The American Bluebeard Pt. 1
Serial Killers & Murderous Minds
Crime House
4.5 • 712 Ratings
🗓️ 2 February 2026
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the early 1900s, a charming German immigrant used lies, fake identities, and newspaper marriage ads to lure women into his web. What began as romance quickly turned into manipulation, financial ruin, and disappearance. Known as “The American Bluebeard,” Helmuth Schmidt built a double life fueled by control, deception, and a growing appetite for risk. As his lies multiplied and his behavior escalated, the women closest to him paid the price. This episode explores how Schmidt crafted his image, exploited trust, and crossed the line from fraud into something far more dangerous—setting the stage for one of America’s most disturbing early serial killers.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey there, we're Sabrina DeAnraoga and Corinne Vien, hosts of Crimes of. |
| 0:05.5 | Crimes of is a weekly true crime series with each season diving into a different theme, |
| 0:10.3 | from unsolved murders to mysterious disappearances and the cases that haunt us most. |
| 0:15.4 | And since this Valentine's season, we are unpacking crimes of passion, |
| 0:19.7 | when love turns into obsession, passion twists into paranoia, |
| 0:23.8 | and jealousy drives people beyond the edge of reason. |
| 0:27.0 | Crimes of is a crimehouse original. |
| 0:29.2 | Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. |
| 0:32.5 | New episodes every Tuesday. |
| 0:33.8 | Thank you. every Tuesday. |
| 0:45.5 | This is Crime House. |
| 0:51.3 | Everyone tells the occasional lie. |
| 0:56.6 | Maybe to get out of a sticky situation, to save face, or to make themselves look better. Usually, white lies are harmless, as long as the person telling them knows |
| 1:02.3 | where to draw the line. But the lies Helmut Schmidt told were anything but harmless. In the early |
| 1:10.4 | 20th century, |
| 1:11.6 | Helmut used newspaper ads to lure women into marrying him. |
| 1:15.6 | Sometimes it was a ruse to take their money. |
| 1:18.6 | Other times, he did it just for kicks. |
| 1:21.6 | But most of the time, what the women thought was a match made in heaven |
| 1:26.6 | turned out to be a fatal attraction. |
| 1:31.3 | The human mind is powerful. It shapes how we think, feel, love, and hate. But sometimes it drives |
| 1:51.9 | people to commit the unthinkable. This is serial killers and murderous minds, a crimehouse |
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