IntroductionAs we finish the semester, we will spend some time reflecting on the themes we have covered this semester and the evolving genre of true crime. Your final review will be in a format simila
The Pied Piper of TucsonO riginally published in Life M agazine, M arch 4, 1966
D on M oser
H ey, c’m on babe, follow m e,
I’m the Pied Piper, follow m e,
I’m the Pied Piper,
And I’ll show you w here it’s at.
Popular song
Tucson, w inter 1963
A t dusk in Tucson, as the stark, yellow flared m ountains begin to blur against the sky, the
golden car slow ly cruises Speedw ay. Sm oothly it rolls dow n the long divided avenue, past the
superm arkets, the gas stations and the m otels; past the tw ist joints, the spraw ling drivein
restaurants. The car slow s for an intersection, stops, then pulls aw ay again. The exhaust m utters
against the pavem ent as the young m an driving takes the m achine sw iftly, expertly through the
gears. A car pulls even w ith him ; the teenage girls in the front seat laugh, w ave and call his
m ane. The young m an glances tow ard the rearview m irror, turned alw ays so he can look at his
ow n reflection, and he appraises him self.
The face is his ow n creation; the hair dyed raven black, the skin darkened to a deep tan w ith
pancake m akeup, the lips w hitened, the w hole effect heightened by a m ole he has painted on
one cheek. B ut the deepset blue eyes are all his ow n. B eautiful eyes, the girls say.
A pproaching the H iH o, the teenagers’ nightclub, he backs off on the accelerator, then slow ly
cruises on past Johnie’s D rivein. The cars are beginning to orbit and accum ulate in the parking
lot— near sharp cars w ith deepthroated m ufflers and M altesecross decals on the w indow s.
B ut it’s early yet. N ot m uch going on. The driver shifts up again through the gears, and the
golden car slides aw ay along the glitter and gim crack of Speedw ay. Sm itty keeps looking for
the action.
W hether the juries in the tw o trials decide that C harles H ow ard Schm id Jr. did or did not
brutally m urder A lleen R ow e, G retchen Fritz and W endy Fritz has from the beginning seem ed of
alm ost secondary im portance to the people of Tucson. They are not indifferent. B ut w hat
disturbs them far beyond the question of Sm itty’s guilt or innocence are the revelations about
Tucson itself that have follow ed on the disclosure of the crim es. Starting from the bizarre
circum stances of the killings and on through the ugly fragm ents of the plot— w hich in turn hint at
other m urders as yet undiscovered, at teenage sex, blackm ail, even connections w ith the C osa
N ostra— they have had to view their city in a new and unpleasant light. The fact is that C harles
Schm id— w ho cannot be dism issed as a freak, an aberrant of no consequence— had for years
functioned successfully as a m em ber, even a leader, of the yeastiest stratum of Tucson’s teenage society.
A s a high school student Sm itty had been, as classm ates rem em ber, an outsider— but not that
far outside. H e w as sm all but he w as a fine athlete, and in his last year— 1960— he w as a state
gym nastics cham pion. H is grades w ere poor, but he w as in no trouble to speak of until his
senior year, w hen he w as suspended for stealing tools from a w elding class.
B ut Sm itty never really left the school. A fter his suspension he hung around w aiting to pick up
kids in a succession of sharp cars w hich he drove fast and w ell. H e haunted all the teenage
hangouts along Speedw ay, including the bow ling alleys and the public sw im m ing pool— and he
put on spectacular driving exhibitions for girls far younger than he.
A t the tim e of his arrest last N ovem ber, C harles Schm id w as 23 years old. H e w ore face
m akeup and dyed his hair. H e habitually stuffed three or four inches of old rags and tin cans
into the bottom s of his hightopped boots to m ake him self taller than his fivefootthree and
stum ble about so aw kw ardly w hile w alking that som e people thought he had w ooden feet. H e
pursed his lips and let his eyelids droop in order to em ulate his idol, Elvis Presley. H e bragged
to girls that he knew 100 w ays to m ake love, and that he ran dope, that he w as a H ell’s A ngel.
