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Speaker 5: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 5: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 5: written about him, Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every
Speaker 5: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 5: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 5: host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 2: Good evening. On a cold, windy December night in nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty six, Hell was unleashed on a tenant farm near Farwell,
Speaker 2: the last Texas town before the New Mexico Border. Thrown
Speaker 2: to the bottle in fits of rage, the burly man
Speaker 2: with the smiling blue eyes was in no mood to
Speaker 2: quarrel with his third wife over his bootleg whiskey and
Speaker 2: sexual abuse of his stepdaughter. He went from room to
Speaker 2: room in the house, killing his wife and each child
Speaker 2: with primitive cutting tools and his bare hands. By the
Speaker 2: time he concluded his bloody work, he had taken the
Speaker 2: lives of nine family members, raging in age from two
Speaker 2: to forty one, committing what one local reporter called the
Speaker 2: blackest crime in the history of the West Texas Panhandle. Husband, father, uncle, embsler,
Speaker 2: Syria mass murderer, philanderer, child molester, convict and military deserter
Speaker 2: George Jefferson Hassel was many things to many people, most
Speaker 2: of them bad. His pattern of familicide crime had begun
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventeen, when he slaughtered his common law wife
Speaker 2: and her three kids in Whittier, California. Later, in Texas,
Speaker 2: he married his brother's wife and became stepfather to her
Speaker 2: eight children. Using Hassel's confessions and as many interviews with
Speaker 2: reporters as well as the trial transcripts and reminiscences of
Speaker 2: those who cross paths with him in Texas, Oklahoma, and California,
Speaker 2: Mitchell p. Roth presents the first comprehensive account of the
Speaker 2: life and crimes of one of the least known multiple
Speaker 2: murderers in Texas, let alone American history. Roth situates hassel
Speaker 2: saga within the nineteen twenties Texas criminal justice system, including
Speaker 2: the death penalty which Hassel ultimately received from Old Sparky
Speaker 2: the Electric Chair at Huntsville. The book that we're featuring
Speaker 2: this evening is The Man with the Killer Smile, The
Speaker 2: Life and Crimes of a serial mass murderer, with my
Speaker 2: special guest, journalist and author and professor of criminal justice
Speaker 2: and criminology, Mitchell p Roth. Welcome to the program, and
Speaker 2: thank you so much for this interview. Well, thank you
Speaker 2: for having me. Thanks, thank you so much. First off,
Speaker 2: tell us how you came to be the author of
Speaker 2: this book.
Speaker 1: Well, as it turns out, one of my favorite courses
Speaker 1: to teach has been on murder, serial homicide, and mass murder.
Speaker 1: And in my early years teaching, I had a young
Speaker 1: man come up to me after class and tell me
Speaker 1: that he was related to somebody that was the fifth
Speaker 1: white person to be electrocuted in Texas and had committed
Speaker 1: mass murder. And I don't think he really knew a
Speaker 1: whole lot about what he did, but it piqued my
Speaker 1: interest because I had never heard of this person, and
Speaker 1: I consider myself an expert relatively on all the you know,
Speaker 1: major serial killers and mass murders. In any case, I
Speaker 1: asked him if he had any records or family documents,
Speaker 1: because a lot of people come up with these you know, stories,
Speaker 1: and DAN can't document them. And it turns out he did,
Speaker 1: and he was kind enough to make a copy of
Speaker 1: what had been gathered by his family members who had
Speaker 1: gone up to the Panhandle in the nineteen eighties. Interviewed
Speaker 1: some of the last surviving jors and witnesses, and you know,
Speaker 1: basically had put it into this very short family manuscript.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I held it because I had a lot
Speaker 1: of other book projects going, and I kept telling myself,
Speaker 1: this is going to be my next book, This is
Speaker 1: gonna be my next book. And I finally got to
Speaker 1: the point about three years ago, right before a COVID outbreak,
Speaker 1: that had time to go up to the area that
Speaker 1: his family had been to and look for court transcripts
Speaker 1: and go to all the spots and start documenting it
Speaker 1: all for myself and going full throttle on writing this book.
Speaker 1: And as a result, I found a lot of interesting facts.
Speaker 1: I found a lot of interesting inaccuracies in the family manuscript.
Speaker 1: And as I went on and on and did further research,
Speaker 1: which entailed lots of newspapers from around the country, entailed
Speaker 1: you know, even some pulp nonfiction, you know, detective magazines
Speaker 1: from the time period, as well as using archives in Austin,
Speaker 1: Texas State Library and in Huntsville, the Texas Prison Museum.
Speaker 1: So I was able to cobble together the story of
Speaker 1: a guy who didn't leave much paper trail. He was.
Speaker 1: He was uneducated but very smart, very cunning, and what
Speaker 1: we know about him, most of it comes from him.
Speaker 1: So whenever that happens, you need to go look at
Speaker 1: the ancestor record. You need to go try and you know,
Speaker 1: find birth records, family records and all of that. And
Speaker 1: apparently there weren't many people in his family that were
Speaker 1: proud of him, and he kind of was lost to history.
Speaker 1: And I have a huge true crime library in my
Speaker 1: office at home and at school, and I've never come
Speaker 1: across his name, which I'm kind of surprised. Surprised since
Speaker 1: he's had he had thirteen victims in total, and that's
Speaker 1: at least thirteen when you consider, you know, other killers.
Speaker 2: Now, let's talk about the early years, as you call it.
Speaker 2: He's the youngest of seven children, and his mother is
Speaker 2: Martha Jans Stovell and his father is James William Hassel.
Speaker 2: So tell us where they resided and where their background was,
Speaker 2: and a little bit about what you could cobble together
Speaker 2: about his early life.
Speaker 1: The family, mostly his immediate family, was in the Fort Worth,
Speaker 1: southern Oklahoma area, just north of the Texas border, and
Speaker 1: he came from a long line of people that work
Speaker 1: pretty much agricultural jobs. Farming and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: And it went as far back as I could where
Speaker 1: I could find information, and found probably the person that
Speaker 1: he probably got a lot of his traits from. It
Speaker 1: might have been a grandfather who had been a familiar
Speaker 1: presence in the court system in another part of Texas
Speaker 1: for arson and some other things, but nothing as nefarious
Speaker 1: as what he did. And you know, the most interesting
Speaker 1: things I found was that almost every account of the
Speaker 1: story has his father being poisoned by a second wife
Speaker 1: and him deciding in his young teens to go and
Speaker 1: kill that family. And he admitted this was his first
Speaker 1: impulse to you know, commit this type of crime, killing
Speaker 1: a whole family. Well, you know, it turns out, looking
Speaker 1: through ancestry dot com and other sites, parents didn't die
Speaker 1: when when he said they did. He wasn't out on
Speaker 1: his own as early as he said he was, and
Speaker 1: he didn't commit any murders before as far as we know,
Speaker 1: I should say, his nineteen seventeen slaughter of his you know,
Speaker 1: first family.
Speaker 2: But you do talk and do have some substantiation of
Speaker 2: his earliest criminal career, So you talk about in in
Speaker 2: nineteen oh seven, he was indicted from embezzling fifty dollars
Speaker 2: from his employers. Now, tell us about a little bit
Speaker 2: about his early criminal career and where he ends up
Speaker 2: and how much time does he do. Tell us about
Speaker 2: the results.
