Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / AFP / Getty Images
Alleen Rowe, age fifteen, was murdered by Charles Schmid in the desert outside of Tucson, Arizona, on 31 May 1964.
Earlier in the night, the criminal had allegedly told his friends: “I want to kill a girl! I want to do it tonight. I think I can get away with it!”.
Constantly trying to compensate for his short stature, Charles Schmid wore oversized cowboy boots stuffed with rags to enhance his posture. He was also a known pathological liar who told girls he was terminally ill and had mob connections , while to his friends, he constantly bragged about his sexual exploits.
When Schmid had 22 years old, recruited John Saunders and Mary French to help kill Alleen Rowe. They lured the girl into the desert , where Schmid raped her and then smashed her head in with a rock before they each took turns digging a shallow grave to bury her.
By providing alibis for each other, the trio allowed the police to rule out the Rowe’s disappearance as a runaway case.
Most of the community Tuscon teenager had already heard rumors that Schmid, Saunders and French were responsible, but no one came forward.
The following year, Gretchen Fritz, aged 22 years old, who had been secretly dating Schmid, disappeared along with her younger sister Wendy. Schmid, who had killed the sisters in the desert, couldn’t resist telling someone, so he enlisted the help of Richard Bruns to bury the bodies.
Schmid later boasted of having killed four people, but that fourth was never confirmed. Bruns soon began to fear that Schmid would kill his own girlfriend and therefore told the police about the Fritz murders some three months later.
The subsequent trial garnered national attention as an example of the depravity of youth in the decade of 1960.
Schmid was convicted and sentenced to death, but survived because the Supreme Court invalidated most of the death sentences. death in 1975.
Later that year, he escaped from state prison, only to be captured a few days later. Died in 1975.
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