I, a Squealer

The year was 1965. The Beatles, Elvis Presley, and The Righteous Brothers filled the airwaves. Television shows like “The Adventures of Ozzy and Harriett” and “The Andy Griffith Show” mirrored the innocence of life in the dusty city of Tucson, Az. But the sunbaked desert surrounding Tucson was hiding a sinister secret. A psychopath named Charles Schmid, later nicknamed the “Pied Piper of Tucson” by Life Magazine, would steal that innocence away, along with the lives of three beautiful teenage girls.

In this firsthand account written in 1967, Richard Bruns shares the evolution of his friendship with Schmid, the details of getting involved way in over his head, and how he finally summoned the courage to blow the whistle to end the deadly rampage that shocked the nation and changed the city of Tucson forever.

Richard Bruns is the man who turned Charles Howard Schmid Jr aka “The Pied Piper of Tucson” into the authorities and was the star witness for the prosecution in the cases against Schmid. He wrote his first hand account at the time of the trials in 1967. Bruns is a retired teacher and continues to reside in Tucson, Az.