H e talked about being a rough custom er in a fight (he w as, though he w as rarely in one), and he
alw ays carried in his pocket tint bottles of salt and pepper, w hich he said he used to blind his
opponents. H e liked to use highfalutin language and had a favorite saying, “I can m anifest m y
neurotical em otions, em ancipate an epicureal instinct, and elaborate on m y heterosexual
tendencies.”
H e occasionally shocked even those w ho thought they knew him w ell. A friend says that he
once saw Sm itty tie a string to the tail of his pet cat, sw ing it around his head and beat it bloody
against a w all. Then he turned calm ly and asked, “Y ou feel com passion— w hy?”
Y et even w hile Sm itty tried to create an exalted, heroic im age of him self, he had w orked on a
pitiable one. “H e thrived on feeling sorry for him self,” recalls a friend, “and m aking others feel
sorry for him .” A t various tim es Sm itty told inm ates that he had leukem ia and didn’t have long to
live. H e claim ed that he w as adopted, that his real nam e w as A ngel R odriguez, that his father
w as a “bean” (local slang for M exican, an inferior race in Sm itty’s view ), and that his m other
w as a fam ous law yer w ho w ould have nothing to do w ith him .
W hat m ade Sm itty a hero to Tucson’s youth?
Isn’t Tucson— out there in the G olden W est, in the grand setting w here the skies are not cloudy
all day— supposed to be a flow ering of the A m erican D ream ? O ne envisions teenagers w ho
drink m ilk, w ear crew cuts, go to bed at half past 9, say “Sir” and “M a’am ,” and like to go
fishing w ith D ad. Part of Tucson is like this— but the city is not yet U topia. It is glass and
chrom e and w ellw eathered stucco; it is also gim crack, ersatz, and urban spraw l at its w orst. Its
suburbs stretch for m ile after m ile— a level sea of bungalow s, broken only by m am m oth
shopping centers, that ultim ately peters out am ong the cholla and saguaro. The city has grow n
from 85,000 to 300,000 since W orld W ar II. Few w ho live there w ere born there, and a lot are just passing through. Its superb clim ate attracts the old and the infirm , m any of w hom , as one
citizen put it, “have com e here to retire from their responsibilities to life.” Jobs are hard to find
and there is little industry to stabilize em ploym ent. (“W hat do people do in Tucson?” the visitor
asks. A nsw er: “They do each other’s laundry.”)
A s for the youngsters, they m ust com pete w ith the arm y of sem iretired w ho are w illing to take
on parttim e w ork for the m inim um w age. Schools are beautiful but overcrow ded; and at those
w ith split sessions, the kids are on the loose from noon on, or from 6 p.m . till noon the next day.
W hen they get into trouble, Tucson teenagers are capable of getting into trouble in style: a
couple of years ago they shocked the city fathers by throw ing a series of beerdrinking parties in
the desert, attended by scores of kids. The fests w ere called “boondockers” and if they w ere no
m ore sinful than any other kid’s drinking parties, they w ere at least on a m agnificent scale. O ne
statistic seem s relevant: 50 runaw ays are reported to the Tucson police departm ent each m onth.
O f an evening kids have nothing to do w ind up on Speedw ay, looking for action. There is the
teenage nightclub (“Pickup Palace,” the kids call it). There are the rock’n’roll beer joints (the
ow ners check ages m eticulously, but young girls can enter if they don’t drink; besides, anyone
can buy a phony I.D . card for $2.50 around the high schools) w here they can Jerk, Sw im , and
Frug aw ay the evening to the room shaking electronic blare of H ang on Sloopy, The Pied
Piper and a num ber called The Bo D iddley Rock. A t the drivein ham burger and pizza stands
their cars circle endlessly, m ufflers rum bling, as they check each other over.
H ere on Speedw ay you find R itchie and R onny, out of w ork and bored and w ith nothing to do.
H ere you find D ebby and Jabron, from the w rong side of the tracks, aim lessly cruising in their
battered old car looking for som ething— anything – to relieve the tedium of their lives, looking
for som ebody neat. (“W ell if the boys look bitchin’ you pull up next to them in your car and you
roll dow n the w indow and say ‘H ey, how about a dollar for gas?” and if they give you the dollar
then m aybe you let them take you to Johnie’s for a coke.”) H ere you find G retchen, pretty and
rich and w ith problem s, bad problem s. O f a Saturday night, all of them cruising the long, bright
street that seem s endlessly in m otion w ith the young. Sm itty’s people.
