The Blonde Who Pulled The Trigger

True Crime Historian

Richard O Jones

True Crime, Performing Arts, Documentary, Arts, Society & Culture

4.5 • 720 Ratings

🗓️ 4 November 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The True Crime of Irene Schroeder

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Episode 32 takes place during the early days of the Great Depression, when one patrolman is killed and another seriously wounded while trying to prevent a trio of bandits who had robbed a department store in Western Pennsylvania from making a getaway. The surviving officer said it was not one of the two men who killed his partner, but the woman of the group, a young blonde, who was using her four-year-old son as a shield in the getaway. The child, recovered a few days later at his grandfather’s house, confirmed the story, and a nationwide manhunt ends in the desert mountains near Phoenix, Arizona, where the blond and her companions shoot it out with police for six hours, until they run out of ammunition.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I joined Fred and Irene about 60 or 80 miles west of El Paso.
0:13.0	They asked me where I was going, I told them no place in particular, that I had thought something of going to California.
0:20.0	As I entered the car, Fred asked me if I had any objections to riding in a stolen automobile, and I told them I didn't care if they had a half dozen stolen cars.
0:28.6	As we traveled along, it developed that they were broke, so I told them I had a few nickels, and we stopped at the little stand along the highway where we got a few sandwiches.
0:38.3	When we reached El Paso last Saturday, we were all stone broken so Fred and I decided we'd pull a little job.
0:44.3	We accosted a man on the street there, but he showed plenty of fight.
0:48.3	I hit him once with my fist and Fred hit him once with the blackjack.
0:52.3	I think one shot also was accidentally discharged in the melee, but we finally were obliged
0:59.0	to take to our heels without obtaining anything.
1:02.0	There were but two gallons of gasoline in our car when we left El Paso, and we had no money,
1:08.0	but we decided then that to attempt further hijacking along the route would result in our downfall.
1:13.6	We obtained five gallons of gas, I think it was, at the first station along the highway.
1:18.6	Later in the afternoon, Fred and I got out of the car while Irene was trying to bum gas from a service station a little west of Deming.
1:25.6	We walked on ahead, but Irene was successful in obtaining only a couple gallons of gasoline.
1:31.3	Everything went well then, until we passed through buoy.
1:34.3	When our gas supply again became low, and we were obliged to use the methods adopted when we left El Paso.
1:41.3	We would get out of car and I'd run to pull up to the service station and tell a hard luck story about a sick child or mother at Yuma.
1:48.0	Some place west of Bowie, we slept in a stockyard all night and the next day Fred went to a ranch home where he obtained a quantity of fresh pork, some milk, and some homemade wheat bread.
1:59.0	It was the first real food we had for days.
2:02.6	At Tucson, I got $2 from a local printers union, though I'd lost my card. I've been a printer for more than 20 years and knew some of the boys there in Tucson.
2:11.6	Some distance from Florence, Fred and I got out of the car to permit Irene to get a new supply of gasoline.
2:18.5	She had stopped at one of the stations for gasoline, but only got a couple gallons, so
	...

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