Transcript of George Hassell: The Family Axeman

Hey, weirdos! I'm Ash.

And I'm Alaina.

And this is Morbid.

It is.

I have that song stuck in my head that's like— okay, it's actually kind of weird because I have two songs stuck in my head. One of them is tiptoe by the window. And then the other one is like that club beat that I'm just getting on TikTok a lot that's like— so for that to like tiptoe—

you mean Call on Me?

Call on Me?

That, that quote unquote club beat that you just couldn't name?

Is that what it is? Is he saying call on me? Hold on, we know I'm famous for lyrics.

Yes, yes, this is a song.

This is like a A good song. It's a good— yeah, I love that song. That and—

oh, very different.

Some DJ, please mash them up.

Please mash them up, mash them up.

Send it to my inbox.

Mash that up.

I don't know how it will work. Oh, that will be so tiny.

Tiptoe Through the Tulips and Calling Me.

You know your assignment. We're so— we're so reckless lately.

We are reckless lately.

Just sitting in front of a Domino's Pizza.

That shit It's true. Just an open Domino's pizza.

This room is a mess because let's be clear here. Let's, let's talk shop. Okay. Let's, let's talk you through the state of the pod lab right now. To Elena's, I don't know, to, to the left of my view. So you're right. She's got all these Canadian candies. To my, on my side table, I have multiple coffees from a couple days ago, to be completely honest. Um, also Canadian candy, some water, and then in front of me is a half-eaten Domino's pizza that was all of ours with like a half-open garlic sauce. Then there's a whole slew of Canadian shit that Mikey got for us— candy, chips, all Tim Tams, you name it. And then beyond that, there's a Papa Gino's box of breadsticks because Elena likes Papa Gino's breadsticks, but I don't fuck with their pizza. And I don't either, but I fuck with their breadsticks, so That's what's happening right now.

To your right, there's more.

Oh God, to my right, there's more Tim Tams. There's a lot of crumbs. There's more candy. Oh my God, there's an old McDonald's wrapper and an old Coke. We are trash raccoons.

Here's the thing, this is representing the state of our souls right now.

No, you guys, Mercury retrograde, I know that we've referenced it a lot lately, but— But believe it. Like, you can picture the state of this room, but you don't even know. I know. Because there's other shit that I didn't even mention.

But it's so real. It's so what is happening.

We're gonna clean it up.

We are. We are. Yeah. Um, because I don't want to sit in here like this.

No, I don't either. It's— now that I, like, pointed it out, I feel like it's all enclosing me.

It's disgusting, but so is— I feel like I've had a little bit of a trash soul lately, so I feel like my soul is feeling less trashed, so I think we— I'm glad. We can start cleaning it up.

Well, we realized Elena has a Cancer moon, and this retrograde started in Cancer, so like, that's fucked up. So like, once you processed one emotion barely, you were already on to the next one.

Yeah, it's a lot. That's real fucked up.

Mm-hmm.

I don't love it, but here we are.

I don't want some more of it.

I do not. Do not give me some more of it.

I think it's over on Thursday. Yeah, the 23rd.

Is that— God's willing.

How do days work?

Is that Wednesday or Thursday?

I have no idea.

I am one person you should not ask how days work lately.

Yeah, I wasn't— I was just kind of like asking out loud.

I was just asking the universe.

Yeah, it's— so it's on Thursday.

All right, we're all gonna get through this together.

That freaks me out because I'm trying to get Celtics-76ers tickets for the first game.

Yeah.

And that is going to be during the end of Mercury retrograde, and I swear to God, if I can't get those fucking tickets, will burst into flames. I will Hulk it out.

Yeah, as you should.

That's all I have.

That's all we got.

Um, oh, also, like, gotta get the 76ers tickets because Jalen Brown should have never been traded. Thank you so much.

Uh, we're pissed about it.

Like, understatement of the century.

Yeah, not, not happy about that at all. So if you're listening, uh, owners of the Celtics, fuck y'all. We're pissed.

How dare you.

We're pissed. I was pissed. I was pissed about Chris Stopp's Porzingis. So I've been pissed.

Been pissed. And then you went ahead about Drew Holiday.

Yeah. And then you went ahead.

Yeah, that is unforgivable.

