
Speaker 2: Schmitty was also convicted for that, but Saunders was convicted
Speaker 2: for that as well. To get to the correspondence, so
Speaker 2: as soon as Smitty is behind bars, he writes Diane
Speaker 2: almost daily, and so a lot of these letters have
Speaker 2: been preserved, and there's also letters that he sent to
Speaker 2: the warden later on when he went to jail. And
Speaker 2: then of course we have a lot of his original
Speaker 2: poetry in the book as well. It gives you all
Speaker 2: a very very personal, close up look at him and
Speaker 2: then what was going through his mind.
Speaker 1: You're right that the trial was set for February fifteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six, and Diane is just a trusting and
Speaker 1: supportive a wife at this point, waiting for and believing
Speaker 1: that her husband will get out of these charges and
Speaker 1: return back home to her. You say, the media attention
Speaker 1: in this case is overwhelming, and as we described, all
Speaker 1: these premiere periodicals like Life and Time, magazine, Newsweek all
Speaker 1: were interested in this case. You talk about the response
Speaker 1: from Catherine and Howard. They have some means at that time,
Speaker 1: and they put up a retainer for an attorney five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars at that time. You right that that's fifty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars equivalent today. Tell us about this attorney that
Speaker 1: they pick this attorney Tinny.
Speaker 2: Well, yes, they picked a guy Namedilliam Tinney who had
Speaker 2: just come out of law school about five years previously,
Speaker 2: he was more of a general practitioner attorney. I don't
Speaker 2: think he'd ever handled a murder case before, but it's
Speaker 2: pretty much the best money that they could buy at
Speaker 2: the time. So Diane felt that he was just a
Speaker 2: notch above a quarter pointed attorney. And so he he
Speaker 2: he was going up against a very, very experienced prosecutor
Speaker 2: by the name of William Shaeffer the third and so
Speaker 2: you know, given.
Speaker 3: How Schmidty looked and acted, and yeah, in all the
Speaker 3: evidents that they had, you know, they had they had
Speaker 3: the testimony.
Speaker 2: Of Bruns, Saunders and French. I mean, everything was pretty
Speaker 2: much stacked against Schmitty. I don't know if they could
Speaker 2: have hired anybody better who could have gotten him off.
Speaker 2: But that's that's kind of the cards that that they
Speaker 2: had to play.
Speaker 1: Let's use this as an up to need to stop
Speaker 1: to hear these messages. Let's talk about the trial that
Speaker 1: began February fifteenth, nineteen sixty six. The judge ruled that
Speaker 1: there'll be no TV cameras or photographers and the media
Speaker 1: was in full force. International media from around the world
Speaker 1: was attending. Tell us some of the dynamics that were
Speaker 1: evident at this trial with prosecutor Schaeffer versus William Tinney.
Speaker 2: Well, Tinny had his hands full in Schmidy's case. I
Speaker 2: mean he looked again, there was the appearance of him.
Speaker 2: There were a lot of stories that were already coming
Speaker 2: out with Life magazine. The floodgates really kind of opened,
Speaker 2: and so everybody in Tucson had already been tainted, I
Speaker 2: guess you could say, or they knew about Schmid. There
Speaker 2: wasn't anybody that didn't know about Charles Schmid, and so
Speaker 2: it was really really difficult for Tinny to try and
Speaker 2: get a fair shake for Schmid because Tucson at that time,
Speaker 2: I say, had like an Old West hangover, and that
Speaker 2: the justice system there when somebody committed a crime, they
Speaker 2: were going to do everything that they could to put
Speaker 2: this person either behind bars or put them to death.
Speaker 2: And so in this case, this trial only lasted eleven days,
Speaker 2: and so there wasn't really much time either for Tinney
Speaker 2: to create a case defend a case because he was
Speaker 2: arrested Schmid. He was arrested in November and he was
Speaker 2: going to try out in February, and that case only
Speaker 2: lasted eleven days, So kind of gives you an idea
Speaker 2: that this was everything was being done very swiftly and
Speaker 2: very quickly.
Speaker 1: You're right that the testimony of John Saunders, Mary Ray French,
Speaker 1: and Richard Brown's was crucial to prosecuting Charles Schmidt. And
Speaker 1: Charles Schmidt did not testify at his trial. William Tiney
Speaker 1: did not want to have him up on the stand
Speaker 1: defending himself, and the courts were by virtue of these
Speaker 1: people receiving plea agreements for their testimony. Basically, the courts
Speaker 1: agreed and believed the accounts that they had in their
Speaker 1: participation in these murders, and Charles Schmidt's participation in these murders,
Speaker 1: which was deemed far more serious than these three defendants.