Speaker 1: Well, he ended up he was working for a guy
Speaker 1: that had a gin mill up in the Fort Worth
Speaker 1: area named sid Ross, and he became kind of a mentor.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he wouldn't be going to be called a
Speaker 1: mentor after what happened with his life. But he, you know,
Speaker 1: basically gave you know, George Hassel, you know, advice, gave
Speaker 1: him a job and unfortunately, gave him some responsibility which entailed,
Speaker 1: you know, going into town to deliver you know, some
Speaker 1: cotton and you know, do some trading. And he had
Speaker 1: some money that he ended up, he claimed. George claimed
Speaker 1: that he fell in with some bad ombres and they
Speaker 1: spent it all. And of course that was the story
Speaker 1: of his life, deflecting his bad behavior on other people
Speaker 1: as well. But in any case, he ended up getting
Speaker 1: arrested for embezzlement. He was about seventeen years old at
Speaker 1: the time and pushing eighteen, and he was sentenced to
Speaker 1: two years in prison. And what this meant at that
Speaker 1: time was serving a time in the different prison farm
Speaker 1: units in the Texas criminal justice system, and you know,
Speaker 1: these have had, you know, terrible, justly terrible reputations over
Speaker 1: the years, and you know, he documents some of the
Speaker 1: things that happened to him. I was very lucky and
Speaker 1: that I was able to find his records in the
Speaker 1: Texas State Library of what farms he worked on, and
Speaker 1: I was able to figure out what his tasks were.
Speaker 1: And you know, when he talked about what he had
Speaker 1: to do, whether it was working on a turpentine farm
Speaker 1: or cutting sugarcane at these different places. You know, this
Speaker 1: was some of the information I could actually validate. But
Speaker 1: you know it was for very short periods at each
Speaker 1: but enough to give you a taste of Texas justice.
Speaker 2: You say that he was released in March nineteen oh
Speaker 2: nine and he saw a recruitment sign. Men wanted tell
Speaker 2: us what he does, what decision he makes at that time.
Speaker 1: Well, he was, like many of his ilk hit poor
Speaker 1: impulse control, and he would often, you know, make decisions
Speaker 1: and then think about it later. And in this case,
Speaker 1: he thought about joining the military might be a good job.
Speaker 1: And he doesn't really go into a lot of detail,
Speaker 1: but apparently he joined and apparently he deserted several days later,
Speaker 1: as you know, many people have done in the military,
Speaker 1: but you know, he becomes a serial deserter essentially.
Speaker 2: You say that right after that, he goes and looks
Speaker 2: for a job. So he goes to who and asks
Speaker 2: for a job once again.
Speaker 1: Well, he goes back to sid Ross thinking that, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, perhaps that he'd done his penance and all
Speaker 1: of that, and sid Ross actually gave him another chance,
Speaker 1: kind of a forgiving type of guy, it seems, and
Speaker 1: he helped set George up on his own farm with
Speaker 1: an agreement that they would split some of the profits.
Speaker 1: George also got married. He met a young lady. And
Speaker 1: what's interesting is during this time is sid Ross's employer.
Speaker 1: Evidently he knew the family of the woman that he married,
Speaker 1: and he also was familiar with George's sister, who was
Speaker 1: often kind of his only family member to give him
Speaker 1: any type of sage advice. And anyway, ultimately George did
Speaker 1: everything he could to kind of make sure that this
Speaker 1: situation didn't work, and he ended up leaving to find
Speaker 1: a job somewhere else, leaving the farm, and eventually, as
Speaker 1: he claimed, leaving his wife and child, even though he
Speaker 1: claims there was an agreement for them to kind of
Speaker 1: separate and we'd get back together. But once he found
Speaker 1: a job, You right, though.
Speaker 2: That in truth they were they saw his abusive nature,
Speaker 2: and mother and child took off to their family. And meanwhile,
Speaker 2: the family had always thought he was either knew he
Speaker 2: was either a freshly released con or just was more
Speaker 2: suspicious of him in general and tried to dissuade their
Speaker 2: daughter from being with them in the first place.
Speaker 1: Well, the interesting thing is that we know probably less
Speaker 1: about this wife than any of the other women that
Speaker 1: played a central role in his life. And anyway, he
Speaker 1: talks about her the most, that she was the love
Speaker 1: of his life, and that you know, they communicated by
Speaker 1: letter once a week, and then she stopped writing, and
Speaker 1: he blamed it all in the family that knew he
Speaker 1: had been recently released ex con and didn't want him
Speaker 1: married to her. Well, in any case, you know, he
Speaker 1: acted like she left him and kind of hit out
Speaker 1: from him, and you know, really destroyed his ego and
Speaker 1: his life. And I bought into this, you know, not
Speaker 1: to get far ahead on my research or whatever, but
Speaker 1: I bought into this until the very end, and I
Speaker 1: found a letter written forty years after his death by
Speaker 1: his only biological son, by his wife. And you know,
Speaker 1: in the letter he had written to the Texas Department
Speaker 1: of Public Safety saying he wanted to get information on
Speaker 1: his father. He didn't know a lot about him, and
Speaker 1: so anyway, he said the reason they left was because
Speaker 1: they were afraid he was going to kill them. And
Speaker 1: this was right before I turned my manuscript in, and
Speaker 1: this kind of filled in a nice big gap there,
Speaker 1: showing that you know, from the very beginning that he
Speaker 1: was a familicidal type of you know, individual.
Speaker 2: Absolutely after this, you write that he enlistened to Navy
Speaker 2: in San Francisco under his real name, and because he
Speaker 2: feared his earlier desertion from the Army under his mom's
Speaker 2: maiden name, George Stowell could be revealed through fingerprints. What
Speaker 2: happens as a result of this plan of his well, he,
Speaker 2: as I said, herobably joined the Navy up in that area.
Speaker 2: Was that's you know, he was in California around this
Speaker 2: time and looking at you know, where the bases were
Speaker 2: and all that.
Speaker 1: And he deserted shortly after that as well. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of the problems with his desertion record is I
Speaker 1: couldn't find any of it in the military records, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't find it in any of the prison records.
Speaker 1: Was he claimed he'd served time in Leavenworth and Mayor
Speaker 1: Island in California and a couple other places. So the
Speaker 1: only thing I could go by was the years in
Speaker 1: which he really wasn't active doing anything else. And there
Speaker 1: was like a three or four year gap before World
Speaker 1: War One, leading up to World War One where he
Speaker 1: must have been either in jail or you know, on
Speaker 1: the lamb somewhere. But I do believe that he spent
Speaker 1: two years in succession of jails. I don't know which
Speaker 1: ones was he you know, he claimed he was in Virginia,
Speaker 1: he claims he was in California, And without those records,
Speaker 1: you know, you cannot substantiate it. But you know, just
Speaker 1: from everything I've learned about him, I this is what
Speaker 1: I what I assume looking at a lot of different accounts.
Speaker 2: Once he's released from prison, he you righte that he
Speaker 2: tries to reconcile with Mini and she was with her
Speaker 2: family in Texas. What happens with this attempt to reconcile
Speaker 2: and what does he do after after that.
