'Man does not understand it all'

FARWELL — Marlowe Churchill has heard his family story many times.

But it didn't become real for him until Tuesday. That's when he placed his hands on the gravemarker, followed the letters of the nine names carved into the stone, and felt the tears.

"It surprised me, it really did," Churchill said about the emotion that raced through him when he first encountered his ancestors.

"I guess I just never really fully believed my mom. I just couldn't believe this story of this family being massacred like this."

• • •

Susie Ferguson Hassell, Churchill's great aunt, and her eight children were murdered a few weeks before Christmas in 1926.

George Hassell, Susie's husband of about two years, said he choked most of his victims to death.

Hassell told authorities his wife had accused him of having inappropriate relations with one of his stepdaughters. After retreating to his barn for a few sips of whiskey, he said he returned to the home and beat Susie Hassell to death with a hammer. He then choked to death seven of her eight children who lived with them on the farm about three miles northeast of Farwell.

Susie's oldest son, Aldon, was away at work that night. When he returned a few days later, Hassell told him his siblings had gone with their mother to visit relatives in Oklahoma. He played cards with his stepson, then shot him to death after he fell asleep.

The children ranged in age from 2 to 21.

Hassell buried them all next to the house. Authorities did not discover them for almost three weeks after suspicious neighbors attracted the attention of law officers.

The bodies were discovered on Dec. 24, 1926, soon after Hassell hosted an auction at his house, claiming he was selling everything and moving to Oklahoma to join his family.

One report showed a vehicle ran over a "sinkhole," over which the bodies were buried.

Newspaper reports show "every able-bodied man" in the area helped re-bury the victims in Farwell's Olivet cemetery south of town. Nine graves were dug, side-by-side.

Hassell confessed to the slayings almost immediately, and surprised authorities with another revelation: He had killed another woman he'd married, along with her three children, three years earlier in Whittier, California. Officials found their bodies where Hassell said they would.

On Feb. 10, 1928, Hassell, was electrocuted by the state of Texas.

"I would like to announce to the world," he said, "that I am prepared to meet my God. I have made my confession to God and man. Man does not understand it all, but God does."

• • •

Churchill, 70, a retired journalist who lives in Riverside, California, said his mother, Bonnie Belle, was about 10 when her Aunt Susie was slain.

She and other family members talked openly about the tragedy, Churchill said.

George Hassell's brother, Thomas Virgil Hassell, had been kicked to death by a mule in 1924. George Hassell went to Blair, Oklahoma, to help harvest his brother's crop.

Soon after, he married his brother's widow and moved his new family to Farwell, where Hassell was leasing farmland. Susie Hassell was George's sixth wife.

Churchill said he was always interested in learning more about the murders and found time to research them after retiring in 2004.

He wrote to the state of Texas and ultimately received a transcript of the trial that took place in the Parmer County courthouse that still stands in Farwell.

"After I got the transcript and read about it, I had so many questions," Churchill said last week.

"I just came to the conclusion that I had to go there and kinda see for myself the courthouse, the courtroom, and, most important, I wanted to visit the gravesite."

In Farwell, he met Lana Payne Barnett, whose book, "Lonely Graves: a Texas murder trilogy," included extensive research she had done about the Hassell case.

Will Anderson, whose family has lived in Farwell for decades, took Churchill to the site of the murders, where nothing remains but old-timers' memories.

At the cemetery, the stone is so worn by weather the names of his family members are no longer readable.

Churchill also visited the courthouse, which still has some of the original trial records.

There, he found evidence of a longtime family story about the potential for prairie justice.

• • •

Churchill said family members had told him residents of Farwell were willing to lynch George Hassell on request.

"Just tip your hat," he said Susie's friends and family were told, indicating they would kill George Hassell before the state had that opportunity.

Courthouse records show Hassell's attorney asked the trial be moved outside Farwell because of community sentiment and concerns about his client's safety.

Attorney W.H. Russell told the court that Farwell residents were "merely waiting to ascertain the verdict of the court ... and if the said verdict was not to their satisfaction that they, meaning said people, would attend to the defendant themselves, meaning that there would be an attempt to mob or take the life of the defendant ..."

The court found no evidence to support the lawyer's claim, and Hassell's trial began on Jan. 6, 1927, in Farwell.

• • •

The Associated Press reported Hassell's execution on Feb. 10, 1928:

"Calmly (accepting) failure of last minute chances for commutation of the death sentence on the ground of possible insanity, George J. Hassell, 39, confessed slayer of 13 persons, was electrocuted at the State penitentiary here today," the story read.

"Hassell received the first shock at 12:29 a.m. He was pronounced dead in eight minutes."

The same day, the Corsicana (Texas) Daily Sun newspaper published a jailhouse interview with Hassell in which he said his murderous life had been spurred by a broken romance.

He said he fell in love with a young woman in Buffalo Gap, Texas, when he was 18.

They married in 1909, but were soon separated when he found work on a farm in Oklahoma.

"We promised to write every day when we parted," Hassell said. "I wrote, but a week past before I heard from my wife. Then I received a letter. It stated she was through with me. That ruined my life."

The Corsicana newspaper story ended with this:

"I may be wrong up here," Hassell said in answer to a question, tapping his forehead. "I don't know why I killed, I simply can't say."

Churchill said he plans to write a book about his family tragedy. If nothing else, he wants his children and grandchildren to know the story.

David Stevens is editor for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at: [email protected]