H e had a nice car. H e had plenty of m oney from his parents, w ho ran a nursing hom e, and he
w as alw ays glad to spend it on anyone w ho’d listen to him . H e had a pad of his ow n w here he
threw parties and he had im peccable m anners. H e w as alw ays w illing to help a friend and he
w ould send flow ers to girls w ho w ere ill. H e w as older and m ore m ature than m ost of his
friends. H e knew w here the action w as, and if he w ore m akeup— w ell, at least he w as
different.
Som e of the older kids— those w ho w orked, w ho had som ething else to do— thought Sm itty
w as a creep. B ut to the youngsters— to the bored and the lonely, to the dropout and the
delinquent, to the young girls w ith beehive hairdos and tight pants they didn’t quite fill out, and to
the boys w ith acne and no jobs— to these people, Sm itty w as a kind of folk hero. N utty m aybe,
but at least m ore dram atic, m ore theatrical, m ore interesting than anyone else in their lives: a sem iludicrous, sexyeyed pied piper w ho, stum bling along in his ragstuffed boots, led them up
and dow n Speedw ay.
O n the evening of M ay 31, 1964, A lleen R ow e prepared to go to bad early. She had to be in
class by 6 a.m ., and she had an exam ination the next day. A lleen w as a pretty girl of 15, a
betterthanaverage student w ho talked about going to college and becom ing an
oceanographer. She w as also a sensitive child— given to reading rom antic novels and taking
long w alks in the desert at night. R ecently she had been going through a period of adolescent
m elancholia, often talking w ith her m other, a nurse, about death. She w ould, she hoped, be
som e day reincarnated as a cat.
O n this evening, dressed in a black bathing suit and thongs, her usual costum e around the house,
she had w atched the B eatles on TV and had tried to teach her m other to dance the Frug. Then
she took her bath, w ashed her hair and cam e out to kiss her m other good night. N orm a R ow e,
an attractive, w om anly divorcee, w as som ehow m oved by the girl’s clean fragrance and said,
“Y ou sm ell so good— are you w earing perfum e?”
“N o, M om ,” the girl answ ered, laughing, “it’s just m e.”
A little later M rs. R ow e looked in on her daughter, found her apparently sleeping peacefully,
and then left for her job as a night nurse in a Tucson hospital. She had no prem onition of danger,
but she had lately been concerned about A lleen’s friendship w ith a neighbor girl nam ed M ary
French.
M ary and A lleen had been spending a good deal of tim e together, sm oking and giggling and
talking girl talk in the R ow e backyard. N orm a R ow e did not approve. She particularly did not
approve of M ary French’s friends, a tall, gangling boy of 19 nam ed John Saunders and another
nam ed C harles Schm id. She had seen Sm itty racing up and dow n the street in his car and once,
w hen he cam e to call on A lleen and found her not at hom e, he had looked at N orm a so
m enacingly w ith his “pinpoint eyes” that she had been frightened.
H er daughter, on the other hand, seem ed to have m ixed feelings about Sm itty. “H e’s creepy,”
she once told her m other, “he just m akes m e craw l. B ut he can be nice w hen he w ants to.”
A t any rate, later that night— according to M ary French’s sw orn testim ony— three friends
arrived at A lleen R ow e’s house: Sm itty, M ary French and Saunders. Sm itty had frequently
talked w ith M ary French about killing the R ow e girl by hitting her over the head w ith a rock.
M ary French tapped on A lleen’s w indow and asked her to com e out and drink beer w ith them .
W earing a shift over her bathing suit, she cam e w illingly enough.
Schm id’s accom plices w ere strange and pitiable creatures. Each of them w as afraid of Sm itty,
yet each w as draw n to him . A s a baby, John Saunders had been so afflicted w ith allergies that
scabs encrusted his entire body. To keep him from scratching him self his parents had tied his
hands and feet to the crib each night, and w hen eventually he w as cured he w as so conditioned that he could not go to sleep w ithout being bound hand and foot.