Speaker 1: Afterwards, well, he claims that a couple of times he
Speaker 1: tried he wanted to see his son, James Delbert, and
Speaker 1: you know, so he would buy gifts and he wanted to,
Speaker 1: you know, come visit her in the family, and you know,
Speaker 1: she finally let him, according to you know, you know,
Speaker 1: his accounts and others, see the kid as long as
Speaker 1: he didn't share the fact that he was the father.
Speaker 1: And anyway, none of these visits went well, and you know,
Speaker 1: he ended up kind of being ostracized from the family
Speaker 1: and just basically told to you know, hit the road
Speaker 1: and don't come back. And after leaving the Fort Worth area,
Speaker 1: he claims that he ended up in San Angelo, Texas.
Speaker 1: And in San Angelo he met a woman named Marie Vogel.
Speaker 1: I really doubt that this actually happened. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a nice story, but in any case, she apparently had
Speaker 1: a boarding house and he's sweet talked to her and
Speaker 1: pretty soon they're living together. And she had a biological
Speaker 1: child and she was separated from her husband in San Diego,
Speaker 1: and so they agreed to hit the road and go
Speaker 1: to California and you know, kind of start over it together.
Speaker 1: One of the problems with this story is you know,
Speaker 1: she's got this kid, and that reminds him also of
Speaker 1: one of his child He's never mentioned as he's talking
Speaker 1: about his road trip and some of the things that
Speaker 1: he pulls along the way where they, you know, try
Speaker 1: to pull these extortion schemes, luring men into the bedroom
Speaker 1: when he's not there and him coming upon them and
Speaker 1: you know, demanding money to allow the person to leave.
Speaker 1: It just you know this, it just doesn't this bunko
Speaker 1: scheme and all that just doesn't sound right. I think
Speaker 1: what probably happened is he never met her in San Angelo.
Speaker 1: There was no reason for her to be there, you know,
Speaker 1: there was she had no family or friends there, and
Speaker 1: that he probably met her when he went to California
Speaker 1: and got a job working on a ranch where she
Speaker 1: was working as kind of a kind of a caretaker
Speaker 1: mate and had her child there. You know, That's why
Speaker 1: I think happened. It's a great story, like most of
Speaker 1: his stories, but you know, looking at you know, whatever
Speaker 1: records I could find it, there was nothing to substantiate that.
Speaker 1: I couldn't find her in any type of telephone directory
Speaker 1: or anything from that time period in San Angelo, Texas.
Speaker 1: And you know, San Angelo was kind of the frontier.
Speaker 1: You know, what is she doing out there?
Speaker 2: You're right that she was born Marie Serlin. Her sister
Speaker 2: was Her sister was Gertrude Hoffman, and she lived in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2: She's a central character in this story as well. She
Speaker 2: said she knew him only as a ranchan named Baker.
Speaker 2: So tell us what happens after with this relationship.
Speaker 1: Well, he ends up on this ranch, living on it
Speaker 1: as a doctor's spread outside Whittier, California, And you know,
Speaker 1: he's basically a ranch hand. And you know, from what
Speaker 1: I can determine, she was working there as well, and
Speaker 1: her sister came to visit and was introduced to him,
Speaker 1: and it seemed they were the only two people on
Speaker 1: the ranch. You know, they were the caretakers, and in
Speaker 1: all probability were a couple by then. And you know,
Speaker 1: he introduced himself as a ge George G. Baker, and
Speaker 1: you know, basically I was trying to, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: hide his background. And one of the things they needed
Speaker 1: to do, since she was married, was to assume the
Speaker 1: facade of being a married couple with a child in
Speaker 1: order to be accepted there in any case, they end
Speaker 1: up getting two other children as well, that they supposedly
Speaker 1: got from an orphanage, claiming that they were a rich person,
Speaker 1: and they ended up with these two other kids. And
Speaker 1: really it's hard to tell how they got these two kids.
Speaker 1: Some accounts say the sister brought them to them, others
Speaker 1: say that they got him through some type of orphanage arrangement.
Speaker 1: But in any case, by this time, about nineteen seventeen,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixteen, nineteen seventeen, him and Marie and these three
Speaker 1: little kids, and they're all under the age of six,
Speaker 1: are living on this ranch. And if the sister goes
Speaker 1: back home, back to the Pittsburgh area and never sees
Speaker 1: her sister again, and George ends up telling people when
Speaker 1: she disappears and the kids disappear that they had moved on.
Speaker 1: She'd run off with another guide to Australia or San Francisco,
Speaker 1: and he continued to live on the property that they
Speaker 1: had that they were renting. And Wittier you.
Speaker 2: Right though, that there was a next door neighbor, Missus
Speaker 2: Shanker and her daughter Myrtle. What did she notice and
Speaker 2: observe a few weeks before this disappearance.
Speaker 1: Well, they had seen George digging under the house and
Speaker 1: in the driveway and that sort of thing. They didn't
Speaker 1: know exactly what he was doing. George would have an
Speaker 1: explanation later on, but you know, basically removing dirt. And
Speaker 1: shortly after they noticed all this, the family had disappeared,
Speaker 1: and he continued to work under the house and live
Speaker 1: in the house. And they asked him, was that they
Speaker 1: knew her a little bit. They would come over and
Speaker 1: visit with Marie and liked her very much, and question, well,
Speaker 1: where'd they go? You know, you would think they would
Speaker 1: say goodbye, And he said, oh, they just took off.
Speaker 1: And this becomes this mantra whenever there's a family disappearance
Speaker 1: throughout the rest of his life.
Speaker 2: You right, though, that the next door neighbor is pretty
Speaker 2: persistent and reports her suspicions to a police officer. What
Speaker 2: happens as a result of that, She's team points to
Speaker 2: activity in this garage.
Speaker 1: Right, Everything seemed kind of fishy to her, and she
Speaker 1: contacted the Whittier Constable's office and they sent over a
Speaker 1: guy named Bob Way over to the house. And he
Speaker 1: sounds like he just did pretty much a cursory inspection.
Speaker 1: But by this point, George had murdered the family and
Speaker 1: buried them under the house and did a very good job,
Speaker 1: so that he would say that to his dying day,
Speaker 1: that he did a great job, you know, getting rid
Speaker 1: of the bodies. And he couldn't come up with anything,
Speaker 1: He couldn't find the bodies or you know, anything like that.
Speaker 1: And he still knew this family as George G. Baker,
Speaker 1: And this would become a problem later on when they're
Speaker 1: trying to parties are trying to you know, find George
Speaker 1: Hassele and Wittier at that time, which they would not find.
Speaker 2: So you write that Gertrude continues and is persistent with
Speaker 2: police and continues to querry them to what might have
Speaker 2: happened to her sister and the children. However, there was
Speaker 2: no report back from them of any progress in the investigation.
Speaker 2: And as you say, George G. Baker as he's known,
Speaker 2: leaves town, and now he leaves with his real name,
Speaker 2: George Jefferson Hassel. He joins the Merchant Marines, as you say,
Speaker 2: and works in the oil fields. Based on your research
Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty two and twenty three, but on several
Speaker 2: occasions you write that he visited his brother and his
Speaker 2: large family in Blair, Oklahoma, on the ranch between nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty and nineteen twenty four. Tell us about Tom, his brother,
Speaker 2: and his wife, Susan Ferguson, both nineteen years old.