But yeah, that's where we are. And now we're with this idiot I'm about to talk to.

Tell me a story. Not talk to.

Don't talk to you.

You're going to get the Ouija board out. You're cutting me out of this combo.

It's just me and this asshole talking. Have fun.

Yeah, I guess I'll go.

We're going to be talking about George Hassell. He is a hassle. Oh yeah, he's the family axeman. I'd call that a hassle. A little trigger warning, this is from the 1800s. Old. Um, it's old, and, uh, he is— he kills quite a few people. Okay. And some of them are children, so just be forewarned, he is a family axeman.

That's such a weird way to describe that. Yeah, like, not on your part, just in general. Like, yeah, oh, it's, it's a good family movie.

I know, you just think like, oh, it's just our family axeman over here. You know, but that's not what that is.

It's been in family for generations.

Yeah, that's not what he is. No. He's not fun. You don't— you're not excited to see him. No. At all.

All right.

He's also a liar.

I thought you were gonna say he's also alive, and I said there's actually no way that that's the case.

He is so decrepit and so alive.

Unless we're like Widows Baying it.

Yeah, yeah.

He's a liar.

He's like the founder of Widows Bay. We just keep him in a coffin. Yeah, yeah. No. Watch Widows Bay if you haven't yet. I'm telling you guys.

You have to. Nice shirt, by the way. Oh, I like that.

Thank you.

Good one. Thanks. You're welcome.

I forgot I was wearing it.

I gotta get more Widows Bay merch.

I'll get you one of these ones.

Thank you.

I didn't know how good it was gonna be, but you got it.

Yeah, yeah, the one that I— the Patricia one that I got wasn't so good. I love it though. It's a little thin.

Yeah, you know. Sorry.

Anyways, to the point. Everybody mark your times.

Yeah, mark your time. We're about to start. Let's talk about George Hassell. He was born July 5th, 1888 in Smithville, Texas. He was the youngest of 7 children born to William and Martha Hassell. His earliest years were spent in Cloud Chief, Oklahoma. They moved around, which by the time the Hassells had arrived was little more than a ghost town. So not a lot to do. Throughout the first decade of the 20th century, William worked as a farmer, struggling to keep his pretty large family fed and housed at a time when rural families across the country were struggling to keep up. Hassell claimed that his mother died when he was 12 and that his father was later poisoned by his stepmother. Obviously, if that's true, that's pretty intense and likely a pretty formative experience for him.

Like, did you contact the authorities about that?

Yeah, we're just not sure though. Historian Michael Roth did find— he didn't find a lot of evidence to support either of those claims. Like, nothing solid.

Okay.

A lot of George's life was just dramatized by him.

Yeah.

Like a lot of it. His crimes weren't— he always downgraded his crimes, but everything else was very theatrical.

And his reasoning, I'm sure, was like, oh well, everything went wrong in my life.

Oh, he constantly plays the woe is me card.

I had to ask people.

Yeah, I had to because life was so hard. What was I to do? Um, so his life sounds actually like— putting aside like him making shit up— his life sounds fairly typical for a young man at the turn of the century, like nothing crazy. In his account, he recalled his mother as rigidly religious with high expectations and described his father as a strict but disciplinarian, which is literally everybody at that time. Yeah, it's the 1800s, babe. According to George, one particularly bad beating he received from his father, quote, caused him to leave the home and become a wanderer. Whoa.

I mean, that's not cool.

Yeah, to be beat. His version tended to place this event around 1899 when he was just 11 years old.

It just dipped.

But it's much more likely in the evidence and, like, research points to it having happened when George was in his late teens. Okay. Obviously, that's a big difference because, yeah, an 11-year-old becoming a wanderer is a lot more sympathetic than, like, a 19-year-old.

Yeah.

I mean, neither one is okay, but, you know, George drifted through Oklahoma before eventually settling back in Texas, where he found work driving a freight wagon for a cotton company.

Okay.

The company was owned by a guy named Sid Ross and his partner, and they came to trust George at one point enough that he was regularly sent to, I believe— is it Abilene? To run errands.

Is it Abilene or Abilene?

Abilene, Texas.

Abilene. You'll let us know.

I was just gonna say, you guys will tell me.