Speaker 2: That's correct. With their testimony and with their agreements in place,
Speaker 2: and combined with the fact that Schmidty did not defend himself,
Speaker 2: I would think it would be pretty easy for a
Speaker 2: trial to convict him.
Speaker 1: What was the media depiction of Charles Schmidt and this trial.
Speaker 2: Well, their depiction was not only on the mark, but
Speaker 2: there were also rumors as well. So for example, you know,
Speaker 2: they they painted him as this this freakish guy who
Speaker 2: and this was all again on account of Life magazine.
Speaker 2: This freakish guy that that dressed up like Elvis, that
Speaker 2: wore heavy pancakes, makeup, imasscra and that you know, he
Speaker 2: was a he was a rebel, but an older guy
Speaker 2: that liked to hang out with the younger people so
Speaker 2: that he could manipulate them. But there were also rumors
Speaker 2: of sex orgies, that he belonged to the Hell's Angels,
Speaker 2: that he was a former male prostitute, and you know,
Speaker 2: all these sorts of things that just painted him as
Speaker 2: a as a bad guy. And so all these rumors
Speaker 2: were also started by the teenagers who wouldn't talk. So
Speaker 2: because the fact that that there was no that that
Speaker 2: there were no cameras allowed in the courtroom, a lot
Speaker 2: of the reporters did their reporting outside and get their eyewitnesses.
Speaker 2: Were basically a lot of teams who were basically spouted
Speaker 2: off rumors. So some of the rumors were true, some
Speaker 2: of them were false, but everything kind of got thrown
Speaker 2: in there in the mix.
Speaker 1: Now you talk about that, we mentioned John Gilmore again,
Speaker 1: and Smitty had chosen John Gilmore to write a book
Speaker 1: about his account about his case and his trial. And
Speaker 1: you say that Gilmour was a former actor turned freelance journalist, screenwriter,
Speaker 1: and author who had befriended the likes of James Dean
Speaker 1: and Marilyn Monroe.
Speaker 2: Gilmore was younger than most of the newsmen, so right
Speaker 2: away Schmitty felt a kinship to him. He looked like
Speaker 2: a young Tony Curtis. And so when Gilmore walked up
Speaker 2: to him and said I'd like to hear your side
Speaker 2: of the story, Schmidty basically leaped out of his chair
Speaker 2: and says, I've been waiting for someone like you so
Speaker 2: that i could tell my story. And so they developed
Speaker 2: this relationship where he would give Gilmore these letters from Diane,
Speaker 2: give these letters from everybody to give an insight as
Speaker 2: to how he was living inside of the jail, what
Speaker 2: was going through his mind. It was somebody that Schmiddy
Speaker 2: could say, hey, I'm innocent. So he felt like with
Speaker 2: Gilmore he had at least one person on his side.
Speaker 1: You're right that John Gilmore sat with Diane at the
Speaker 1: trial itself as well. Tell us about how long the
Speaker 1: jury deliberated for you say the trial lasted eleven days.
Speaker 1: Only tell us about the jury deliberations and the verdict, Well,
Speaker 1: memory serves me.
Speaker 2: I think the jury deliberation was only three hours and
Speaker 2: it came right near the end of the day, and
Speaker 2: so they found him guilty of first yary murder and
Speaker 2: the sentence was death. And that death sentence, I believe
Speaker 2: was like a month away, so you know, didn't today's society,
Speaker 2: it's you know, definitely is at least a good twenty
Speaker 2: to thirty years away. But back then it was very,
Speaker 2: very swift.
Speaker 1: There is a second trial as well, and that is
Speaker 1: for Allen Rose's death.
Speaker 2: Even though Aline Rose was the first one that was
Speaker 2: killed the discovery of Wendy and Gretchen Fritz because it
Speaker 2: was first because Bruns was able to lead them because
Speaker 2: he was because he was involved in the burial of
Speaker 2: their dead bodies, so he was able to lead police
Speaker 2: to them right away. Now, he I think he had
Speaker 2: either heard or that he had heard Smitty confess to
Speaker 2: Aline Roe, but he didn't know where she was. So
Speaker 2: that's why that case was prosecuted first, and then Schmitty
Speaker 2: was prosecuted for Alien Roe second.
Speaker 1: So at some point after this conviction, Charles Schmitt says
Speaker 1: to authority that he'd like to lead them to Allen
Speaker 1: Rose's body, and also at that time for Diane, it's
Speaker 1: a crucial turning point because for many, many years it
Speaker 1: was incredible denial and just support of her husband. But
Speaker 1: the facts that were undeniable were released in Life magazine.
