Episode 224: Alleen Rowe and Gretchen and Wendy Fritz | The Pied Piper of Tucson
True Crime Couple
True Crime Couple Podcast
4.7 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 8 February 2026
⏱️ 127 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
By the summer of 1965 three teenage girls had gone missing from Tucson, AZ. When the truth would finally come to light the members of the community would be forced to question everything they knew to be true…and also what their children had been up to.
Join me as I tell John the cases of Alleen Rowe and Gretchen and Wendy Fritz.
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Sources:
https://altsclass.weebly.com/uploads/3/8/8/0/38808759/lifemagazinepiedpiper.doc.pdf
https://tucson.com/morguetales/article_db508906-e3de-11df-af58-001cc4c002e0.html
https://tucson.com/morguetales/article_0826e27c-e245-11df-b65f-001cc4c03286.html
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/166810356/james_mcilroy-fritz#view-photo=162428330
https://law.justia.com/cases/arizona/supreme-court/1973/1720-0.html
Newspapers.com Access to the Daily News,Arizona Daily Star, and the Los Angeles Times from 1966-182
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey guys, welcome to episode 224 of the true crime couple. I'm Kay. And I'm John. We hope that you're all |
| 0:06.3 | doing well and that you're ready for another episode. As always, we want to thank you for spending |
| 0:11.4 | your time with us and supporting the podcast in any way that you do. Whether you just found us or you've |
| 0:17.9 | been around since the beginning, we can never express how much we |
| 0:21.6 | appreciate you. And how much we appreciate the fact that even though, you know, we might not be |
| 0:29.0 | 100% on our game right now because we're doing this all with a baby under one years old. You guys are |
| 0:35.3 | still being so supportive and, you know, taking everything |
| 0:39.0 | with a grain of salt. So we appreciate you all for doing that as well. And if one of those ways |
| 0:45.1 | that you are supporting us is newly through Patreon, please stay tuned at the end of the episode |
| 0:50.4 | where we will thank you personally for joining. Now, if you want ad-free episodes and two |
| 0:56.4 | bonus episodes a month, please sign up at patreon.com slash true crime couple. You can sync the |
| 1:02.9 | RSS feed that you get from Patreon to Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you listen. Okay, I think that |
| 1:10.5 | covers it all. So, John, would you like to hear |
| 1:14.8 | something crazy? Of course. When historians say history repeats itself, we really do mean it. |
| 1:23.8 | But the problem with the phrase is that people never really notice history is repeating itself until it comes right up and hits you in the face. |
| 1:33.4 | An example of this history can be seen in westward movement in the United States migration patterns. |
| 1:40.6 | Yes, the idea of westward expansion across the American continent was fueled by inherent racist beliefs, personal greed, and entitlement. |
| 1:50.3 | But let's take a look instead at the individuals who actually made the journey. |
| 1:55.5 | Whether it be in hopes of striking gold, starting a farm under the Homestead Act, following the trails or railways |
| 2:03.3 | in order to establish life as a wage worker running from the law or the debt that you accumulated. |
| 2:10.7 | The exodusters or the Sun Belt movement, the tech boom, all of these things, although |
| 2:17.1 | scattered throughout history, involve many different |
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