Later, a scraw ny boy w ith poor eyesight (“Just a skinny little body w ith a big head on it”), he
w as taunted and bullied by larger children; in turn he bullied those w ho w ere sm aller. H e also
suffered badly from asthm a and he had few friends. In high school he w as a poor student and
constantly in m inor trouble.
M ary French, 19, w as— to put it straight— a frum p. H er face, w hich m ight have been pretty,
seem ed som ehow lum py, her body shapeless. She w as not dull but she w as alw ays a poor
student, and she finally had sim ply stopped going to high school. She w as, a friend rem em bers,
“fantastically in love w ith Sm itty. She just sat hom e and w aited w hile he w ent out w ith other
girls.”
N ow , w ith Sm itty at the w heel, the four teenagers headed for the desert, w hich begins out G olf
Links R oad. It is spooky country, dry and em pty, the yellow sand clotted w ith cholla and
m esquite and stunted, strangely green palo verde trees, and the great hum anoid saguaro that
hulk against the sky. O ut there at night you can hear the yip and kiyi of coyotes, the piercing
scream s of w ild creatures— cats, perhaps.
A ccording to M ary French, they got out of the car and w alked dow n into a w ash, w here they
sat on the sand and talked for a w hile, the four of them . Schm id and M ary then started back to
the car. B efore they got there, they heard a cry and Schm id turned back tow ard the w ash.
M ary w ent on to the car and sat in it alone. A fter 45 m inutes, Saunders appeared and said
Sm itty w anted her to com e back dow n. She refused, and Saunders w ent aw ay. Five or 10
m inutes later, Sm itty show ed up. “H e got into the car,” says M ary, “and he said ‘W e killed her.
I love you very m uch.’ H e kissed m e. H e w as breathing real hard and seem ed excited.” Then
Schm id got a shovel from the trunk of the car and they returned to the w ash. “She w as lying on
her back and there w as blood on her face and head,” M ary French testified. Then the three of
them dug a shallow grave and put the body in it and covered it up. A fterw ards, they w iped
Schm id’s car clean of A lleen’s fingerprints.
M ore than a year passed. N orm a R ow e had reported her daughter m issing and the police
searched for her— after a fashion. A t M rs. R ow e’s insistence they picked up Schm id, but they
had no reason to hold him . The police, in fact, assum ed that A lleen w as just one m ore of
Tucson’s runaw ays.
N orm a R ow e, how ever, had becom e convinced that A lleen had been killed by Schm id,
although she left her kitchen light on every night just in case A lleen did com e hom e. She
badgered the police and she badgered the sheriff until the authorities began to dism iss her as a
crank. She began to im agine a highlevel conspiracy against her. She w rote the state attorney
general, the FB I, the U .S. D epartm ent of health, Education and W elfare. She even contacted a
N ew Jersey m ystic, w ho said she could see A lleen’s body out in the desert under a big tree.
U ltim ately N orm a R ow e started her ow n investigation, questioning A lleen’s friends, poking around, dictating her findings to a tape recorder; she even tailed Sm itty at night, follow ing him in
her car, scared stiff that he m ight spot her.
Schm id, during this tim e, acquired a little house of his ow n. There he held frequent parties,
w here people sat around am id his stacks of Playboy m agazines, playing Elvis Presley records
and drinking beer.
H e read Jules Feiffer’s novel, H arry, the Rat w ith W om en, and said that his am bition w as to
be like H arry and have a girl com m it suicide over him . O nce, according to a friend, he w ent to
see a m inister, w ho gave him a B ible and told him to read the first three chapters of John.
Instead Schm id tore the pages out and burned them in the street. “R eligion is a farce,” he
announced. H e started an upholstery business w ith som e friends, called him self “founder and
president,” but then failed to put up the m oney he’d prom ised and the venture w as shortlived.
H e decided he liked blondes best, and took to dyeing the hair of various teenage girls he w ent
around w ith. H e w ent out and bought tw o im itation diam ond rings for about $13 apiece and
then engaged him self, on the sam e day, both to M ary French and to a 15yearold girl nam ed
K athy M orath. H is plan, he confided to a friend, w as to put each of the girls to w ork and have
them deposit their salaries in a bank account held jointly w ith him . M ary French did indeed go
to w ork in the convalescent hom e Sm itty’s parents operated. W hen their bank account w as fat
enough, Sm itty w ithdrew the m oney and bought a tape recorder.