Speaker 1: But also she heard at trial, so there was no
Speaker 1: more denial in terms of the culpability of her husband,
Speaker 1: Charles Schmidt.
Speaker 2: That's correct. And in the second trial he was actually
Speaker 2: defended by E. F. Lee Bailey, and Bailey was fresh
Speaker 2: off of the Shepherd case and thought that he could
Speaker 2: get some more capital from defending Schmidty because now that
Speaker 2: Lack magazine had covered him, Bailey thought that he could
Speaker 2: apply the same sort of magic to the Shepherd cases
Speaker 2: he did to schmid But what he found out real
Speaker 2: quickly was that there was a certain a justice system
Speaker 2: and Tucson that just didn't take very well to outsiders.
Speaker 2: So once he realized that he wasn't going to do
Speaker 2: really much of anything for Schmidty, he tried to talk
Speaker 2: him into taking a plea deal, and basically that's what
Speaker 2: Schmidty did, And a day after Schmitty took the plea deal,
Speaker 2: he decided that he was going to show authorities of
Speaker 2: the body where they could find Ali Rowe, and that's
Speaker 2: exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: Now you write about Mary's testimony, Mary ray French's testimony.
Speaker 1: So again we've had bits and pieces from you about
Speaker 1: what exactly happened. What was her version of what happened
Speaker 1: in Schmitty's involvement.
Speaker 2: Well, in regard to when Aline Rowe was killed again,
Speaker 2: she when they brought her out, They brought everybody out
Speaker 2: to the desert. The car stops and then Saunders takes
Speaker 2: alien Roe out into the desert. Well, well, Mary and
Speaker 2: Schmitty stay in the car and then and then she
Speaker 2: hears a screen. She knows what's happening because they talked
Speaker 2: about it. And then Schmitty runs out and then finds
Speaker 2: Aline Rowe with her head hit by a rock. And
Speaker 2: so what she claims is that Schmitty comes back to
Speaker 2: the car and says, we killed her, and then he
Speaker 2: starts breathing heavily, and then he kisses her on the
Speaker 2: lips and it was sort of a turn on for him.
Speaker 2: So that's what she had testified to. So again it's
Speaker 2: it's a little bit money. Did Schmitty actually kill her
Speaker 2: or was he involved in the burying of her body.
Speaker 2: I personally believe that it was Schmitty who did it.
Speaker 2: I think that my personal belief is that Saunders hit
Speaker 2: her over the head of the rock but didn't kill her,
Speaker 2: and then Schmitty then walked out there and strangled her
Speaker 2: and together they buried her. And I believe that that
Speaker 2: kind of corroborates with what Mary French said in court.
Speaker 1: Now, what problem the audience doesn't know and we haven't explained,
Speaker 1: is how is it that Gretchen Fritz and Wendy Fritz
Speaker 1: get involved in all of this murder.
Speaker 2: Well, Gretchen and Schmidty start seeing each other in I
Speaker 2: want to say, July of sixty five, and they have
Speaker 2: a very tempestuous relationship, and Schmidty claims that she was
Speaker 2: so jealous that she'd call him night and day, and
Speaker 2: that to get her off, to get her off his back,
Speaker 2: he decided that he would give her a piece of
Speaker 2: information that will allow her to trust him. And he
Speaker 2: claims that he told Gretchen about Ali Rowe and actually
Speaker 2: took her to the body, and that for a while
Speaker 2: it bonded these two. But then he claims that but
Speaker 2: she took that information and used it against them. And
Speaker 2: would use it and threaten him, and so by the
Speaker 2: time that their relationship had reached its end, she was
Speaker 2: out one night with her sister Gretchen, and they both
Speaker 2: went to see, ironically, an eldest Presley movie at the
Speaker 2: driving called Ticklemy and at the concession stand, she bumped
Speaker 2: into somebody who said she heard a rumor that Schmidty
Speaker 2: was hosting a party. And so Gretchen had called Schmitty
Speaker 2: either from the driver or PayPal, and said I'm coming over,
Speaker 2: and he said, no, don't come over. So she did
Speaker 2: come over with her sister Wendy, and so Gretchen and
Speaker 2: Schmitty have an argument in his kitchen and he pulls
Speaker 2: out an electrical cord for a guitar string and strangles her.
Speaker 2: And then Wendy is watching TV doesn't even realize what's
Speaker 2: going on. So he has to make a decision what
Speaker 2: he's going to do, and he decides that he's going
Speaker 2: to kill young Wendy, who thirteen at the time, and
Speaker 2: so he kills both of them and loads both of
Speaker 2: them in his trunk and then takes them out into
Speaker 2: the desert and then dumps their bodies.