Speaker 1: Well, Tom was his only brother, and apparently he was
Speaker 1: the closest sibling to him and his rather large family.
Speaker 1: And you know, and since his brother and his family
Speaker 1: all lived on a farm and you know pretty much
Speaker 1: were very provincial folks and just stayed in one place.
Speaker 1: He would come back with all of these stories from
Speaker 1: California and the military, and no doubt he talked much
Speaker 1: about prison. But he you know, was a favorite, especially
Speaker 1: among the adolescent and teenage girls in the brother's family.
Speaker 1: And he had by this time, he had eight children,
Speaker 1: and you know, and soon would be his wife, Susan
Speaker 1: would be pregnant with it with another child. Well, in
Speaker 1: any case, for some reason, they allow one of the
Speaker 1: daughters to go to California, which George on a trip,
Speaker 1: and this is around nineteen twenty two or so, and
Speaker 1: she comes back or she stays out there, and apparently
Speaker 1: she's pregnant, and George admits to having slept with her,
Speaker 1: and you know, didn't go into a lot of detail,
Speaker 1: but it was pretty obvious to understand this, and so
Speaker 1: she was going to stay in California and look for
Speaker 1: a husband. In his words, again, she was still a minor,
Speaker 1: you know when this was happening. And he goes back
Speaker 1: and you know, to see the rest of the family again.
Speaker 1: He's very popular with them. He's a joker. He always
Speaker 1: a smile on his face. I mean, he's a complete chameleon.
Speaker 1: He's everything that you want him to be when you
Speaker 1: want him to be it essentially, and you know, on
Speaker 1: these trips back home, you know, really nothing really happened
Speaker 1: of note, except for the pregnancy, and he tried to
Speaker 1: you know, pretend that he had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1: And I think his mother, his sister in law, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, believed that he had impregnated her. And you know,
Speaker 1: this was a long running issue. And the brother, you know,
Speaker 1: seemed to be a down to earth, successful, hard working guy.
Speaker 1: Apparently he had some health problems at this time, and
Speaker 1: you know, he was well known in the community, and
Speaker 1: George was kind of a cipher, you know when he
Speaker 1: came to visit. You know, he was just a you know,
Speaker 1: kind of the brother that was there and anyway, one
Speaker 1: day they're working in the corral by most accounts, and
Speaker 1: George claims that his brother was kicked by a mule
Speaker 1: and killed and they were the only two in the
Speaker 1: corral at the time, and so everybody you know went by,
Speaker 1: you know, George's count and you know, if you look
Speaker 1: at the death certificate, it said he died from a hernia,
Speaker 1: some type of hernia, and it you know, just it
Speaker 1: didn't sound quite right, and a lot of people suspected,
Speaker 1: you know, that it might not have gone down that way.
Speaker 1: But in any case, there are still others that suggested,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe there'd been some hanky panky between George
Speaker 1: and Tom's wife. Others suggested that maybe they got in
Speaker 1: a fight over him impregnating the daughter. We'll never know,
Speaker 1: you know, what the with the attention and the story was,
Speaker 1: or if he really was killed by the it was
Speaker 1: a mule, actually killed by the mule. We right, really
Speaker 1: don't know that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, that was a strangulated hernia. But she
Speaker 2: got a modest insurance policy payout, you say, about sixteen
Speaker 2: thousand and twenty twenty terms of money. What is what happens?
Speaker 2: Weirdly enough, we mentioned it in the introduction. What happened
Speaker 2: shortly after between the two.
Speaker 1: Well, he ends up marrying the brother's wife. You know,
Speaker 1: they take a biblical approach to this taking over the
Speaker 1: brother's family, and she's what's called a Russell like kind
Speaker 1: of like a Jehovah witness, and they consulted the Bible
Speaker 1: together and thought that it would be okay if they
Speaker 1: married and he'd take over raising the eight children. Which
Speaker 1: and this was like three months after the brother was killed,
Speaker 1: and in Oklahoma, I'm sure there was a lot of
Speaker 1: whispers going on, and you know, they felt that the
Speaker 1: best action would be to hit the road, you know,
Speaker 1: with the family and with the insurance payout essentially.
Speaker 2: And where did they go to to December nineteen twenty five.
Speaker 1: Well, they end up and you know it's not real
Speaker 1: clear why they ended up there, but they went to Farwell,
Speaker 1: Texas or just outside Farwell, Texas, and they end up
Speaker 1: becoming tenant farmers on a judge's land there and they're
Speaker 1: only there for you know, they're there for the next year.
Speaker 1: The kids are in school there. He's making his presence
Speaker 1: known in town. He's kind of a loud type of guy.
Speaker 1: He you know, he's someone that makes his presence known
Speaker 1: right away, and I doubt this town had ever seen
Speaker 1: someone like George Jefferson. Hassel and the wife worked hard
Speaker 1: doing you know, the chores that a planes woman would
Speaker 1: be doing, and apparently, you know, they did a good job,
Speaker 1: you know, keeping the property up and all of that.
Speaker 1: In fact, neighboring farmers said, you know, he did a
Speaker 1: much better job than would be expected. And really any
Speaker 1: of his jobs in California, and no one really knew him,
Speaker 1: nobody could really speak to you know, what kind of
Speaker 1: made him tick, and so you know, all of it
Speaker 1: was was that small of his that was so disarming.
Speaker 2: You're right by the fall of nineteen twenty six that
Speaker 2: the couple is quarreling quite a bit, and he claims
Speaker 2: that she's always taking the side of the children. This
Speaker 2: is a five room house with ten people, and you
Speaker 2: write it. By December twenty sixth, nineteen twenty six, he
Speaker 2: had a master respectable amount of property, including thirteen head
Speaker 2: of cattle, ten horses and mules, chickens, rabbits and hogs,
Speaker 2: and plenty of feed and farming equipment. Tell us what
Speaker 2: missus Hamlin, the landlady judge Hamlin's wife. What does she
Speaker 2: notice in on October of nineteen twenty six concerning the property.
Speaker 1: Well, one of the first things she noticed was him,
Speaker 1: ye had two of his kids building a kind of
Speaker 1: a storm cellar or some type of you know pit
Speaker 1: that he would claim would be for protection, you know,
Speaker 1: from storms, and that sort of thing. Was they already
Speaker 1: had a root seller for keeping things cold and all
Speaker 1: that in the ground, and she was always one, and
Speaker 1: why they needed to build another one, And and then
Speaker 1: about trying to think the family kind of disappears out
Speaker 1: of nowhere. And what led up to that was the
Speaker 1: fact that the wife and George have been quarreling. You know,
Speaker 1: this is the prohibition era. She's very religious, and Russell
Speaker 1: Whitestone allow alcohol in the house, and he always has
Speaker 1: a kind of a bit of an alcohol air to him,
Speaker 1: and he goes out in the barn and drinks whiskey
Speaker 1: from time to time. But I think even worse than that,
Speaker 1: he apparently had impregnated another one of her children, one
Speaker 1: of his former nieces. So now he's impregnated two nieces
Speaker 1: that are that are his step kids, and you know,
Speaker 1: he really doesn't want to hear about it when he's
Speaker 1: going to bed. You know that, you know that he
Speaker 1: has done this, and when he comes to bed, he
Speaker 1: has alcohol in his breath and she basically basically kind
Speaker 1: of chases him out of the room temporarily, you know,
Speaker 1: it kind of starts, it starts the tragedy rolling that
Speaker 1: would you know, take place.
