Hassell offered detailed confession

Editor's note: Marlowe J. Churchill's family secrets have been largely buried since 1926. His search for truth brought him to Parmer County in 2017 and he recently completed a manuscript detailing the violent death of his great aunt and her eight children, who are buried in Mt. Olivet Cemetery south of Farwell. This is the third of a three-part series that began with an introduction on Aug. 28.

It must have been a dramatic morning in the courtroom as George Hassell's trial began in Farwell.

Was he nervous? Was there a lot of noise of shifting chairs and clearing of throats as everybody sat down to hear the first words of this trial?

The few news stories of that day stated that Susan Hassell's family was in attendance at the trial. The Ferguson parents and Susan's brothers and sisters were named - but not my grandmother, who was residing in Pueblo, Colorado, at the time. Perhaps, Grandmother chose not to attend because of the horrendous circumstances.

The prosecution began its case presenting Hassell's confession. It was transcribed by a reporter from the jail cell where the sheriff and county attorney interviewed him.

Despite objections from Hassell's court-appointed attorney, Hassell's statement was read to the jury.

Jurors were informed that the statement was given voluntarily, and the defendant was warned of his constitutional rights. Jurors were told that Hassell had signed his confession.

And now Hassell was sitting in a courtroom and about to hear his words describing what he did.

The prosecutor began: "Gentlemen, I will read it to you."

• • •

"My name is George Jefferson Hassell. I was born at Smithville, Texas, July 26th, 1888, and moved to Oklahoma in 1898, I guess it was.

"My mother died in 1901. I ran away from home in November of that year. My father died in 1905, I believe it was, but I wouldn't be sure. He was poisoned by my stepmother. That was my first impulse to commit a crime. I went out to the place to kill the whole bunch of them, but I got too much whiskey and didn't use any gun."

He thought he was about 15 at the time, but wasn't sure.

Actually, when his father died, Hassell would have been 13 years old. I doubt jurors had time to consider that math discrepancy because the confession was chock full of vital information for them to consider. They were probably sitting in rapt silence. This was what they were chosen to hear. They had sworn to hear all the evidence and return a verdict based on facts, not emotion.

But the emotion inside the courtroom certainly did not escape these jurors who probably felt this job one of the most serious civic obligations they ever accepted.

The confession continued as Hassell's words began his life's story. After his father's death, Hassell said, he went to Abilene and "fell in with a bad crowd" and embezzled some money for which he was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison.

His attorney objected to the reference of a prior conviction. That impressed me. One could ascertain the defense attorney was trying to be a vigorous advocate for his client. Judge Reese Tatum upheld the objection, striking the testimony.

The jury was not going to consider anything about Hassell's past. The confession continued with Hassell admitting he often argued with his wife, Susan.

"I started to pack up and leave and did pack up to leave but didn't use judgment enough to leave," Hassell said.

"Anyhow, spats began to come in frequent. She (Susan) would always uphold her children on any correction I would make, and fusses come more frequent and plentiful."

And then he alluded to a shocking motive for his crimes - his teenage niece and stepdaughter was pregnant.

"It was plain enough to see that she was in a family way all right," the confession read.

"So I had been aiming to go to the oil fields when we got our crop gathered up to get enough money to start another crop on," he continued. Susan was suspicious that he was planning "to hike off" and never return, he stated.

In his confession, Hassell avoided any admission that he was responsible for the girl's pregnancy, but Susan clearly was accusing him.

That's when Hassell said he went to the barn where he had a stash of whiskey and drank about a pint as his family slept in the five-room, wood-framed house.

As any mother would act, Aunt Susan would want to protect her daughter and her family. There could be no suitable explanation from George Hassell. Was Aunt Susan preparing to call Sheriff Martin in the morning? Had she booted out this vile man she apparently married out of convenience? Had he been told to leave and never come back? The confession gives no hint. But Susan, according to Hassell, apparently had a hammer near her bed. When Hassell returned to the house to confront his wife, he found the hammer.