I think it's Abilene.

Should we bet $20? Abilene. Abilene. Abilene makes more sense. I could absolutely look this up right now.

Eh.

This is the first time I'm just gonna let it roll. Let it roll. It's Abilene.

Boom.

It's Abilene.

We'll find out.

Uh, so he went to Abilene to run errands, uh, and he would make deposits at the bank. He would buy supplies. In 1906, George was given $100 to deposit into the company account and another $40 to buy a crate of chickens— about $6,000 in present-day money.

I want chickens so bad. Also, holy shit, that's a crazy conversion.

Yeah. He stole it all. I had to skip town. That was like his first big crime.

He did not want chickens so badly.

No, he said, these are mine. When George didn't return from Abilene later that afternoon, Sid Ross went to the city himself to track him down, which is when he discovered the wagon, still full of cotton to be delivered, had been abandoned. Awesome. And George and the money were nowhere to be found. Ross reported the theft to the authorities and demanded that it be found and that they find George and charge him with theft. When asked about the incident years later, Years later, Ross said, Hassell as a boy was unworthy of the confidence I placed in him and turned out to be thoroughly shiftless and unworthy.

Oh, unworthy is such a great—

Damn. A read.

Insult.

Yeah.

You are unworthy.

You are unworthy.

Also, I looked it up and we're correct. It's Abilene.

Abilene. Hey. It didn't take long for police to track George down. He was at his sister's home in Fort Worth. And on March 11th, 1907, he was indicted for embezzlement.

Bro, like, you gotta find a better hideout.

Yeah, what are you doing? You just went to a family member's?

Because everybody knows where to find me at my sister's house.

Everyone knows to find— go to your sister's house.

Yeah.

George pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced to 2 years in prison for the theft and was sent to a work farm in Hillsboro, Texas.

Oof.

He used the sentence to elicit a lot of sympathy, telling anyone who would listen that he was just a small boy when it happened. I mean, no, he was 19.

Yeah, that's an adult.

Uh, despite his reputation as a liar and later as a killer, one can be reasonably certain that while he was incarcerated, he did likely suffer the worst that the American prison system has probably ever had to offer. Yeah. According to Michael Roth, quote, no facility in Texas was more violent than the prison farms. Prisoners were routinely whipped until they lost consciousness. And in other cases they were raped and physically abused.

Oh God.

To make matters worse, while at the camp, George was assigned first to the local turpentine— or it's turpentine, right?

I believe so.

Why can't I say words today? Turpentine. Turpentine. Or is it turpentine? I think it's turpentine. I told you guys I'm trash recently. I just can't— I, I can't—

I understand.

Turpentine. That makes them— yeah, that's the word.

You're good.

Yeah. Woof, everybody. We're all in this together. He was assigned to the local turpentine factory, and this job was assigned to prisoners because of how dangerous it was to be in the presence of turpentine.

Yeah.

Because it's a very hazardous chemical. So that's not great. I'm sure he didn't breathe in, you know, things that were really making brain cells double and quadruple while he was there.

Yeah, they were probably depleting them.

Probably killing them off. Uh, when he was released from the camp in the spring of 1909, he was given $5 and the clothes he was wearing that he went in with.

Awesome.

That's it. In his own recollection of events, George claimed that just a few days out of the prison and without any other prospects, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, and he used his mother's maiden name as an alias so he wouldn't be found out to be a criminal. Ah. There's no records to confirm he was ever in the military at all.

Great.

Now, according to, uh, Sid Ross, not long after his release from the prison camp, George just showed up at the Cotton Company and begged for his job back.

After he had stolen from them? Yes. What?

And he insisted that he'd been to prison, he reformed from getting caught from that, and they wouldn't have any other problems from him again. He had learned his lesson.

Okay. I could see why you would want to believe that. I mean, he was younger, obviously. He was still, like, a grown man at that point when he did that, but still.

And Sid Ross and his partner were ultimately persuaded to give George another chance.

Good people.

As he later said in an interview, George was, quote, "a great workman," and Malone, his partner, and I had hoped that he had learned his lesson. Yeah. Given his later crimes, it seems strange to describe George Hassell as having anything like a romantic life as well, when you think about it. But because he's called the Family Axeman, remember? Yes, yes. But that's exactly what began once he started working for Ross and Malone again. Not long after starting work back at the cotton company, George met Minnie Laughlin, described as a, quote, a splendid little woman.