Speaker 2: You write that the baby is sleeping with them, The
Speaker 2: two year old Sammy is with them in the bed.
Speaker 2: The children are divided up in the separate five rooms.
Speaker 2: The older son, Alton, is away working, I believe, And
Speaker 2: so tell us what it seems happens that night December second,
Speaker 2: and why.
Speaker 1: Well, it seems that night, as you noted in the prologue,
Speaker 1: you know, all hell was unleashed. He said he didn't
Speaker 1: remember doing it, but he picked up some type of
Speaker 1: ballpeen hammer and started beating his wife with it once
Speaker 1: she told him for the last time, talked to him
Speaker 1: about the alcohol, and when the baby started crying, who
Speaker 1: was in bed with her, he killed her the baby
Speaker 1: as well, and he finished it all up by strangling them.
Speaker 1: And so he decided at that point that you know,
Speaker 1: he once he started, he had to finish the job
Speaker 1: in his terms, and which would mean killing the rest
Speaker 1: of the kids. And so he went from room to room,
Speaker 1: killing them in their sleep, and until he got to
Speaker 1: two of them, the you know, teenage preteen boys who
Speaker 1: were hardy farm workers, and they gave him, you know,
Speaker 1: quite a fight, and he ended up having to get
Speaker 1: a shotgun, which was the only gun that was used
Speaker 1: in these killings, to kill one of them. But he
Speaker 1: strangled all the other kids, the really young ones, and
Speaker 1: used razor blades, and you know, it was a very
Speaker 1: personal type of killing spree. You know, could have been
Speaker 1: done much easier with just a gun. And so anyway,
Speaker 1: he was worried that, you know, he knew he had
Speaker 1: to get rid of the bodies because his oldest son
Speaker 1: was supposed to come back the next day. Alton was
Speaker 1: about twenty one, and he would he was out on
Speaker 1: a work crew, and so he had to you know,
Speaker 1: develop an alibi. And all of this explained that they
Speaker 1: had all gone off to Oklahoma, when in fact he
Speaker 1: had buried them all in the pit that he had dug.
Speaker 1: And the question, you know, remains that he dig this
Speaker 1: pit ahead of time. Was this something that was pre
Speaker 1: planned or was it spontaneous? And I have a tendency
Speaker 1: to believe that it was pre planned, since it was
Speaker 1: kind of similar to his first mass murder.
Speaker 2: Now he had to wait for Alton, and so he
Speaker 2: made preparations. Then Alton arrives to demonstrate this person's diabolical nature.
Speaker 2: What is the interaction that you write about with he
Speaker 2: and his son, Alton.
Speaker 1: Well, George tells Alton that the family had gone up
Speaker 1: to Oklahoma, up the shallow Water and he would be
Speaker 1: following suit.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: Some of the explanations he gave is, you know, they
Speaker 1: weren't comfortable there anymore, or this or that, and Alton,
Speaker 1: you know, had a tendency to believe what his uncle said.
Speaker 1: And so they sat down, had dinner. George got him drunk. Basically,
Speaker 1: they played some cards. Alton went to bed, and he
Speaker 1: didn't notice anything out of the ordinary in the house
Speaker 1: when he was there. And in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: George went in and shot him on his point blank
Speaker 1: in the head with a shotgun. And he would later
Speaker 1: say he died the easiest of all of them, you know,
Speaker 1: which is pretty much true. But at that point he'd
Speaker 1: wiped out, you know, the nine family members. Luckily the
Speaker 1: first you know, the woman the girl that he had
Speaker 1: had a child with, had moved to California, had stayed
Speaker 1: there and found a husband, so she was the one
Speaker 1: remaining member of that family. And nobody heard a thing.
Speaker 1: Nobody heard the shotgun or anything like that, and he
Speaker 1: got everybody buried. And interesting, you know, he rather than
Speaker 1: flee right away, he sent you figured, well, I stayed
Speaker 1: around the last time I buried the four bodies, and
Speaker 1: nobody found out, and I just stayed in the house.
Speaker 1: So he decided to do that here. But I think
Speaker 1: also there was a financial reason too. He wanted to
Speaker 1: sell all the farm equipment and you know, everything that
Speaker 1: he could. He found somebody to take over the lease
Speaker 1: from him. And you know, one of the interesting things
Speaker 1: leading up to this is his land lady, miss Hamlin,
Speaker 1: had noticed he has some scratches on his hands and
Speaker 1: on his face, and someone else had too, And this
Speaker 1: was after he had killed the family, and he told
Speaker 1: them he'd fallen off a horse into a stubble pile
Speaker 1: or stubble bush and that's how he got them. But
Speaker 1: that was it's the first started, you know, giving people,
Speaker 1: you know, reason to you know question you know his
Speaker 1: story about well, did they actually leave, and also why
Speaker 1: would he fill that seller in when they just you know,
Speaker 1: opened it. And you know, he wasn't responsible for filling it.
Speaker 1: He was just a tenant farmer. So everybody kind of
Speaker 1: marveled at that. But he started advertising a auction that
Speaker 1: he was going to have of all of his equipment,
Speaker 1: all his farm animals and everything. And the auction basically
Speaker 1: took place right over the graves of his family. And
Speaker 1: you know, so you know, over one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: people came to this. I mean, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: whole lot to do on the high planes and these
Speaker 1: were times for you know, families, husbands and wives to
Speaker 1: get together and talk and you know, share stories. So anyway,
Speaker 1: he sells almost everything, and you know, really nobody's questioning
Speaker 1: anything except the women. There are several women, including Missus Hamlin,
Speaker 1: and they decided to go into the house where which
Speaker 1: was supposed to be off limits, and they find suitcases
Speaker 1: of children's clothes and things that his wife would have
Speaker 1: taken with him when they were going up to their
Speaker 1: new home. And also she left behind all of her
Speaker 1: religious books. So they started really questioning this, Missus Ford,
Speaker 1: Missus Hamlin. They went to their husbands with their suspicions,
Speaker 1: and then the husband's took it further and went into
Speaker 1: town and talked to a law enforcement.
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Speaker 2: for the show that's True Murder at talkspace dot com. Now, Mitchell,
Speaker 2: you were talking about that he has covered up his crimes,
Speaker 2: he believes, but there's a neighbor that has seen this
Speaker 2: trenches that he had built weeks before and noticed this
Speaker 2: suspicious behavior, and the women in there that their neighbors
Speaker 2: are also talking to people like their husband's Jo Ford
Speaker 2: and other people in the community, and they go talk
Speaker 2: to the sheriff. As you had mentioned, before the break,
Speaker 2: tell us what happens with their investigation post how they proceed.
Speaker 1: Well, when Georgia comes into town occasionally, that's where the
Speaker 1: bank is and everything, and you know, basically they want
Speaker 1: the sheriff and the district attorney for Palmer County want
Speaker 1: him to come in and just to talk to them.
Speaker 1: And he really seems, you know, he's not that suspicious
Speaker 1: about what they want. Although anytime you're called into a
Speaker 1: sheriff's office and you know, you get kind of nervous.