Speaker 1: Let's use this as an opportunity to stop to hear
Speaker 1: these messages. Now let's get back to Charles Schmidt is
Speaker 1: sent to prison. He has a death penalty, but things
Speaker 1: are moving towards state and also federally federal government for
Speaker 1: banishing the death penalty. Tell us about that progress and
Speaker 1: how it affects Charles Smith's sentence and case.
Speaker 2: In Schmidt's case, he kept getting delays, and then we
Speaker 2: get to the point of nineteen seventy two where the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court rules of the death penalty is cruel and unjust,
Speaker 2: and it was the same it was the same ruling
Speaker 2: that allowed the Manson family not to be sentenced to death.
Speaker 2: So Schmidty was on death row and then released then
Speaker 2: into general population as a result of this, and as
Speaker 2: it turned out through my research, I found that that
Speaker 2: being on death row was a lot easier for prisoners
Speaker 2: than general population because they only had to deal with
Speaker 2: a limited amount of people, and they have a lot
Speaker 2: of they had a lot more freedoms. And then Schmidt,
Speaker 2: he actually didn't didn't necessarily want to be released in
Speaker 2: the general population, so that caused quite a bit of
Speaker 2: problems for him, because you know, he had killed three
Speaker 2: young girls and that didn't go over so well with
Speaker 2: a lot of the prisoners.
Speaker 1: So he's not content to He doesn't like the idea
Speaker 1: of spending his life in the rest of his life
Speaker 1: in prison. He didn't like the idea of the death penalty,
Speaker 1: doesn't like the idea of life in prison. What does
Speaker 1: he have plans to do? And what does he do?
Speaker 2: The first plan he makes is with a guy named
Speaker 2: Robert Smith. They make a death pact. They decide that
Speaker 2: the death penalty is lifted, they're gonna cut each other
Speaker 2: into bits with hacksauce and that's and so Schmidt had
Speaker 2: a hacksaw on his leg and when the guard just
Speaker 2: happened to be walking by and saw Robert Smith saw
Speaker 2: him into Smitty's leg and caught that before it actually happened,
Speaker 2: but Schmitty had about thirty stitches in his leg. And
Speaker 2: then when that didn't work, then Schmidty decided two attempts
Speaker 2: to break out of prison. Second time around, he was
Speaker 2: successful and made a clean break for a couple of days.
Speaker 2: And actually that's when he sees Diane in person for
Speaker 2: the last time. He asked her to go to Mexico
Speaker 2: and she said, I can't. I'm married now and I
Speaker 2: have kids. But she said take my car, and he said,
Speaker 2: I can't take a car, and you have children now,
Speaker 2: And so he decides that he is going to hop
Speaker 2: on a freight train bound in Mexico. And then he
Speaker 2: actually ends up going through the Tucson train station and
Speaker 2: one of the cops that that used to was one
Speaker 2: of his Bibles and gymnastics spotted him and arrests him,
Speaker 2: and then he goes back to prison.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very interesting the description that Diane has for
Speaker 1: you can't say it's not one of the most romantic
Speaker 1: things you might have read. You know, this prisoner on
Speaker 1: the run but risks everything to meet up with his
Speaker 1: loved one one more time. They make love, they spend
Speaker 1: time together, and then selfishly he says that he lets
Speaker 1: her go and understands what she has to do.
Speaker 2: Right. He was like that with her. You know, he
Speaker 2: could be a monster in his life regarding all these
Speaker 2: other people, but with Diane, he was very tender and caring.
Speaker 2: She seemed to be the one pure thing in his life.
Speaker 2: So that was that's what always struck me about their relationship.
Speaker 1: With this second escape and his capture, it that Charles
Speaker 1: had a change of mind, a change of heart, and
Speaker 1: started to do things differently. And there was a change
Speaker 1: in leadership or of the warden at this prison that
Speaker 1: helped Charles make this change of heart.