Oh, what a great way to describe someone. You're a splendid little woman.

You're a splendid little woman.

I love that.

Although there's little information that you can really find about Minnie or their relationship, she was described by George as, quote, the only woman I ever loved. And so obviously people are very interested in who she was. Yeah. After meeting in 1909 and carrying on a brief courtship, George and Minnie married in, uh, married in 1909, the same year, when she was just 15 years old.

That's inappropriate.

That's very inappropriate. Uh, according to Michael Roth, other than two appearances in the U.S. Census, there's no documentation of Minnie's existence outside of stories told by locals in Texas.

Interesting. So does she exist? I mean, she's on the census, so yeah.

And but this means that basically, like, most aspects of his biography, the only source of information we have is George Hassell himself. And he's an unreliable narrator at best.

Yeah.

Now, according to George, his marriage to Minnie was rocky from the start. It appears that while she was thoroughly enamored with him, according to him— I bet— Minnie's parents did not like George from the moment they met him and spent the 2 years of their marriage trying to convince their daughter to end the relationship.

Probably because she was 15 and he was a man.

Yeah. And probably because he sounds like he ends up being the worst people ever. Mm-hmm. Yeah. According to George, his marriage to Minnie was rocky from the start. It appears that while she, according to him, was thoroughly enamored by him— I bet her parents really didn't like him. And from the moment they met him, they were trying to convince their daughter to get rid of him because they were like, hey, you're a child and he's a man who's gone to prison. He's the worst. Yeah. Less than a year later, Minnie gave birth to a son, Delbert. Less than a year later. Minnie gave birth to a son who they named Delbert.

Cute.

Which is a very of-the-time name, I feel.

I don't know if I've heard that one before.

I don't think I've heard that one either. It's definitely of the time, I would say. Period. You don't run into a lot of Delberts lately. No. That's the only child they would have together. Delbert. Now they stayed together. They stayed together for one more year. Then according to George, Minnie left him and took baby Delbert with her. Good for her.

Given— wait, do we think that Delbert is real? I think Delbert's real because I just love that we're not sure if Minnie's real.

Yeah, there's a letter written by Delbert later. All right, um, given his later crimes, it's likely she narrowly avoided a pretty terrible fate.

Oh man.

Obviously she didn't know that at the time, but there is reason to believe that at some point before she left, things between George and Minnie had turned violent already.

I wonder if the reason why there's there's like really no record of hers because if she changed her name for safety.

Yeah, in a letter written by Delbert Laughlin—

shit, oh, you need to tell John about that. Yeah, John loves a lot. He loves that.

Uh, written to the Texas Department of Corrections in 1964. Whoa. Delbert wrote, we only lived together a short time, but I can remember that he made attempts on the lives of my mother and myself in which he failed, and for which I am thankful for my life today. Wow. Which— what?

So see, there you go. I guarantee you, Minnie changed her name.

In their only couple years of marriage, Sid Ross allowed Hassell and his wife and baby, Delbert, to live in a small cabin on the farm, hoping the free housing would set them off on the right foot. Because Sid Ross sounds like—

A real one.

An angel.

That's a man in your corner.

Like, he was just trying to help, and just trying to help him out. He's like, I just want to give— so you don't have to struggle with a baby.

Right.

That's a really nice guy.

That is really nice.

Unfortunately, it didn't take long for Ross to be disappointed that he had rehired George. Just a few months after moving into the cabin at the farm, George found an old cash check that was written by Ross, and it had been cashed at the bank, yeah, like months before that. And despite that, George was somehow able to convince the bank to cash the check a second time.

What?

And hand the $20 over to him.

That's crazy.

Yeah. So by the time Ross learned about the theft, George had already made off with the money and left his wife and baby behind.

What a dick.

Rather than going through the process of pressing charges against George, Ross decided it wasn't worth the time. Instead, he just hoped that was the last that he was going to see of George.

It's like, stay off my farm.