Speaker 1: But he thought he'd covered all of his tracks pretty
Speaker 1: well and so got to the point pretty quickly, you know,
Speaker 1: where'd your family go? And he went with his old story,
Speaker 1: and he basically told them that, you know that they
Speaker 1: could telegraph send a telegram to a certain person in
Speaker 1: shallow Water that would say that the family got there safely.
Speaker 1: And so the attorney wanted to arrest George, but you know,
Speaker 1: they both got their heads together, the sheriff, Sheriff Martin
Speaker 1: and the attorney and decided, you know, they would just
Speaker 1: keep an eye on him as he went about his business.
Speaker 1: And he told the bank to let them know if
Speaker 1: he was withdrawing money or doing anything that might suggest
Speaker 1: he was ready to flee town. So they had an
Speaker 1: eye on him, and their suspicions mounted and were finally
Speaker 1: you know, confirmed when they got a telegram back from
Speaker 1: the person they sent it to saying that the family
Speaker 1: never got there. The family's not and Cassel you know,
Speaker 1: didn't know that this was done, you know, at this point.
Speaker 1: And so in any case, he goes about his business,
Speaker 1: goes back home, he has dinner with his the new
Speaker 1: leases who are living with him, a husband and wife,
Speaker 1: and that night, after a meeting with all of the
Speaker 1: people in town, he was starting to you know, feel
Speaker 1: the walls kind of collapsing on him, you know, that
Speaker 1: that he might you know be in you know, danger
Speaker 1: of you know, being caught. And in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night, he yells out that, you know, for the
Speaker 1: guy who's leasing the house to come in his room,
Speaker 1: that he needs help, and he's got blood all over him.
Speaker 1: It turns out he'd stabbed himself a bunch and he said,
Speaker 1: go get the sheriff and go get you know, other
Speaker 1: the doctor and so forth, and so it looked like
Speaker 1: his attempt to kill himself. He didn't say why or
Speaker 1: anything like that, and obviously, you know, as soon as
Speaker 1: this took place, people began to put two and two together.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you know that he felt guilty, or you know,
Speaker 1: he just couldn't take it anymore. So they end up
Speaker 1: the sheriff comes in there and with the help, and
Speaker 1: they take him to the sanitarium, the Baptist sanitarium and Clovis,
Speaker 1: which isn't real far away, and they treat him and
Speaker 1: he survives all of this. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: everybody is convinced that the secret to where the family is,
Speaker 1: especially once they got the response that they hadn't reached it,
Speaker 1: that they were in the you know, the filled in
Speaker 1: cellar root celler, and they get a group together, they
Speaker 1: unbury the body as they find it all out and George, meanwhile,
Speaker 1: he's been treated at the hospital, he's in jail. He
Speaker 1: doesn't know the bodies had been found, and he doesn't
Speaker 1: know that someone did not support his contention that his
Speaker 1: family had reached where he said that they were going
Speaker 1: right away.
Speaker 2: You write that the first discovery is the most terrific.
Speaker 2: It's the baby and a baby's arm and up to
Speaker 2: an elbow in a baby's hand, and so the gig
Speaker 2: is up. But he doesn't know, he's not aware that
Speaker 2: these discoveries have been made, and the sheriff wants to
Speaker 2: use the ruse with him to try to get him
Speaker 2: to confess potentially. So what happens as a result of
Speaker 2: this ruse, Well, they.
Speaker 1: Go to you know, the jail, and they go to
Speaker 1: you know the jail where he's you know, recovering, and
Speaker 1: basically tell him you know again, they go over his
Speaker 1: story and they say, well, you know, we got an
Speaker 1: answer back. Your family never reached there. And you know,
Speaker 1: at this point, you know, he kind of gives up
Speaker 1: the subterfuge and you know, kind of cops to what
Speaker 1: he did.
Speaker 2: He gives the details, the horrific details of what he
Speaker 2: does in this confession, doesn't he.
Speaker 1: Yes, he kind of relishes, in fact, repeating it over
Speaker 1: and over again.
Speaker 2: Now, of course the police, the sheriff is making arrangements,
Speaker 2: but also at the same time they realize very very
Speaker 2: quickly that maybe the story of his brother's accidental death
Speaker 2: there might be something more to it.
Speaker 1: Right from the very beginning, George claimed that he wasn't
Speaker 1: even in the vicinity when the brother was killed, that
Speaker 1: he was down in New Orleans waiting for a ship
Speaker 1: because you know, a merchant marine ship. But he says
Speaker 1: this in quite a few interviews. But then you have
Speaker 1: the other side. There is lots of accounts that he
Speaker 1: was the only person there when this took place, and
Speaker 1: so you know, he protests a little too, you know strong,
Speaker 1: you know, in this situation, and people were wondering that
Speaker 1: he killed the brother, you know, the fact that this
Speaker 1: seemed to validate the good possibility of that, and of
Speaker 1: course it brings into question, well, if he killed the brother,
Speaker 1: who else did he kill? Because eventually they'll find out.
Speaker 1: You know, the first mass murder was in nineteen seventeen,
Speaker 1: the second was in nineteen twenty six, and you know
Speaker 1: those were his only murders. So it brings up a
Speaker 1: lot more questions as far as the death toll.
Speaker 2: With's interesting. We didn't talk about how it comes that
Speaker 2: he confesses to the earlier murders of Marie and the
Speaker 2: three children. How does that come about?
Speaker 1: You tell it?
Speaker 2: You right about it with Deputy Hawkins.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's well, he's in the plane view jail and
Speaker 1: you know they don't have him under a lot of
Speaker 1: security simply he's you know, badly injured. He'd stab himself
Speaker 1: in the stomach and arms and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: But he called the deputy Hawkins in to tell him that,
Speaker 1: you know, basically there's you know, since you know about this, well,
Speaker 1: this wasn't my first rodeo essentially, and you know, I'd
Speaker 1: killed a family of four nine years earlier and the
Speaker 1: bodies have never been found. And you know, most people
Speaker 1: thought George was kind of a braggert that you know,
Speaker 1: this is a bit of braggadocio on his part. And
Speaker 1: since this crime never been reported, so they checked with
Speaker 1: the Whittier police and so forth, and they had no
Speaker 1: reports of a Hassle family missing. They had no reports
Speaker 1: of any people missing at all there, and you know,
Speaker 1: and it's almost like he wanted to, you know, prove
Speaker 1: that you know, he was, you know, much deadlier than
Speaker 1: they thought, and so he could remember where, you know,
Speaker 1: where the bodies in the house were. And so here
Speaker 1: we have him in jail, and you know, basically he's
Speaker 1: under his real name, Jefferson Hassel, George Jefferson Hassel, and
Speaker 1: they can't find any records of him ever living in
Speaker 1: the Whittier area. He was living under the name Gee
Speaker 1: Baker at that time. So anyway, a picture appears in
Speaker 1: the newspaper of him after his arrest, and he's in
Speaker 1: I think the first picture of him was in his
Speaker 1: coal working on the railroad railroad tracks in the oil
Speaker 1: industry in California, and one of his ex neighbors kind
Speaker 1: of notices it wasn't that our neighbor. And here nine
Speaker 1: years later he's being accused of committing a mass murder.