B y this tim e Sm itty also had a girl from a higher social stratum than he usually w as involved w ith.
She w as G retchen Fritz, daughter of a prom inent Tucson heart surgeon. G retchen w as a pretty,
thin, nervous girl of 17 w ith a knack for trouble. A teacher described her as “erratic, subversive,
a psychopathic liar.”
A t the horsy private school she attended for a tim e she w as a m isfit. She not only didn’t care
about horses, but she shocked her classm ates by telling them they w ere foolish for going out
w ith boys w ithout getting paid for it. O nce she even com m itted the unpardonable social sin of
turning up at a form al dance accom panied by boys w earing w hat w as described as beatnik
dress. She cut classes, she w as suspected of stealing and w hen, in the sum m er before her senior
year, she got into trouble w ith juvenile authorities for her role in an attem pted theft at a liquor
store, the headm aster suggested she not return and then recom m ended she get psychiatric
treatm ent.
C harles Schm id saw G retchen for the first tim e at a public sw im m ing pool in the sum m er of
1964. H e m et her by the sim ple expedient of follow ing her hom e, knocking on the door and,
w hen she answ ered, saying, “D on’t I know you?” They talked for an hour. Thus began a fierce
and storm y relationship. A good deal of w hat authorities know of the developm ent of this
relationship com es from the statem ents of a spindly scarecrow of a young m an w ho w ears
pipestem trousers and B eatle boot: R ichard B runs. A t the tim e Sm itty w as becom ing involved
w ith G retchen, B runs w as 18 years old. H e had served tw o term s in the reform atory at Fort
G rant. H e had been in and out of trouble his w hole life, had never fit in anyw here. Y et, although
he never w ent beyond the tenth grade in school and his credibility on m any counts is suspect, he is clearly intelligent and even sensitive. H e w as, for a tim e, Sm itty’s closest friend and confidant,
and he is today one of the m ainstays of the state’s case against Sm itty. H is story:
“H e and G retchen w ere alw ays fighting,” says B runs. “She didn’t w ant him to drink or go out
w ith the guys or go out w ith other girls. She w anted him to stay hom e, call her on the phone, be
punctual. First she w ould get suspicious of him , then he’d get suspicious of her. They w ere
m ade for each other.”
Their m utual jealousy led to sharp and continual argum ents. O nce she infuriated him by throw ing
a bottle of shoe polish on his car. A nother tim e she w as driving past Sm itty’s house and saw him
there w ith som e other girls. She jum ped out of her car and began scream ing. Sm itty took off
into the house, out the back and clim bed a tree in his backyard.
H is feelings for her w ere an odd m ixture of hate and adoration. H e said he w as m adly in love
w ith her, but he called her a w hore. She w ould let Sm itty in her bedroom w indow at night. Y et
he w rote an anonym ous letter to the Tucson H ealth D epartm ent accusing her of having venereal
disease and spreading it about tow n. B ut Sm itty also w ent to enorm ous lengths to im press
G retchen, once shooting holes through the w indow s of his car and telling her that thugs, from
w hom he w as protecting her, had fired at him . So B runs described the relationship.
O n the evening of A ug. 16, 1965, G retchen Fritz left the house w ith her little sister W endy, a
friendly, lively 13yearold, to go to a drivein m ovie. N either girl ever cam e hom e again.
G retchen’s father, like A lleen R ow e’s m other, felt sure that C harles Schm id had som ething to
do w ith his daughters’ disappearance, and eventually he hired B ill H eilig, a private detective, to
handle the case. O ne of H eilig’s m en soon found G retchen’s red com pact car parked behind a
m otel, but the police continued to assum e that the girls had joined the ranks of Tucson’s
runaw ays.
A bout a w eek after G retchen disappeared, B runs w as at Sm itty’s house. “W e w ere sitting in the
living room ,” B runs recalls. “H e w as sitting on the sofa and I w as in the chair by the w indow and
w e got on the subject of G retchen. H e said, ‘Y ou know I killed her?’ I said I didn’t, and he
said ‘Y ou know w here?’ I said no. H e said, ‘I did it here in the living room . First I killed
G retchen, then W endy w as still going “huh, huh, huh,” so I … [H ere B runs show ed how
Sm itty m ade a garroting gesture.] Then I took the bodies and I put them in the trunk of the car. I
put the bodies in the m ost obvious place I could think of because I just didn’t care anym ore.