Yeah. At some point, George reconnected with Minnie. And for years, George drifted from ranch to ranch, town to town, brought his family with him, rarely keeping a job for long. And whenever employment ended, the explanation was always the same: someone else had wronged him. Of course, it was their fault. I know so many people like that. Yep. Now, at some point, Minnie went back home with Delbert to stay with her family because it was going to be a better situation. According to George, they both promised to keep in touch regularly through letters. But while George sent many letters to Minnie, she never sent a single reply back.

Probably because you're a deadbeat, George.

This, it seems, was the manner in which she probably officially abandoned him. Finally, when a letter from Minnie did arrive, it was straight to the point. George would later say she was through with him and that Minnie's rejection, quote, ruined his life. And just like everything else that ever went wrong in his life, he blamed the dissolution of his marriage on someone else. In this case, Mindy's parents. How kind. So with no job or family to stick around for, George left Texas and went to San Francisco. Once there, he enlisted in the Navy, this time using his real name instead of a pseudonym.

Hmm.

How'd that work? Well, within days of enlisting, he claimed that he got very paranoid that the Navy officials might discover his previous enlistment in the Army. He thought they were gonna figure it out through fingerprint records. So once again, he abandoned his post and headed back to Oklahoma.

Damn.

Naval authorities, though, tracked him down, and he was arrested for desertion. According to George, he was sentenced to 2 years at Fort Leavenworth Prison in Kansas and 1 year at a military prison in Virginia. There's not exact records to prove that.

So he—

that's what he claims. Once out of prison, somewhere in mid to late 1915, George claims he returned to Texas and tried to reconnect with Minnie, but she rejected him entirely. And years later, he would repeatedly claim that it was Minnie's second rejection that sent him down the path of irredeemable violence.

Yes, it's Minnie's fault. Yes, it's not you for your own actions.

She went away from you and tried to keep you away from her, but it's her fault that you wouldn't take no for an answer?

Yes, always.

As he put it, Minnie's rejection, quote, was responsible for the queer quirk in my makeup, which led to deeds of violence.

Nope, that's your fault.

Nah, you're just a piece of shit. Not long after leaving Ovalo, George wound up in San Angelo, Texas, where he met a woman by the name of Marie Vogel, the owner of a boarding house where he was living at the time. Now, Marie was recently divorced and living at the boarding house with her young son Gerald. George later told a prison psychologist, quote, "We both loved children and soon became great friends." Okay, I want you to hold on to him saying, "We both loved children." I bet you did, George. There is not a lot known about Marie, unfortunately, but what is known is that sometime in 1915, not long after meeting in Texas, they began a romantic relationship, and soon after, he convinced her to leave Texas and travel with him to California. He was charming. Whatever was going on here, he was definitely able to convince people to do things.

I mean, he convinced the bank to cash a check that had already been cashed.

That's the thing, like People like this are so good at manipulation. Yeah, they really are. Like, unfortunately, they do tend to have a little bit of charm, something that can get them places. It's cunning, it's charm, it's manipulation.

It's a je ne sais quoi.

Yeah, they're snake oil salesmen, you know? Now, so he convinces her to go to California with him. And according to George, to make money along the way, he enlisted Marie, which in my mind means he forced Marie to help him with a con known as the Badger Game.

The badger game.

And that is when a victim is tricked into a compromising position, in this case with Marie, and when discovered, they're blackmailed in order to keep their indiscretion from becoming known.

Oh no.

And then they would, you know, so they're just robbing people along the way. So they make it to California in 1916, and upon arrival, Marie found work at the home of a local doctor, and George found work as a ranch hand at a nearby farm. According to Marie's mother, who visited her daughter not long after they got to California, George was going by the name George Baker. And when asked about George, Marie's mother recalled how George acted strangely at times and was always sullen.

Hmm.

Years later, Marie's sister Gertrude also identified a photograph of George as the man she knew as G. Baker. Okay. Now, as a ranch hand, George was able to find housing for himself, Marie, and Gerald on the farm. And by the end of the year, they had somehow acquired two adopted toddlers.

What?

Though exactly where those two children came from has never been figured out.

That's weird and suspicious and upsetting.

Yeah.

What the fuck?

It doesn't— doesn't work out. So in 1917, George found new work in the oil fields with the Southern Counties Gas Company. And the family was able to rent a home of their own in Whittier, which they moved into sometime in early March of that year. Then in June, not long after moving into that new house, Marie and the 3 children just disappeared.

