I, a Squealer

January 15, 2018
Bruns details his friendship with serial killer Charles Schmid, who was convicted of murdering three teenage girls in 1965 Tucson, in this meandering account. The book, essentially a previously unpublished manuscript written in 1967, assumes prior knowledge of the case and reflects the naïve perspective of the author, who was 20 when he wrote it. Bruns describes becoming increasingly wary of his childhood friend after hearing him boast that he “killed a teenage schoolgirl just to see what it felt like.” Still, Bruns doesn’t immediately alert police, even when he recalls Schmid’s comments about wanting to kill his girlfriend Gretchen Fritz, who, along with her younger sister, Wendy, becomes his next victim. While Bruns eventually turns Schmid in, he does nothing to generate sympathy for his involvement in the cases; instead, he wallows in self-pity, wondering what he did to deserve condemnation by his community, and justifies his delay in inculpating Schmid as a reluctance to violate “the code of youth” by squealing. John Gilmore’s Cold-Blooded: The Saga of Charles Schmid, the Notorious “Pied Piper of Tucson” remains the definitive account of these crimes. Photos.