Then I ditched the car and w iped it clean.’”
B runs w as not particularly upset by Sm itty’s story. M onths before, Sm itty had told him of the
m urder of A lleen R ow e, and nothing had com e of that. So he w as not certain Sm itty w as telling
the truth about the Fritz girls. B esides, B runs detested G retchen him self. B ut w hat happened
next, still according to B runs’s story, did shake him up.
O ne night not long after, a couple of toughlooking characters, w earing sharp suits and sm oking
cigars, cam e by w ith Sm itty and picked up B runs. Sm itty said they w ere M afia, and that som eone had hired them to look for G retchen. Sm itty and B runs w ere taken to an apartm ent
w here several m en w ere present w hom Sm itty later claim ed to have recognized as local C osa
N ostra figures.
They w anted to know w hat had happened to the girls. They m ade no threats, but the m essage,
B runs rem em bers, cam e across loud and clear. These w ere no streetcorner punks: these w ere
the real boys. In spite of the intim idating com pany, Schm id lost none of his insouciance. H e said
he didn’t know w here G retchen w as, but if she turned up hurt he w anted these m en to help him
get w hoever w as responsible. H e added that she m ight have gone to C alifornia.
B y the tim e Sm itty and B runs got back to Sm itty’s house, they w ere both a little shaky. Later
that night, says B runs, Sm itty did the m ost unlikely thing im aginable: he called the FB I. First he
tried the Tucson office and couldn’t raise anyone. Then he called Phoenix and couldn’t get an
agent there either. Finally he put in a persontoperson call to J. Edgar H oover in W ashington.
H e didn’t get H oover, of course, but he got som eone and told him that the M afia w as harassing
him over the disappearance of a girl. The FB I prom ised to have som eone in touch w ith him
soon.
B runs w as scared and said so. It occurred to him now that if Sm itty really had killed the Fritz
girls and left their bodies in an obvious place, they w ere in very bad trouble indeed— w ith the
M afia on one hand and the FB I on the other. “Let’s go bury them ,” B runs said.
“Sm itty stole the keys to his old m an’s station w agon,” says B runs, “and then w e got a flat
shovel— the only one w e could find. W e w ent to Johnie’s and got a ham burger, and then w e
drove out to the old drinking spot [in the desert]— that’s w hat Sm itty m eant w hen he said the
m ost obvious place. It’s w here w e used to drink beer and m ake out w ith girls.
“So w e parked the car and got the shovel and w alked dow n there, and w e couldn’t find
anything. Then Sm itty said, ‘W ait, I sm ell som ething.’ W e w ent in opposite directions looking,
and then I heard Sm itty say, ‘C om e here.’ I found him kneeling over G retchen. There w as a
w hite rag tied around her legs. H er blouse w as pulled up and she w as w earing a w hite bra and
C apris.
“Then he said, ‘W endy’s up this w ay.’ I sat there for a m inute. Then I follow ed Sm itty to w here
W endy w as. H e’d had the decency to cover her— except for one leg, w hich w as sticking up out
of the ground.
“W e tried to dig w ith the flat shovel. W e each took turns. H e’d dig for a w hile and then I’d dig
for a w hile, but the ground w as hard and w e couldn’t get anyw here w ith that flat shovel. W e
dug for tw enty m inutes and finally Sm itty said w e’d better do som ething because it’s going to
get light. So he grabbed the rag that w as around G retchen’s legs and dragged her dow n in the
w ash. It m ade a noise like dragging a hollow shell. It stunk like hell. Then Sm itty said w ipe off
her shoes, there m ight be fingerprints, so I w iped them off w ith m y handkerchief and threw it
aw ay.
“W e w ent back to W endy. H er leg w as sticking up w ith a shoe on it. H e said take off her tennis
shoe and throw it over there. I did, I threw it. Then he said, ‘N ow you’re in this as deep as I
am .’” B y then, the sisters had been m issing for about tw o w eeks.