That happens all the time.

Yeah, all the time. Don't even look into it. It's not weird at all. The first person to notice their absence was the neighbor, Mrs. Clara Shanker, who often stopped by during the day just to visit with Marie. Yeah. A few weeks later, Marie's mother, A.L. Serlin, received a letter from George at her home in Pennsylvania. The letter was pretty brief and to the point and said Marie and the children had, quote, "decided to go to Australia." Oh, okay. Yeah.

Everybody always does that all the time.

It's like Alexander and his no good, terrible, no good, really bad, terrible day. You know, he's just going to go to Australia.

Of course.

Yeah. He didn't give any more information. They just went to Australia.

I mean, what's there? What's more to it?

He said, bye.

He said, tchau. They went down under.

They went down undone.

That's it.

Yeah. Uh, the details of what did happen to Marie and the children remains a little bit of a mystery, but George did tell several versions of this at one point following his arrest later. Okay. Now, the most likely scenario, and one that did come from him, uh, was told to his attorney J.D. Thomas. He claimed, quote, everything seemed all right. Then she began to get on my nerves, and the house was always cluttered up by the kids. One night when I came home, she began to argue because I wasn't giving her enough money. We had a hot time of it for a while, and then I got mad. I went over to her and grabbed her by the neck. She went purple and began to struggle. Before I knew it, I had choked her. I love she went purple.

Yeah. No. Oh, he— you choked the life out of her.

He loves to use passive language when describing the horrible things he has done.

Nice.

These things just happen to the people.

That's crazy.

Yeah, it's crazy. I also love that the reason was she got on my nerves.

Nice.

And the house was cluttered because kids.

Well, you didn't have to acquire two more random kids if you didn't want them.

Now, the noise woke the children, so George then killed the children in the same manner. He said, quote, then I went down into the cellar and began to dig. When I got through, I had dug out a good-sized hole. I threw the woman in there and the kids after her and covered up the place.

The woman.

The woman. After George's arrest and confession, the bodies would be unearthed, and investigators discovered that each had been placed face down in the grave with stockings or rope tied in square knots around their necks.

Oh, so he didn't even— yeah, because he made it seem like he just went over to her and strangled her. It's like, no, you thought about it. You got the tools to do it. Yeah.

Now, years later, when interviewed by police, the neighbor Clara recalled seeing George carrying a heavy trunk and, quote, other small bundles into the garage one night in June.

Oh.

For days after, she watched George going into the basement under the garage, day after day, until one day he caught her looking at him and told her he was, quote, just cleaning out the basement. In the days that followed, if anyone asked, George said he'd been digging a hole in the garage to get under the car to perform maintenance.

Because that makes sense.

Yeah. Now, whenever anyone asked about Marie and the children, he told them that she'd gone back to the East Coast to be near her parents, or that she'd gone up to San Francisco to see a sister.

What happened to Australia?

Yeah. To make the story more convincing, he packed up all Marie's clothing as well as the kids' belongings and put them all in storage in a storage unit in Los Angeles. A short time later, he returned to the house with another woman he'd met in Los Angeles. According to George, she was separated from her husband at the time, and the two had a brief relationship, but he never told anyone her name. One afternoon, George sent the housekeeper to the movies and told his new girlfriend that he was going out for a while and he would be back. But he just abandoned her.

Cool.

He said, I'll be right back. Uh, he also abandoned the house and whatever belongings were in it though.

He just left her in the house and was like, bye, but you can have my house, I guess.

Yeah, you just get every— like, curiously, this woman stayed at the house for at least a few weeks after he left.

I guess he was like waiting for him to come back though.

Yeah, she just went back to Los Angeles.

She was like, well, I guess he's not coming back.

Now, in the years after that, George went back to his wandering ways and appears to have bounced from one job to another. But eventually he did reconnect with his family, particularly his brother Tom in Oklahoma. During one of these trips, George convinced his brother and his brother's wife Susan to allow him to take their teenage daughter Nora on a road trip to see California. Oh, later George would describe the trip as pleasant and said he didn't get in a big hurry because they were sleeping together every night.

Isn't that his niece?

