The Pied Piper cover art

The Pied Piper

Bloodlands collection

 Preview

Get 30 days of Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30-day free trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options
Buy Now for £1.99

Buy Now for £1.99

About this listen

With makeup and an affected Elvis pout, Tucson’s Charlie Schmid was a crude parody of a bad-boy heartthrob. In 1964, he still had a hold on girls who’d follow him anywhere. He murdered three of them.

It was the dawn of the free-love movement - perfect for a magnetic madman who’d also foreshadow its end a few years later in the malignant charisma of Charles Manson. The inspiration for a classic story by Joyce Carol Oates, Schmid, the most bizarre serial killer of any era, was the epitome of a narcissist flattered into believing he could get away with murder.

The Pied Piper is part of Bloodlands, a chilling collection of short addictive historical narratives from bestselling true-crime master Harold Schechter. Spanning a century in our nation’s murderous past, Schechter resurrects nearly forgotten tales of madmen and thrill-killers that dominated the most sensational headlines of their day.

©2018 Harold Schechter (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Americas Essays Murder Social Sciences True Crime United States Crime Nonfiction Serial Killers True Crime Nonfiction Crime
All stars
Most relevant
Well narrated short on an interesting and obscure character from the dark world of the serial killer.

A pleasant listen.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great narration, and an interesting story ,; I could have listened for a lot longer. Smitty’s victims got justice in the end by his violent and hopefully painful murder.

Interesting short story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.