Speaker 2: Well, there are two things. He started taking poetry classes
Speaker 2: under a professor, well known professor by the name of
Speaker 2: Robert Shelton. Shelton claims that poetry had tenderized his heart
Speaker 2: and made him start thinking differently and made him start
Speaker 2: looking at what he did regarding these crimes and face
Speaker 2: face adulthood for the first time. And then this new
Speaker 2: warden that you mentioned had come in and he had
Speaker 2: a tough reputation. But Schmidty started a letter writing campaign,
Speaker 2: and we've got a lot of those letters in the
Speaker 2: book saying give me one chance, give me one chance,
Speaker 2: make me an outside trustee, which means that he had
Speaker 2: certain privileges that he didn't have to live in the
Speaker 2: prison population. He could live in dormitory style living quarters
Speaker 2: inside the grounds, but not within the general population. And
Speaker 2: it was a really, really choice position. And after eighteen
Speaker 2: months after he broke out, he was able to convince
Speaker 2: this warden to give him outside trustee status, which meant
Speaker 2: he could get a job and one of his jobs
Speaker 2: was to tend to the animals, the dog trackers, and
Speaker 2: he could actually take these dogs outside of the prison
Speaker 2: walls to a veterinarian about ten miles away. So there
Speaker 2: were a lot of people that would have been horrified
Speaker 2: in the state of Arizona to know that Charles Schmid
Speaker 2: could go freely to and from the prison in this
Speaker 2: car to take these animals to the vet. And on
Speaker 2: his way to the vet, his mother moved right near
Speaker 2: the prison, and he could drive by her house and
Speaker 2: wave to her and see her. So a lot of
Speaker 2: people don't know this.
Speaker 1: You read about the visiting that Diane did sometimes her sister,
Speaker 1: but also she also went initially with Catherine and Howard
Speaker 1: to visit, so they were regularly He was regularly visited
Speaker 1: by family as well as Diane in his imprisonment for
Speaker 1: most of it.
Speaker 2: That's correct. In the beginning, Diane writes that they could
Speaker 2: actually hug and touch each other and freely converse with
Speaker 2: each other. And then after a couple of years, when
Speaker 2: I think that there was there was a drug issue there,
Speaker 2: and so in order to cut off the drug pipeline,
Speaker 2: they put up class partition. They couldn't touch each other,
Speaker 2: but they could talk. But you know, for her, she
Speaker 2: lived for those moments, so that that was fine with her.
Speaker 2: And of course for Schmitty, he got to see his
Speaker 2: parents and Diane, so he had a support system while
Speaker 2: he was in prison.
Speaker 1: They also talk about Smitty talking to a journalist named
Speaker 1: ken Burton about the conditions and prison, but also just
Speaker 1: and just a general correspondence with this journalist.
Speaker 2: Correct. You know, schmidy befriended a lot of journals, but
Speaker 2: for some reason he and ken Burton hit it off.
Speaker 2: And so Burton had been asking him to write a
Speaker 2: piece about what it was like, what it was like
Speaker 2: for life behind bars, and so he asked Smith if
Speaker 2: he could write it, and Smith said no, I'll tell
Speaker 2: you what I'll do is I'll write it and then
Speaker 2: you edit it. And so, for whatever reasons, Burton held
Speaker 2: on to these writings for like three or four years
Speaker 2: after Schmid passed away, and then they were released and
Speaker 2: then it gave everybody this insight into what Schmid had
Speaker 2: endured behind bars.
Speaker 1: You talk about Diane realizing and recognizing that Charles had
Speaker 1: this new found purpose in life through this poetry and
Speaker 1: through helping other people come to these poetry workshops and
Speaker 1: all his newfound sense of optimism that he would maybe
Speaker 1: some day be be released. But he also wanted to
Speaker 1: get married again because at one point he advised Diane
Speaker 1: to get a divorce just so that the press and
Speaker 1: everyone else would stop hounding her. And now he said
Speaker 1: he wanted to get married again. Diane was very, very pleased,
Speaker 1: and he wanted to change his name to Paul David
Speaker 1: Ashley right.
Speaker 2: He wanted to change his name because he felt he
Speaker 2: was a new person. One of the poems that he
Speaker 2: wrote was called an Unfinished Man, and that he talks
Speaker 2: about now he's changed, He's unfinished and he's evolving. He
Speaker 2: was going to start a new life as a poet
Speaker 2: and start all over again as fresh as a brand
Speaker 2: new person. That was the reasoning behind the name change
Speaker 2: and getting married again, because he felt like a completely
Speaker 2: new man. Now.
Speaker 1: You were writing about the transformation that Charles undergoes in prison,
Speaker 1: but a big part of that is this warden card
Speaker 1: well and some of the strides in penal achievements as
Speaker 1: you write, and so as a result, Charles pens a
Speaker 1: glowing year in review column for the Prison newspaper about
Speaker 1: the changes that Cardbo had made. What was the response
Speaker 1: from some of the inmates about this glowing review.
Speaker 2: Well, they weren't too happy. They are very very anti
Speaker 2: authority figures, so you know, they had they had this
Speaker 2: credo that we're right and the prison authorities are wrong.
Speaker 2: But adding to this was that this op ed was
Speaker 2: picked up by the Arizona Republic in the Tucson Daily Star.