Uh-huh.

I have to go.

By the end of 1923, Nora had given birth to George's child.

Um, yeah. What did his brother think of that?

Yeah, well, not long after, she was sent away, and a few years later, she married another man and didn't return. So she went and had another life.

That's traumatic as fuck.

Now, strangely, on July 1st, 1924— now, by the— that was by the end of 1923, Nora gave birth to the child. Okay. Like halfway through the next year, 1924, Tom Hassell died under mysterious circumstances in a strange farming accident when he was kicked by a mule. What? Tom was the second of the Hassell children to have been kicked to death by a farm animal. And in both cases, George claimed to have been nowhere near the scene, but he was. Huh.

In both cases. He just thought he could say that a mule kicked his brother and that's how he died? Yep.

Now, after Tom's death, Susan, Tom's wife, received only $1,100, which would be about $20,000 today.

Okay.

In an insurance payout.

Not enough for your husband to die.

And she had to take care of 8 children.

And 8 children.

Wow. Children and run a farm.

Great.

So under the circumstances, it's not difficult to understand why Susan accepted George's marriage proposal just a few months later.

Oh, that's so dark.

It's really dark. She had no other choice.

No, I mean, like, what was she supposed to do? But holy shit.

Now, despite her wild loss and the fact that George had impregnated her daughter Yeah, she had very few options in front of her and needed to provide for her family. This was a different time, a very different time. None of us can say anything about this shit. No, definitely not. In his own account of their relationship, George described himself as, quote, 'Footloose to go and help her.

I felt my duty.' Because you killed her husband and, like, impregnated her child.

Which again kind of shows you that they both agreed that this was not like a romantic or relationship built on love. It was convenience and practicality.

Yeah.

George and Susan married at the county courthouse on October 7th, 1924.

Imagine how bleak that ceremony was.

It's like in the, in The Office when Dwight says that, uh, they get married in this— in the Schrute family, they get married standing in their graves.

What the fuck?

And he said so, he said that like funerals are really fun, but like weddings are bleak affairs.

What?

It made me think of that, but it really would have been such a bleak affair.

Yeah, they like—

oh, so that was October 7th, 1924. And in the wake of the wedding, some neighbors speculated that George may have had something to do with Tom's death.

I'd say so.

Or that George and Susan had been having a relationship before his death. I don't think so. Which, of course, they're going to talk about scandal. Yeah, you don't see anything like— come on. But most people just accepted that the death was an accident and moved on. Maybe it was the rumors, but for whatever reason, not long after the wedding, George convinced Susan to pack up the children and abandon the farm in Oklahoma. And by December 1925, they had settled down in a small house in Farwell, Texas. He wasn't exactly a farmer, but the family of 10 ultimately settled down on a small farm located slightly outside of the town proper. Now, one local man described his farm methods as, quote, "out of the ordinary" or "abnormal." He was clueless.

Awesome.

Now, around the area, some people were charmed by George. Like I said, he could be charming when he wanted to be. And but others described him as, quote, "always irritable and impatient and often quarrelsome with his family." So it's like he could turn it on when he needed to. Exactly. But he didn't always try because behind closed doors, things between George and Susan were typically very tense, and he was prone to getting into petty arguments with the children.

He couldn't handle Free.

This is it. According to Roth, among George's biggest complaints was that Susan always took the side of the children rather than him.

Because they're her children and you murdered her husband.

Yeah. They're her children.

Yeah, like, I'm sorry.

The end.

That's it.

Period.

Bye.

Now, by the fall of 1926, things between George and Susan were definitely getting way worse, to the point that he was considering packing up and leaving for good.

He should.

I wish he had.

Oh no.

Later during his trial, George told the jury, "I started to pack up and leave and did pack up to leave, but didn't use judgment enough to leave." Because sadly, by the time he had reached the point where he was going to leave, the Midwestern winter was settling in, making travel difficult and finding work even more difficult.

Try anyway.