Speaker 1: And they're kind of putting it all together. And so anyway,
Speaker 1: they reach out to you know, authorities and say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we think this is who the person is,
Speaker 1: this is where he lived, this is Everything seemed fishy
Speaker 1: the way that family disappeared, and you know, they couldn't
Speaker 1: find the bodies. The same cop that had gone out
Speaker 1: there in nineteen seventeen. The last name was Way. I
Speaker 1: think his name was Ray Way. They still couldn't find it. So,
Speaker 1: you know, George didn't like to be called a liar.
Speaker 1: You know, that's the one thing he didn't mind being killed,
Speaker 1: called a you know, a pedophile, a murderer, but don't
Speaker 1: call me a liar. And he drew a map when
Speaker 1: he was in the Walls unit by this time in Huntsville,
Speaker 1: and he drew a map where to find it, and
Speaker 1: they published it in the La Times. In fact, it
Speaker 1: showed where it was and ultimately, you know, he was
Speaker 1: able to you know, lead them to the bodies pretty
Speaker 1: quickly and validate what happened.
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Speaker 2: Now he we mentioned and you write about all of
Speaker 2: the horrific details that he fills in for authorities, But
Speaker 2: he does not give up the details of the murder
Speaker 2: of Marie and the three kids. He refuses to do that,
Speaker 2: but promises that he will do that at a later date.
Speaker 2: As the state is asking for the death penalty and
Speaker 2: he believes that that might be his fate. Tell us
Speaker 2: about this seeking the death penalty and also his demeanor
Speaker 2: on everything that fascinatingly happens after he is indicted for
Speaker 2: this and is set to be executed.
Speaker 1: Well, one of the things that comes up in the book,
Speaker 1: and maybe it slows the book down, was it talks
Speaker 1: about the appeals process because it took over a year
Speaker 1: to execute him after he'd been sentenced and he had
Speaker 1: to be resentenced and you know, getting into a lot
Speaker 1: of the judicial mumbo jumbo. But you know, he had
Speaker 1: no compunction about, you know, sharing the details of all.
Speaker 1: Was crying with other prisoners and everybody else, and you know,
Speaker 1: he wanted to make authorities wait until the you know,
Speaker 1: he was basically in the chair before he'd reveal you know,
Speaker 1: all the information on what took place in Wittier. But
Speaker 1: I think the more they doubted him, the less he
Speaker 1: could wait, because he wanted that office. He you know,
Speaker 1: wanted them to say, well, he's telling the truth more
Speaker 1: than anything else. And so he gave it up, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot earlier than he had planned to. Where the
Speaker 1: bodies were buried.
Speaker 2: Do you talk about alienists the term for psychiatrists at
Speaker 2: that time, and then also interviews by reporters, prestigious reporters.
Speaker 2: What did they remark and you chronicle some of the
Speaker 2: things that they saw and observed in speaking with him.
Speaker 1: Well, the psychiatrists, first of all, you know, psychiatry was
Speaker 1: you know, still kind of in its infancy, you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of dealing with psychopathy and other types of
Speaker 1: mental illnesses. But they basically, you know, once they spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time with them talking about it. They
Speaker 1: would often say afterwards, we have no better idea why
Speaker 1: he did it after speaking with him than we did
Speaker 1: before it. Because he could never explain why he did
Speaker 1: it or didn't want to explain why he did these crimes.
Speaker 2: They tried to portray him as insane, despite him confessing
Speaker 2: to these crimes, and despite maybe the rules of insanity
Speaker 2: being new. What was made of this plea of insanity?
Speaker 1: Well, the problem with it's more illegal than a medical distinction,
Speaker 1: and it's very hard to you know, to prove even today,
Speaker 1: even though you know it occasionally happens. But it was
Speaker 1: more his lawyer that wanted to, you know, wanted this
Speaker 1: at first, you know, George didn't want to say he
Speaker 1: was insane or anything, but he kind of went along
Speaker 1: with it. As time went on. Once he was on
Speaker 1: death row in Huntsville, he realized, you know that his
Speaker 1: only chance of not being executed was to you know,
Speaker 1: you know, claim insanity. And so of course this came
Speaker 1: up with the resentencing hearing and all of that, and
Speaker 1: it pretty much fell on deaf Ear simply for the
Speaker 1: fact of, you know, how much planning was entailed in
Speaker 1: this crime and the previous crime, and he was as
Speaker 1: sane as you could be, you know, considering the ability
Speaker 1: to tell right from wrong. Was you know, the idea
Speaker 1: that he would kill himself, you know, over the bodies
Speaker 1: being found. You know, he knew that was wrong and
Speaker 1: having you know, remembered that he had the bodies buried
Speaker 1: and wittier. So psychiatric side of things that, you know,
Speaker 1: never really played out for him. And the thing is
Speaker 1: is when you're sentenced to death, you're given an automatic
Speaker 1: thirty days ninety days you know, to basically be observed
Speaker 1: by psychiatrists and everything. And one of the problems was
Speaker 1: they'd sent him from plain view after he'd been sentenced,
Speaker 1: back down to the death row in Huntsville when in reality,
Speaker 1: he should have been kept up in plain view until
Speaker 1: the appeals process played out. So he actually had two
Speaker 1: stints on death row, and one of them was shorter
Speaker 1: than the other. But you know, he never really talked
Speaker 1: about being insane or anything. The only thing he could
Speaker 1: say is, you know, he doesn't know why he did
Speaker 1: these acts.
Speaker 2: You right about as well, the trial itself and the
Speaker 2: garner the headlines throughout America and probably internationally as well
Speaker 2: at that time. Tell us about some of the highlights
Speaker 2: of this trial, and you and your commentary were one
Speaker 2: of the juriors commentary on the length of the trial,
Speaker 2: length of the jury process, and then the deliberations.
Speaker 1: Well, there was a you know, dozens of witnesses, but
Speaker 1: the trial was you know, relatively quick for a death
Speaker 1: penalty trial, and the you know, the jurors basically pretty
Speaker 1: much came to a conclusion very quickly once they were
Speaker 1: set to make their decision, and they waited longer so
Speaker 1: that it would seem that they put more thought into it,
Speaker 1: but you know, it was pretty much to them an
Speaker 1: open and closed case, and they also wanted to you know,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of animosity. There was talk about
Speaker 1: lynch law and people coming in breaking him out and
Speaker 1: hanging him and that sort of thing, although you know
Speaker 1: a lot of it was just bluster, and you know,
Speaker 1: they basically waited until most of the people were gone
Speaker 1: to you know, from the courtroom to give their sentence
Speaker 1: again of death.
Speaker 2: I found it interesting. I'd never read something quite like
Speaker 2: that where the prosecutor gives his scathing indictment of George
Speaker 2: Hassel and the defense lawyer breaks out in tears and
Speaker 2: runs out of the courtroom until he can compose himself.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was, you know, kind of wacky because you know,
Speaker 1: once the whole process went down, his defense attorney was
Speaker 1: nowhere to be found, and he was the one who
Speaker 1: was supposed to you know, do the original appeals process,
Speaker 1: and so this kind of you know, screwed that all up.
Speaker 1: But I think what bothered people the most, you know,
Speaker 1: even more than the killings was his sexual molestation of
Speaker 1: his nieces. And I think that bothered them the most.