Speaker 2: It just blew up all of a sudden. Schmid is
Speaker 2: now seen as this poster boy for reformation. So it
Speaker 2: makes the warden very happy, but it doesn't necessarily make
Speaker 2: the other prisoners very happy.
Speaker 1: Diane didn't realize it at the time, but he would
Speaker 1: be her last visit with with Charles, and at that
Speaker 1: time she in retrospect she saw said that he had
Speaker 1: said something regarding doctor Fritz and retribution. What does he
Speaker 1: have to say to Diane about that?
Speaker 2: Well, she claimed that what he said to her was
Speaker 2: he just kind of brought it up out of the blue.
Speaker 2: You know, doctor Fritz could get to me at any
Speaker 2: time if he wanted to. And she said, what are
Speaker 2: you talking about? He goes, I'm just you know, just saying.
Speaker 4: And again she didn't really think much about that. Of course,
Speaker 4: it didn't hit her until much later on when everybody
Speaker 4: was trying to figure out, you know, who was behind
Speaker 4: Spinney's demise.
Speaker 1: What did she find out? But also in relation to
Speaker 1: what Smitty had said in retrospect, how did she put
Speaker 1: it together?
Speaker 2: Well, she found out that doctor Fritz was the heart
Speaker 2: doctor of the Mafio, so Joseph Bonano. And when Schmidty
Speaker 2: was originally thought to be this is before his arrest
Speaker 2: and Schmidty and Bruns were together, they were paid a
Speaker 2: visit by Joe Bonano Junior and a couple of his henchmen.
Speaker 2: This was in sixty five and this was also brought
Speaker 2: up in court testimony, and they actually had the pictures
Speaker 2: of these two guys that they took. They took schmid
Speaker 2: and Bruns to San Diego, San Diego area, because schmid
Speaker 2: told these gentlemen that he hadn't seen Gretchen or Wendy,
Speaker 2: but he thought that perhaps that they were in that
Speaker 2: area because the last time she called him, she called
Speaker 2: the brag you know, that she was with another guy
Speaker 2: and she was at the beach in San Diego. So
Speaker 2: he said, well, you know, you should probably go look there,
Speaker 2: and they said, no, you're gonna come with us. So
Speaker 2: these guys actually take Schmid and Bruns to Sandy Diego
Speaker 2: for a couple of days looking Wendy and Gretchen. So
Speaker 2: that was the association.
Speaker 1: Interesting you write that in the start of nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 1: Diane was employed in Tucson, but she also had a
Speaker 1: real batch of depression after she lost her employment, and
Speaker 1: so she didn't see Smitty for quite a while. And
Speaker 1: then she on March twentieth, saw the news and the newscast.
Speaker 2: That's correct, she saw where Schmitty was stabbed. Now, initially
Speaker 2: it was reported twenty three times, but the autopsy showed
Speaker 2: that it was he was stabbed forty seven times, and
Speaker 2: so he was still alive, but it didn't look like
Speaker 2: he was going to make it. And then the ambulance
Speaker 2: on one of the prison officials asked him who did it,
Speaker 2: and he said, well, how bad am I? He goes,
Speaker 2: I don't think you're going to make it, Smitty, and
Speaker 2: he said, you know it was. He listed these two gentlemen,
Speaker 2: Dennis Eversol and a guy named James Farrah, these two gentlemen,
Speaker 2: and they happened to be his friends, and they happened
Speaker 2: to be his outside trustee doormates. They didn't live in
Speaker 2: the same room, but they lived in the same orders
Speaker 2: at the same area, so they were also trustees. And
Speaker 2: they knew him for a period of several years, so
Speaker 2: they were really good friends. So that's what he couldn't believe.
Speaker 2: When he got to a hospital, he told his mom,
Speaker 2: these guys were my friends. So he found it very
Speaker 2: hard to believe that they would do this to him,
Speaker 2: and for no reason, because an eyewitness saw them walk
Speaker 2: into his room with shanks and hooks and they stabbed them.
Speaker 2: He didn't have a chance to defend himself. And they
Speaker 2: had shanked them pretty good forty seven times.
Speaker 1: They had stabbed them once in the eye, and you
Speaker 1: have the chapter I for an eye. But also that
Speaker 1: very interesting that it was found out that there was
Speaker 1: a gun smuggled and official gun smuggled in rather than
Speaker 1: just jailhouse weaponry.
Speaker 2: But that was later. Yes, But but he was saying
Speaker 2: Schmidier had said that in this article with ken Burton,
Speaker 2: that he that he penned that guns were they're called
Speaker 2: zip guns because they would make them out of wood
Speaker 2: and rubber bands, but they acted like real guns, and
Speaker 2: they'd make them in the wood in the metal shop.