"Now I am honest - I don't know how come the hammer (got) there. I never put it there and didn't know it was in the house, but that was the first thing I seen - was the hammer, a ballpeen hammer."

Hassell said he "hit her twice before I could stop myself and then I shut her wind off with my hand to keep the sound in, and then all blood commenced running everywhere ..."

He went on to describe in detail how he killed Susan and the baby Sammie next to her - "I just reached over and choked him."

Hassell said the other children in the house continued to sleep. He expressed some remorse at that point in his confession.

"So I had started and Lord-God I would have given anything in the world if I had not made the first lick, but I had started it and I finished it."

He went to another bedroom to choke to death two other young children, David, 7, Johnnie, 6, then used the hammer to kill the pregnant step-daughter, Maudie, 13, whose condition set off this whole bloody spree.

Three more children followed. Virgel, 13, was the strongest and scratched and punched Hassell on the face and hands. But the stronger Hassell broke free and grabbed a shotgun. He killed Virgel with a blast to the heart, and the others were no match.

Hassell still was not finished killing.

The eldest Hassell son, Alton, was working in Clovis threshing wheat for extra family income and was not due home for another four days.

Hassell could have bolted from the bloody scene and disappeared in the dark for the oilfields - and nobody would discover the bodies until Alton came home.

Instead, Hassell appears committed to his mission to kill the entire family. Alton finally returned on a Sunday, a day later than expected. It was five days after Alton's family was massacred - time Hassell spent cleaning up the bloody mess and burying the bodies in the back yard.

Hassell told Alton that his mother and siblings had gone to Shallowater, Oklahoma, to visit an aunt.

The two men killed a chicken and cooked dinner, and then went to their respective bedrooms. Hassell said in his confession he needed whiskey to fortify his nerve to kill again. Once his will was fortified, he grabbed the shotgun again at 4 a.m., and went into Alton's bedroom. He shot the young man in the head as he slept.

Hassell's defense was short and simple - he claimed the initial slayings were in a moment of passion, and then he couldn't stop.

At the last minute, Hassell's attorney called a college professor and psychologist, who testified that he interviewed Hassell in jail and found him sane and conscious of his actions.

Although Hassell had some strange ideas about religion, about which he did not elaborate, Hassell appeared to be a normal person who was conscious of his actions, the professor testified.

The only other defense was that Hassell's attorney felt the trial should have been moved to a different community because of pre-trial publicity.

The record does not indicate how long the jury deliberated after two days of testimony, but newspaper accounts reported the jurors reached their verdict within an hour, then returned that night to quickly recommend Hassell face execution in the electric chair in Huntsville.

• • •

The news that Hassell was a condemned man was printed in newspapers seemingly everywhere.

His appeal was based on the extensive news coverage prior to the trial and how it could impact jurors' minds about the defendant.

That delayed execution for more than a year.

Meanwhile, Hassell gave no public indication that he cared about his fate.

He ultimately was confined to the state prison at Huntsville, where he faced the electric chair on Feb. 10, 1928.

The Austin American newspaper reported on the execution:

"HUNSTVILLE, Feb. 10 (AP) - George J. Hassell went to his death in the electric chair at the state prison here at 12:29 this morning for one of the 13 murders he had confessed he had perpetrated in widely separated portions of the country at two intervals almost 10 years apart.

"Hassell was in the death chair eight minutes. He was given three shocks. After the first he was motionless, at the second he slumped slightly and at the third no movement of his body was apparent. Dr. E. L. Angler, assistant prison physician, pronounced him dead."

My mother was deeply affected by the murders, and her pain prompted me to delve into this tragedy. But Mom died before I could share some of the details she seemed to question.

How would Mom react to all that I learned? I suspect she would urge me not to write this book.

She probably would tuck away any notes or information I gave her into the file drawer of a beautiful desk she used as a repository for family records.

I suspect Mom would want to keep this a secret.

But she would have had an opinion: George Hassell, a name she may not have known or refused to utter, died for his sins against humanity and he is eternally damned to burn in hell, probably would be her reaction.