Speaker 1: And this came out during the trial. It wasn't published
Speaker 1: in most of the newspapers, but it was in the
Speaker 1: court transcripts. You know, you know, his confession was he
Speaker 1: confessed to all of this. You know, he basically distanced
Speaker 1: himself from the second pregnancy simply for the fact that
Speaker 1: she was, you know, between thirteen and fifteen years old,
Speaker 1: and he was trying to blame it on someone else
Speaker 1: who was on the scene at the time it supposedly
Speaker 1: took place. And any case, this to most people was
Speaker 1: seen as the you know, the worst part of the crime.
Speaker 2: You write that he entertained journalists and other people that
Speaker 2: he was granting interviews till just before the execution, like
Speaker 2: I mean, right before, but they all commented on his demeanor. Again,
Speaker 2: you write about they weren't aware of psychopathy pathology, and
Speaker 2: so they weren't accustomed to it, and so they commented, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, they were all they were. They were very mystified
Speaker 1: later on when they you know, kind of shared their
Speaker 1: interviews with other people about how someone could be so calm,
Speaker 1: how someone could talk so how much they loved children,
Speaker 1: which is one of the things he was always saying,
Speaker 1: he just loved children. In fact, the first child that
Speaker 1: he killed reminded him of his biological child, and here's
Speaker 1: a person that could strangle them with you know, no
Speaker 1: problem at all and talk about it later on with
Speaker 1: absolutely no remorse. You know, people would say, you know,
Speaker 1: they would say, well, you know, you know, are you
Speaker 1: know sorry you did this? You're sorry did that? But he,
Speaker 1: you know, there was no mea culp was, you know,
Speaker 1: forthcoming from him.
Speaker 2: You pose the question in the epilogue that why are
Speaker 2: legions of criminals and murderers with much much less blood
Speaker 2: on their hands? Why are they famous? And this family
Speaker 2: Annihilator is not?
Speaker 1: Well, that's an interesting question. And uh and if the
Speaker 1: thing is is that, you know, you wonder why hasn't
Speaker 1: garnered the attention of so many other crimes. And you know,
Speaker 1: this was one of the you know, questions that came
Speaker 1: up with would anybody be interested in reading this book
Speaker 1: because it took place kind of in an area that
Speaker 1: really there's not a whole lot of the historical references about.
Speaker 1: But it took place out on the countryside in the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, you know, basically, you know, as far as
Speaker 1: a small community, most of the people wanted to move
Speaker 1: beyond that. But no matter what, when you have a
Speaker 1: crime in that area, you know, it stays in kind
Speaker 1: of the dna of the community for a very long time.
Speaker 1: And you know, and basically I think that that's why
Speaker 1: other people have never heard about this, which is surprising,
Speaker 1: and it made me wonder, well, what other cases are
Speaker 1: there like this, you know, And so I right now,
Speaker 1: as I'm looking at my next projects, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to find cases that no one's ever written about,
Speaker 1: because you know, how many books can you write about
Speaker 1: Bundy and Dahmer, and you know, you know the Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame of serial killers, and but I think that
Speaker 1: the community just wanted to get beyond it because they
Speaker 1: didn't want to be marked by this crime. But it's
Speaker 1: not great for chamber of commerce material and so surprisingly
Speaker 1: until recently they were doing a play, a local play,
Speaker 1: a theater play based on the crime. And interesting when
Speaker 1: I went up there to start my research, you know,
Speaker 1: I would go into different places, you know, I thought
Speaker 1: might be helpful. In fact, the hospital where he was
Speaker 1: treated where he tried to kill himself as an antique
Speaker 1: store now and they had kept a lot of the
Speaker 1: hospital architecture still there. And I went in there and
Speaker 1: spoke to a gentleman who ran the place. And as
Speaker 1: soon as I said I wanted to talked about the
Speaker 1: George Hassele case, you know, he was ready to kick
Speaker 1: me out the door because people don't want to talk
Speaker 1: about it, you know, you know, talk about a Nobel
Speaker 1: prize winner or you know, prize winning col or something,
Speaker 1: but not about a murderer. But I won his confidence,
Speaker 1: I will say, over time. And so anyway, so you know,
Speaker 1: he shared a little bit of information. But you know,
Speaker 1: all the witnesses from that time period are gone and
Speaker 1: the only thing you have are family members of the
Speaker 1: family members that were involved, and you have their you know,
Speaker 1: their stories about what happened, and you know, and that
Speaker 1: was the whole idea of this is to set the
Speaker 1: record straight and perhaps you know, bring more attention, you
Speaker 1: know to this type of crime, to this crime and
Speaker 1: the Panhandle. And over time, over the fact, more recently
Speaker 1: I found there's a lot more interest in this book
Speaker 1: up in the Panhandle than there is anywhere else, you know.
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm in talks with doing you know,
Speaker 1: you know, lectures and book signings and stuff up in
Speaker 1: the you know, up in the West Texas and Panhandle.
Speaker 2: It's interesting you write about the memorial the basically the
Speaker 2: historical cemetery plots and twenty eighteen just tell us before I.
Speaker 1: Let you go about that. Well, you know, because of
Speaker 1: the weather and planes and the winds and everything. The
Speaker 1: original tombstone was very, very weathered and was falling apart.
Speaker 1: And you know, basically this might have shown too that
Speaker 1: there was you know, a lack of interest or you
Speaker 1: know a lot of lack of interest of you know,
Speaker 1: remembering this particular type of crime. And anyway, a historical
Speaker 1: group got together and you know, one of the people
Speaker 1: that I dedicated the book to a woman named Teresa
Speaker 1: and Sira, and she's been you know, one of the
Speaker 1: facilitators for you know, making the cemetery look a lot better,
Speaker 1: you know, cleaning it up and getting with others in
Speaker 1: the historical associations a new tombstone. And so she gave
Speaker 1: me a tour, showed me where you know, this person
Speaker 1: was buried that was you know, tangential to the crime.
Speaker 1: And it was hard to find the cemetery unless you
Speaker 1: had local knowledge. But it's brought you know, more attention
Speaker 1: to it, and there's been some findings, you know, of
Speaker 1: other graves that people didn't know existed there. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm hoping maybe this book will bring more tension, you know,
Speaker 1: to the cemetery as a historical place, right and in
Speaker 1: any case, they have a beautiful gravestone there that was donated,
Speaker 1: as well as all the help to clean the cemetery.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, I want to thank you very much Mitchell
Speaker 2: p Roth for coming on and talking about your book,
Speaker 2: Man with the Killer Smile, The Life and Crimes of
Speaker 2: a Serial mass Murderer. For those that might want to
Speaker 2: take a look at your work, do you do any
Speaker 2: social media?
Speaker 1: Tell us about that, well, I mean the process of
Speaker 1: putting a website together, but you know, you know, most
Speaker 1: of the information on my work can be found just
Speaker 1: googling my name or going on Amazon, which you know
Speaker 1: has descriptions of all of my books.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, thank you so much Mitchell p Roth The Man
Speaker 2: with the Killer Smile, The Life and Crimes of a
Speaker 2: Serial mass Murderer. Thank you so much for this interview.
Speaker 2: You have a great evening.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Dan, Thank you very much. Night.