Helmuth Schmidt had an effective M.O. He would place ads using a false name, trolling for young, lonely, immigrant women whom he would slay at the first opportunity.

Schmidt travelled throughout early twentieth-century America using his ruse to lure victim after victim before being captured in Royal Oak, Michigan, on April 28, 1918, for the killing of Agnes Dominick. Though it is suspected Schmidt may have killed more than thirty innocent women, the true total will never be known. The killer made himself his own final victim by crushing his own skull while in jail.