Charles Schmid, the notorious "Pied Piper of Tucson," something of a cross between Elvis Presley and Charles Manson, was charismatic, psychopathic, and totally bizarre. Stuffing tin cans in his boots to appear taller and smearing oil stains on his face to simulate a beauty moles, Schmid nonetheless won the hearts of teenage girls on Tucson’s Speedway, and soon became the ultimate "ladykiller" ... murdering the girls he no longer had any use for.

This book unearths the tale behind the murders of three teenage girls by Charles Schmid, a regular cruiser along Tucson’s glittery strip. The murders shocked the city, not only because it thought itself immune to this kind of violence, but because Schmid could not be dismissed as an isolated case, a disturbed loner. He had been popular among Tucson teenagers for years. Two of Schmid’s friends had helped him commit one of the murders–-by offering the girl a ride in Schmid’s car and later disposing of her body–and at the trial, it was determined that at least six others knew of the crimes, but did not notify the police.

Schmid was 22. He dyed his hair black and wore makeup to accentuate his large blue eyes. He had a cool car and his own house where he threw parties. His teenage friends found him mature, mysterious, "different." Later, he was also described as a lonely man who felt an inner emptiness so vast he tempted God to punish him.

This detailed account of the murders is based on interviews with Schmidt and his friends, as well as letters from him and diaries. It also contained moment-to-moment accounts of the events which led to the murders, and of his trials (he was defended by F. Lee Bailey), which drew media attention internationally. This second edition adds updated material on Schmid’s life in prison, where he was murdered in 1978 after an escape attempt, and sections of his writing and art.

As John Waters described him, ""Smitty,' as he was called, pompadoured his dyed, jet-black hair and wore a thick coat of pancake over his dirty, unshaven, handsome face.  His Casanova lips were covered in white lipstick, and he designed a quarter-inch beauty mark made of putty...Like all models, he wished he were taller, so he stuffed his boots with a three-inch layer of tin cans and rags."  

The New York Times Book Review: "I do not recommend to the sensitive of spirit John Gilmore’s account of the casual depravity of Charles Schmid in THE TUCSON MURDERS. Schmid was, to say the least, a strange young man, affecting layers of makeup and elevators in his boots to raise his 65-inch frame. He was mentally erratic, endless in feminine conquest, and oddly solitary in his cruise through an incredible teen-age thrill society in that Arizona city. That he also killed three girls in 1964-65 without the slightest evidence of remorse is without doubt, and John Gilmore has caught him squarely. Here is a narrative of shadow-life, death and trial that is revealing and shocking and most disturbing."