Tales from the Morgue: The Pied Piper of Tucson, Part 10

Charles Schmid Jr. killed Gretchen and Wendy Fritz at his home on E. Adams St., Richard Bruns testified yesterday.

"I did it right here," Bruns quoted Schmid as saying a week after the girls disappeared last Aug. 16 while the two were at Schmid's house.

Bruns, 19, said Schmid claimed he killed Gretchen first and then Wendy. He put the girls' bodies in their car, took them out on Pontatoc Rd. near "the drinking spot" and dumped them, Bruns claimed.

One week later Bruns said he and Schmid went out to the area where the bodies were located and tried unsuccessfully to bury them. Gretchen's body was moved from the side of the hill into the wash so that it would not be easily found.

Bruns, an unemployed printing press operator, said Schmid told him the bodies were first put "in an obvious place where he would get caught."

Schmid also confessed to him how he and John Saunders killed Alleen Rowe, Bruns said yesterday.

Bruns said Schmid told him that he (Schmid) and Saunders had sexual relations with the 15-year-old Rowe girl in the desert wash southeast of Tucson and then they got a rock and killed her.

"If Mary French ever knew he (Schmid) had relations with Alleen Rowe, she would kill him," Bruns said Schmid told him.

Bruns, tall and lanky with dark, swept back hair, spoke calmly during the nearly three hours he was on the witness stand yesterday afternoon. He looked frequently at Schmid but he never showed any sign that he knew the defendant.

Schmid sat erect in his chair during most of Bruns' testimony. He remained impassive as he has all during the trial which ended its seventh day yestrerday.

During a recess in the trial, however, Schmid told a reporter, "This isn't over by a long shot." It was the first thing Schmid has said to anyone other than his attorney since the trial began.

The trial also took on overtones of the Mafia when the names Battaglia and Bonanno were mentioned by Bruns.

The witness said two weeks after the Fritz sisters disappeared he and Schmid were driven to an apartment building in Alvernon Way south of Speedway. Bruns said he recognized one of the men who did most of the talking as "Battaglia or something like that" from pictures in the papers.

Bruns said he also believed one of the men was "one of the Bonanno brothers."

Schmid said the men had been contacted to try and find the Fritz girls after they disappeared. Bruns said he thought he was threatened by the men.

Bruns testified that he and Schmid went out to the scene where the girls' bodies had been dumped right after the meeting with the two men.

Bruns said it was his idea to go to the area and bury the bodies. "I wanted to know if it were true (Schmid confessing to killing the Fritz sisters)," Bruns said.

After returning from their unsuccessful attempt to bury the bodies, Bruns said he and Schmid went downtown and spent two to three hours talking to FBI agents. Bruns said he told the agents nothing about the killing or the bodies.

Bruns said he had never been to the specific site where the bodies were located before Schmid took him there. But he said this was near the drinking spot off Pontatoc Rd. near the radio towers in the Catalina foothills.

"He couldn't find the bodies at first because it was dark," Bruns said. "But then he said, 'wait a minute, I smell her.' He then nodded and said it was Gretchen."

After failing to dig a grave, Bruns said (he) grabbed a rag on Gretchen's leg and dragged her down into a wash. Schmid asked him to wipe finger prints off her shoes. Bruns also said Schmid asked him to throw one of Wendy's shoes away.

"You're in it as deep as I am now," Bruns testified Schmid said then they were leaving the area.

Bruns related how Schmid had at one time taken Gretchen to see where Alleen Rowe was buried in another wash southeast of Tucson.

"He told me she said she didn't care what he had done and that she would always love him," Bruns said.

Midway through his testimony Bruns was asked by Prosecutor William Schafer how he had learned where Miss Rowe's body was.

"Smitty, Saunders, and another guy and I were hunting east of town one day and Smitty and John told us they were going to walk down the wash and scare some rabbits out our way.

"Later on he told me he had gone to the grave of Alleen Rowe. He said some animals had cut their way into the grave and had eaten her," Bruns testified.

The body of the Rowe girl has never been found although Saunders has pleaded guilty to taking part in her killing and was sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in the slaying.

Bruns said he never made any of the following threatening statements about Gretchen: "I'd like to kill her — I'm going to kill her — If I ever get a chance I would like to bash her head in — She's not good enough for Schmid."

These statements were reported by Paul Ginn, 23, of New Orleans. His testimony was admitted in evidence by Judge Garrett yesterday. Ginn gave the testimony in court Friday out of the hearing of the jury.

The judge ruled that the third party testimony would be allowed to show motive.

Defense Atty. William Tinney in his opening statement to the jury, said that Bruns, not Schmid, killed the Fritz sisters and that he intended to prove it.

Bruns said he was angry with Gretchen and he disliked her for blackballing him at school but that he did not hate her.

Bruns said he was at his home the night the Fritz sisters disappeared. He said he saw the car Gretchen used go by his house two times that night but he could not say who was in it. He said Schmid later told him he was the driver.

In the testimony (out of the hearing) of the jury yesterday, Ginn said that he had heard Bruns say, "I'd like to kill her (Gretchen)."

Following his testimony on the stand Ginn told a reporter, "I utterly despise Tucson, its police, the Tucson newspapers and you. I hope I never come here again. All I want to do is get out of this town. You had your say in 1957."

Ginn was sent to Ft. Grant in 1957 for killing Air Force Capt. Charles Wester on the Mt. Lemmon Hwy.

Ginn said that Schmid knew he had killed Wester but he would not say if they talked about the killing. He refused to say any more and left Tucson on a bus yesterday morning.

Mrs. Betty Fields, who formerly lived at Schmid's house at E. Adams St. with her husband said that Schmid had spoken of a diary often. He said the diary had enough information in it to send him to the electric chair.

"Smitty, you're kidding," Mrs. Fields recalled she said.

"I'm making plans now," Schmid replied. "I've got to get that diary somehow."

Schmid told her that Gretchen took the diary from his house about the first of July, 1965.

Mrs. Fields said Schmid had remarked after conversations with Gretchen over the phone, "I'm going to kill that little . . . "

Mrs. Fields said the black electric guitar cord found at the murder scene was similar toi the one she worked on while living at Schmid's house last July.

The Fritz sisters disappeared last Aug. 16. Schmid was arrested for the murders Nov. 10 after Bruns led police to the skeletons and said Schmid admitted the killings to him.