Speaker 2: So he said he thought that perhaps thirty percent of
Speaker 2: all the prisoners were armed with weapons, not only just shanks,
Speaker 2: but with thirty percent with guns.
Speaker 1: Pardon me too. What I meant was the the knife
Speaker 1: had been smuggled into the prison and it was not
Speaker 1: a homemade ship.
Speaker 2: That's correct. Yeah, the Knight the knife, one of the
Speaker 2: knives was smuggled in. It was I believe it was
Speaker 2: double bladed, and it was it was meant to cause damage.
Speaker 1: There was an investigation by the warden, and so they
Speaker 1: did get to Eversoul and Pharah and did sentence them. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: what they got was a concurrent sentence, which really wouldn't count.
Speaker 2: That's correct, And a year later Eversoul was actually killed
Speaker 2: in a prison riot by a gun. Pharah was also
Speaker 2: shot by that same individual. Now there were rumors that
Speaker 2: he was wheelchair bound and that the state didn't necessarily
Speaker 2: want to take care of him, and so he was
Speaker 2: released in nineteen eighty two, which was you know, he
Speaker 2: killed two people and he only served a total sentence
Speaker 2: of twelve years. So I always found that was kind
Speaker 2: of curious.
Speaker 1: What about Diane, She writes in this book, after this
Speaker 1: devastating news. What does she do in her own life afterwards?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean she at that point, I think she
Speaker 2: was married five times. And keep in mind her second husband,
Speaker 2: she had to go up to Oregon and leave Tucson
Speaker 2: because she which run out of town. But you know,
Speaker 2: a couple of months to their marriage, he was out
Speaker 2: with a couple of buddies. He hit a guardrail and
Speaker 2: he was the driver, and the guardrail glanced up through
Speaker 2: the windshield, decapitated him and then killed another person. So
Speaker 2: she had been through five marriages. You know. The first
Speaker 2: gentleman of Schmid, you know, he goes away to prison
Speaker 2: for as a serial killer. The second one is decapitated.
Speaker 2: The others are drinkers or people that just left her
Speaker 2: in the middle of the night. So she's had a
Speaker 2: run of really bad luck, you know, a series of
Speaker 2: mental breakdowns. You know, she had just just a really
Speaker 2: serious run of bad luck. As far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1: In this book, she credits any kind of recovery. She
Speaker 1: doesn't talk about closure, but any kind of recovery to
Speaker 1: her faith in God. And she talks about obviously the
Speaker 1: cathartic power of writing this book and finally coming to
Speaker 1: grips with some of her emotions regarding Charles Schmidt.
Speaker 2: Yes, as a matter of fact, you know, her kids
Speaker 2: didn't want her to do this book. I decided that
Speaker 2: I was going to meet up with them just to see,
Speaker 2: you know what, you know, what their issues were, and
Speaker 2: they were definitely legitimate issues. And I brought my mother along.
Speaker 2: And my mother at the time was eighty four years
Speaker 2: old and my mom is a woman of faith. Diane's daughter,
Speaker 2: you know, brought up her list of reasons and my mom,
Speaker 2: who was a very very sweet lady, said, you know,
Speaker 2: Diane's kind of kept this inside of herself for all
Speaker 2: these years and hasn't done her any good. Do you
Speaker 2: think maybe that if she talked about it and wrote
Speaker 2: about it, it might be cathartic. And then my mom
Speaker 2: asked if we could all pray about it, and so
Speaker 2: we did that. That kind of did it. The daughter said, okay,
Speaker 2: let's try it. So now we're in that phase where
Speaker 2: the book was released, and I think Diane couldn't be
Speaker 2: happier because she got to tell her story finally.
Speaker 1: Yes, and just intummation, how does she reconcile this love
Speaker 1: affair that continued right till his death, despite the heinous
Speaker 1: murders that he was responsible for.
Speaker 2: I think she reconciles it with I was his wife,
Speaker 2: I said till death to his part, she wanted to
Speaker 2: be faithful to him, and you know, she is actually
Speaker 2: still in love with him. She recognizes what he did,
Speaker 2: and so it doesn't really make a lot of sense
Speaker 2: to a lot of people. She doesn't necessarily feel that
Speaker 2: it doesn't have to make sense to anyone but her,
Speaker 2: and so she believes that Smithie is still the love
Speaker 2: of her life, and that was the first love of
Speaker 2: her life, and that will always remain regardless of what
Speaker 2: he did.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think that's what I got from it as well,
Speaker 1: that she describes a period of time when she was
Speaker 1: totally in love with this person, and that love continued
Speaker 1: because of the way he had treated her in the
Speaker 1: relationship and once he was imprisoned as well, So this
Speaker 1: remained the strongest and most purest love that she had
Speaker 1: ever experienced in her life by far.
