Schmid confided to Fritz that he had murdered Rowe. One of Schmid's many girlfriends was Gretchen Fritz, daughter of a prominent Tucson heart surgeon and community leader. While the murder occurred, French was waiting in the car and listening to the radio. Before murdering Rowe, Schmid instructed Saunders to rape her, but he couldn't do it. Schmid and his friends took Rowe to the desert, where Schmid and Saunders killed her. His girlfriend, Mary French, had persuaded Rowe to go out with Saunders, but Schmid had intended all along to murder Rowe in order to know what it felt like to kill someone. On May 31, 1964, Schmid decided to murder Alleen Rowe, a high school student living with her divorced mother. He also stretched his lower lip with a clothespin to make it resemble Elvis Presley's. He used lip balm, pancake makeup and created an artificial mole on his cheek. Schmid was a short man who wore cowboy boots stuffed with newspapers and flattened cans to make him appear taller. He spent much of his time on Tucson's Speedway Boulevard, picking up girls and drinking with friends, although he tended to be a loner. His best friends were John Saunders, Richie Bruns, and Paul Graff, the latter of whom lived with him. For a time, the members of his teenage coterie would keep the secrets of his murders. Schmid was called the " Pied Piper" because he was charismatic and had many friends in Tucson's teenaged community. His parents left him to run on his own with a new car and a motorcycle. Schmid began living in his own quarters on his parents' property and received an allowance of $300 a month. Just before graduating, Schmid was suspended for stealing tools from the school's machine shop he never returned to school. An accomplished athlete, he excelled at gymnastics and even led his high school to a state championship, but quit the team in his senior year. Schmid did poorly in school, but was described as good-looking, intelligent and well-mannered. : 13 When Schmid tried to meet his birth mother, she angrily told him never to come back. He had a difficult relationship with his adoptive father, whom his adoptive mother later divorced. Charles Schmid was an illegitimate child who was adopted by Charles and Katharine Schmid, owners and operators of Hillcrest Nursing Home in Tucson, Arizona.
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