Early next m orning Sm itty did see the FB I. N evertheless— here B runs’s story grow s even
w ilder— that sam e day Sm itty left for C alifornia, accom panied by a couple of M afia types, to
look for G retchen Fritz. W hile there, he w as picked up by the San D iego police on a com plaint
the he w as im personating an FB I officer. H e w as detained briefly, released and returned to
Tucson.
B ut now , it seem ed to R ichard B runs, Sm itty began acting very strangely. H e startled B runs by
saying, “I’ve killed— not three tim es, but four. N ow it’s your turn, R itchie.” H e w ent berserk in
his little house, sm ashing his fist through a w all, slam m ing doors, then rushing out into the
backyard in nothing but his undershorts, w here he ran through the night scream ing, “G od is
going to punish m e!” H e also decided, suddenly, to get m arried— to a 15yearold girl w ho w as
a stranger to m ost of his friends.
If Sm itty seem ed to B runs to be losing his grip, R itchie B runs him self w as not in m uch better
shape. H is particular quirk revolved around K athy M orath, the thin, pretty, 16yearold
daughter of a Tucson postm an. K athy had once been attracted to Sm itty. H e had given her one
of his tw o cutglass engagem ent rings. B ut Sm itty never really took her seriously, and one day,
in a fit of pique and jealousy, she threw the ring back in his face. R itchie B runs com forted her
and then started dating her him self. H e w as soon utterly and irrevocably sm itten w ith goofy
adoration.
K athy accepted B runs as a suitor, but halfheartedly. She thought him w eird (oddly enough, she
did not think Sm itty in the least w eird) and their rom ance w as shortlived. A fter she broke up
w ith him last July, B runs w ent into a blue funk, a nosedive into rom antic m elancholy, and then,
like som e lovesw acked Elizabethan poet, he started pouring out his heart to her on paper. H e
sent her poem s, short stories, letters 24 pages long. (“M y G od, you should have read the stuff,”
says her perplexed father. “H is letters w ere so rom antic it w as like ‘N ext w eek, East Lynne.’”
B runs even began w riting a novel dedicated to “M y D arling K athy.”
If B runs had confined him self to literary catharsis, the m urders of the R ow e and Fritz girls m ight
never have been disclosed. B ut R itchie w ent a little bit around the bend. H e becam e obsessed
w ith the notion that K athy M orath w as the next victim on Sm itty’s list. Som eone had cut the
M oraths’ screen door, there had been a prow ler around her house, and B runs w as sure that it
w as Sm itty. (K athy and her father, m eantim e, w ere sure it w as B runs.)
“I started having this dream ,” B runs says. “It w as the sam e dream every night. Sm itty w ould
have K athy out in the desert and he’d be doing all those things to her, and strangling her, and
I’d be running across the desert w ith a gun in m y hand, but I could never get there.”
If B runs couldn’t save K athy in his dream s, he could, he figured, stop a w alking, breathing Sm itty. H is schem e for doing so w as so w ild and so sim ple that it put the w hole M orath fam ily
into a state of panic and very nearly landed B runs in jail.
B runs undertook to stand guard over K athy M orath. H e kept w atch in front of her house, in the
alley, and in the street. H e patrolled the sidew alk from early in the m orning till late at night, seven
days a w eek. If K athy w as hom e he w ould be there. If she w ent out, he w ould follow her.
K athy’s father called the police, and w hen they told B runs he couldn’t loiter around like that,
B runs fetched his dog and w alked the anim al up and dow n the block, hour after hour.
B runs by now w as w allow ing in feelings of sacrifice and nobility— all of it unappreciated by
K athy M orath and her parents. A t the end of O ctober, he w as finally arrested for harassing the
M orath fam ily. The judge, facing the obviously w oebegone and sm itten young m an, told B runs
that he w ouldn’t be jailed if he’d agree to get out of tow n until he got over his infatuation.
B runs agreed and a few days later w ent to O hio to stay w ith his grandm other and try to get a
job. It w as hopeless. H e couldn’t sleep at night, and if he did doze off he had his old nightm are
again.
O ne night he blurted out the w hole story to his grandm other in their kitchen. She thought he had
had too m any beers and didn’t believe him . “I hear beer does strange things to a person,” she
said com fortingly. A t her w ords B runs exploded, knocked over a chair and shouted, “The one
tim e in m y life w hen I need advice and w hat do I get?” A few m inutes later he w as on the phone
to the Tucson police.