Speaker 2: That's correct, And I think that's probably the only way
Speaker 2: you could sum it up. I mean, it doesn't make
Speaker 2: sense to a lot of people, but again, it makes
Speaker 2: sense to her, and that's what she holds on too.
Speaker 1: In the end, you talk about just a little bit
Speaker 1: about where are they now? You talk about flee Bailey,
Speaker 1: but also very interestingly a book called I a Squealer,
Speaker 1: an Insider's account. Can you tell us about how that
Speaker 1: book came to be?
Speaker 2: Well, Bruns had wanted to tell his story, so he wrote.
Speaker 2: He immediately wrote, like I think, one hundred page manuscript,
Speaker 2: like a year after these murders took place, so that
Speaker 2: was fresh in his memory. Nothing ever happened, and so
Speaker 2: he just kind of put it away in storage and
Speaker 2: then his daughters found it, dusted it off, I think
Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen or twenty eighteen, and they published it.
Speaker 2: You know, it was very, very insightful. One of the
Speaker 2: most unbelievable stories out of that book was that as
Speaker 2: Smitty was being dropped off the prison in Florence, Bruns
Speaker 2: happened to be their hitch hiking and he said And
Speaker 2: I talked to Bruns on the phone and he said
Speaker 2: to me, I said, God, that that scene where he's
Speaker 2: being driven to prison and you're you're leaving town as
Speaker 2: he's entering town. I said, that's just stunning. I said,
Speaker 2: what was like, did you make Eincott eye contact and
Speaker 2: he goes we did, but there was nothing there in
Speaker 2: his eyes. He just looked glazed and looked past me
Speaker 2: like he couldn't believe it. Wow, Yeah, it was. It
Speaker 2: was a It's it's an interesting book. It's a good book,
Speaker 2: and I would recommend that as well.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Olana, thank you very much for coming on and
Speaker 1: talking about your extraordinary book with Diane Schmidt. It's Smitty,
Speaker 1: My marriage to serial killer Charles Schmid, the Pied Piper
Speaker 1: of Tucson. You are a renowned author of many previous books.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about the new book project that
Speaker 1: we spoke about before this interview.
Speaker 2: Yes, actually, this book is actually in the can and
Speaker 2: it's ready for publication. I did a book about the
Speaker 2: first bio ever on a celebrity hairstylist, Jay Sebring. I
Speaker 2: did it with his nephew, Anthony D. Maria. And for
Speaker 2: years people had written about Jay because he was best
Speaker 2: known as a murder victim of the Manson family. You know,
Speaker 2: after he was murdered, a lot of these really strange
Speaker 2: and weird rumors came out about him that turned out
Speaker 2: to be completely false. So I had access through anty
Speaker 2: to all the family photos, all the documents how he
Speaker 2: built up this incredible business. He was actually the first
Speaker 2: gentleman to introduce men's hair design to the United States.
Speaker 2: A lot of people think that it was either Vidal
Speaker 2: sas Soon or somebody else, but Jay was actually the
Speaker 2: very first. He had a clientele that was a who's
Speaker 2: who Hollywood, Frank Sinatra, Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, the rat Pack.
Speaker 2: He had everybody. He was the first guy that charged
Speaker 2: one hundred dollars a haircut when at the time people
Speaker 2: were getting barbers were getting three dollars and fifty cents.
Speaker 2: So he completely revolutionized the industry. Today, I think it's
Speaker 2: like a twenty billion dollar industry. He's the guy that
Speaker 2: started it, but nobody knows who he is. So that's
Speaker 2: the book that we've written.
Speaker 1: Very interesting, and your other books that people could take
Speaker 1: a look are on Amazon as well for those that
Speaker 1: might want to take a look further. Can you do
Speaker 1: you have a website or do you any social media?
Speaker 2: I do some social media. I tease the book out.
Speaker 2: I've made some short little film clips. But yeah, that's
Speaker 2: Marshall Tarrell on Facebook. They can follow me there and
Speaker 2: of course they can Get the book at Genius Books
Speaker 2: Publishing dot com or Amazon dot com.
Speaker 1: Sounds great. Thank you so much, Marshall Terrell for coming
Speaker 1: on and talking about Smitty, my marriage to serial killer
Speaker 1: Charles Schmidt, the pied Piper of Tucson. Thank you very much,
Speaker 1: very much for this interview, and you have a great
Speaker 1: evening and good night. Thank you very much, thank you,