Cold-Blooded: The Charles Howard Schmid Jr. Murders

by John Gilmore

COLD-BLOODED is the classic account of the murder of three young girls by Charles Schmid, Jr., teen-age idol of the lower depths of Tucson, Arizona in the Hot-Rodder mid-60s-a lost city surrounded by a bone-dry ocean of rocky deserts. Lover to many scrawny, broken girls, Schmid a champion gymnast-turned-half-baked philosopher and ultimately a lonely boy disguising an emptiness so vast that he sought to fill it by seeing how far he could go. "Racing through life at a million miles an hour," he wrote, Schmid claimed he sought the thrill of "Death's closeness" and finally reaching for the thrill of "that ultimate experience." COLD-BLOODED gives the reader a step-by-step account of the series of events which led Schmid to "killing for the thrill of it," from finding out what he always suspected, but dreaded-that he was nothing but an orphan, unwanted by his real mother the day he was born-to his strange, chaotic relation with a girl he described as being a "wreck, looking for it to happen," which led to his final killings. A high-profile murder case at the time, Schmid's trial became a launching pad for superstar defense attorney F. Lee Bailey and a sick inspiration to still-incarcerated Charles Manson. Drawn from author John Gilmore's first-hand encounters, COLD-BLOODED contains a wealth of information on Schmid, including extensive interviews describing the way his view of the world, and interviews with his teenage hangers-on, who describe at length what a larger-than-life phenomenon "Smitty" became for them. This is an intimate portrait of the seething, desperate-for-action teenage scene of the mid-1960's, through a focus on Schmid who pushed everything further that his contemporaries, allowing us to see the pitiful and frightening aspects of these aberrant, chronic runaway children, heirs to an empty culture and a rootless society.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.

John Gilmore was born in the Charity Ward of the Los Angeles County General Hospital and was raised in Hollywood. His mother had been a studio contract-player for MGM while his step-grandfather worked as head carpenter for RKO Pictures. Gilmore's parents separated when he was six months old and he was subsequently raised by his grandmother. Gilmore's father became a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer, and also wrote and acted on radio shows, a police public service (the shows featured promising movie starlets as well as established performers like Bonita Granville, Ann Rutherford, the "jungle girl" Aquanetta, Joan Davis, Hillary Brooke, Ann Jeffreys, Brenda Marshall and other players young John Gilmore became acquainted with. As a child actor, he appeared in a Gene Autry movie and bit parts at Republic Studios. He worked in LAPD safety films and did stints on radio. Eventually he appeared in commercial films. Actors Ida Lupino and John Hodiak were mentors to Gilmore, who worked in numerous television shows and feature films at Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, and Universal International studios. During the 1950s, through John Hodiak, Gilmore sustained an acquaintanceship with Marilyn Monroe in Hollywood, then in New York, where Gilmore was involved with the Actors Studio, transcribing the lectures of Lee Strasberg into book form. Gilmore performed on stage and in live TV, wrote poetry and screenplays, directed two experimental plays, one by Jean Genet. He wrote and directed a low-budget film entitled "Expressions", later changed to "Blues for Benny." The film did not get general release but was shown independently. Gilmore eventually settled into a writing career; journalist, true crime writer and novelist. He served as head of the writing program at Antioch University and has taught and lectured at length.

Reviews

[Katherine Addison · Rating 3 out of 5]

[loan--thank you, kind patron!]

This is an straightforward, bare bones account of the murderous career of Charles "Smitty" Schmid, who murdered Alleen Rowe because he wanted to know what it was like to murder someone, Gretchen Fritz because she was blackmailing him about the Rowe murder (and because he was tired of her and her drama: Gretchen & Smitty are basically a case of one sociopath consuming another), and Wendy Fritz because she had the bad luck to be with her sister. Gilmore's account is almost entirely testimony and interviews, which on the one hand is great because it's all primary sources and you do get an unpleasantly vivid sense of Schmid's personality, but on the other hand ends up feeling flat and unfinished--which may just be the effect of my personal taste rather than a problem with the book.

I think it *is* a problem with the book that it feels so disorganized. The straight chronological account with no kind of meta-narrative or assessment or exploration of contradictions is certainly verisimilitudinous, but while I look to my nonfiction reading for truth (or as close as we can ever get), this kind of chaotic quotidian verisimilitude is something my real life provides me plenty of. We find the truth of history not in replaying it like a cassette tape, as the tape gets thinner and thinner and finally breaks, but by analyzing what's on the tape. Or at least (and here my metaphor falls apart) by providing signposts to guide the reader through the disorganized facts.

This was interesting for what it was, but it could have been much more interesting if treated as history, there to be analyzed and questioned, rather than "objective" reporting.

[Fishface · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this one under the original title, THE TUCSON MURDERS. Really good. Written before writers forgot how to write and editors to edit. As much information from bystanders and the defendant himself as from the newspapers, for a change. Even-handed, thoughtful and hard to put down.

[Kristine · Rating 5 out of 5]

highly recommended for anymore interested in true crime, Tucson history or just balls out sex drugs, rock'n'roll - and murder, of course.

[Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an unusual true crime story about Charles Schmid who killed three girls in 1964-65 in Tucson, AZ and was called the "Pied Piper". The author was personally involved in the case and had access to Schmid's personal writing which is a mixed blessing reading his confused rantings. The last part of the book is boring as it elaborates on all the legal maneuvers in his two trials. ZZZZZZ,

[R · Rating 2 out of 5]

I saw the author of this book on Investigation Discovery's "A Crime to Remember", in which he was one of the people interviewed about the crime. The story was interesting in the TV show, and I wanted to read more about it.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed in the book. The copy editing was so bad that the last name of one of the principals in the book was misspelled twice on the same page. That is just one glaring example, though there are many others. That is the reason that I only give the book 2 stars.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

hilarious, except that people died.

[Jewels · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating hometown read.