Things happened sw iftly. A t B runs’s frantic insistence, the police picked up K athy M orath and
put her in protective custody. They w ent into the desert and discovered— precisely as B runs
had described them — the grisly, skeletal rem ains of G retchen and W endy Fritz. They started the
m achinery that resulted in the arrest a w eek later of John Saunders and M ary French. They
found C harles Schm id w orking in the yard of his little house, his face layered w ith m akeup, his
nose covered by a patch of adhesive plaster w hich he had w orn for five m onths, boasting that
his nose w as broken in a fight, and his boots packed full of old rags and tin cans. H e put up no
resistance.
John Saunders and M ary French confessed im m ediately to their roles in the slaying of A lleen
R ow e and w ere quickly sentenced, M ary French to four to five years, Saunders to life. W hen
Sm itty goes on trial for this crim e, on M arch 15, they w ill be principal w itnesses against him .
M eanw hile R itchie B runs, the perpetual m isfit, w aits apprehensively for the end of the Fritz trial,
desperately afraid that Schm id w ill go free. “If he does,” B runs says glum ly, “I’ll be the first one
he’ll kill.”
A s for C harles Schm id, he has adjusted w ell to his period of w aiting. H e is polite and agreeable
w ith all, though at the prelim inary hearings he glared m enacingly at R itchie B runs. D ressed
tastefully, tie neatly knotted, hair carefully com bed, his face scrubbed clean of m akeup, he is a short, com pact, darkly handsom e young m an w ith a w ide, engaging sm ile and those deepset
eyes.
The people of Tucson w ait uneasily for w hat fresh scandal the tw o trials m ay develop. C ivic
leaders publicly cry that a slur has been cast on their com m unity by an isolated crim e. H igh
school students have held rallies and w ritten vehem ent editorials in the school papers, protesting
that they all are being judged by the actions of a few oddballs and m isfits. B ut the city
reverberates w ith stories of organized teenage crim e and vice, in w hich Sm itty is cast in the role
of a m inorleague underw orld boss. N one of these later stories has been substantiated.
O ne disclosure, how ever, has m ost disturbing im plications: Sm itty’s boasts m ay have been
heard not just by B runs and his other intim ates, but by other teenagers as w ell. H ow
m any— and precisely how m uch they knew — it rem ains im possible to say. O ne authoritative
source, how ever, having listened to the adm issions of six high school students, says they
unquestionably knew enough so that they should have gone to the police— but w ere either afraid
to talk, or didn’t w ant to rock the boat. A s for Sm itty’s friends, the thought of telling the police
never entered their m inds.
“I didn’t know he killed her,” said one, “and even if I had, I w ouldn’t have said anything. I
w ouldn’t w ant to be a fink.”
O ut in the respectable Tucson suburbs parents have started to crack dow n on the youngsters
and have declared Speedw ay hangouts off lim its. “I thought m y folks w ere bad before,” lam ents
one grounded 16yearold, “but now they’re just im possible.”
A s for the others— Sm itty’s people— m ost don’t care very m uch. Things are duller w ithout
Sm itty around, but things have alw ays been dull.
“There’s nothing to do in this tow n,” says one of his girls, shaking her dyed blond hair. “The
only other tow n I know is Las V egas and there’s nothing to do there either.” For her, and for
her friends, there’s nothing to do in any tow n.
They are dow n on Speedw ay again tonight, cruising, orbiting the driveins, stopping by the
joints, w here the w ords of The Bo D iddley Rock cut through the sm oke and the electronic
dissonance like som e m acabre rem inder of their fallen hero:
All you w om en stand in line,
And I’ll love you all in an hour’s tim e… .
I got a cobra snake for a necktie,
I got a brandnew house on the roadside
C overed w ith rattlesnake hide,
I got a brandnew chim ney m ade on top,
M ade out of hum an skulls.
C om e on baby, take a w alk w ith m e,
And tell m e, w ho do you love? W ho do you love?
W ho do you love?
W ho do you love?
The Pied Piper of Tucson— Life M agazine M arch 4, 1966 http://books.google.com /books