So instead, he chose to stay with Susan, which sealed everyone's fates. Oh no. The first sign that something was off in the George Hassell house came in the— in late October when a neighbor, Mrs. Hamlin, noticed that someone was digging a big trench in the yard beside the farmhouse. Great. Later, when she was asked to describe it, she said it was, quote, at least 10 by 15 square feet or possibly larger, just a square hole in the ground about 4 or 5 feet deep. There was already a fruit cellar dug out behind the house where Susan kept preserves and canned fruits. So the new trench was odd and seemed like they didn't need it. Mm-hmm. Several months later, when George was questioned about the trench, he said he dug it because he thought he needed it. Then when he realized he didn't need it, he filled it in because he, quote, "wanted to leave the premises in as good condition as possible." That makes a lot of sense.

Yeah.

To others, he simply said that he intended to build a storm shelter but changed his mind.

Have you never dug a trench on your property and then decided not to?

And just filled it in?

Have you not done that?

Have you not done that? I mean, I have. I did that the other day. Now, the next indication that something was wrong came on December 22nd, when George put up all the farming equipment and furnishings for sale at auction.

Great.

Along with a large number of farm animals. To even the most casual of shoppers at the auction, just a glance at George's auction items suggested a man who was literally liquidating his life and selling off everything he owned. For those who even knew a little bit about him though, it would seem pretty odd that a man with a wife and 8 children at home would be selling off all of his essentials. Yeah, like the previous murders of Marie and the 3 children back in Texas, the details of what actually happened between George and Susan in the first week of December are a little vague since we really only have George's confession to rely on. He said that on the night of December 2nd, 1926, George and Susan got into an argument about Susan's daughter, 13-year-old Maudie, and her pregnancy.

Okay.

Which is like 13.

I know.

She— and this is a quote from him— she quotes like, Susan would always uphold her children on any correction I would make, and fusses come more frequent and plentiful. And it appears it was one of those times. Although it seems unlikely that Susan wouldn't have known that it was George who had impregnated Maudie.

Why did I literally know that you were gonna say that? Yeah, why did I know you were gonna say that?

He maintained that it wasn't until that night in December that she found out, and it caused another blowup between the two.

This guy is so fucking foul.

He's a demon.

He has gotten two of her young daughters pregnant.

Yep.

And that's supposed to be like— they are his biological nieces, let's not forget.

Yep.

And also his stepchildren.

Yeah.

What the fuck?

A 15-year-old and a 13-year-old.

Oh my God.

Now, obviously enraged, enraged, Susan stormed off into the house and George retreated to the barn where he had hidden a big stash of whiskey. In his confession, George frequently went out of his way to avoid, like I said before, taking any kind of responsibility, like directly for what happened after this would all occur. Just like all the other crimes he'd committed in the past. He was just very passively a participant. As the rest of the family slept inside, George went back into the house where the argument with Susan continued in the bedroom. A few minutes later, George got up and went into the kitchen where he sat down at the table, but Susan followed him. George told police, now I'm 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 ball peen hammer.

Oh my God.

Taking up the hammer in his hand, he hit Susan twice in the face with the hammer, causing her to fall to the floor. Once she was down, George climbed on top of her and put his very large hands around her throat. And he said, before I could stop myself, I shut her wind off with my hand to keep the sound in. And then all blood commenced running everywhere.

Oh, that is such a chilling way to describe that.

And it's always before I could stop myself, or I don't know how it got there.

And to stop the wind.

Yeah. Oh, the noise and commotion woke the baby Sammy, who was sleeping in the room with George and Susan. And he said in his confession, I just reached over and choked him. Before leaving the room, George tied a stocking around the necks of his wife and stepson just to be sure they didn't survive. He never said what caused him to do what he did next, just as he hadn't in 1917 when he killed Marie and he decided he needed to kill the rest of the family for no reason. George said, so I, 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 started it and I finished it. George put that so simply, just be like, yeah, I had to do it, finish it. Oh, George, like, because remember, there's 8 kids. Yeah.

I'm like, you had so much time to stop.

Yeah. He left the bedroom, went downstairs to the middle bedroom where 4-year-old Nanny, 13-year-old Maudie, who was pregnant with his child, 7-year-old David, and 6-year-old Johnny slept. Somehow he managed to choke the 3 youngest children without waking the others. Then he turned to Maudie, who was still asleep in bed, and struck her in the head twice with 2 heavy blows from the hammer. Then just to make sure she died, he choked her.

Interesting that he felt the need to also hit her in the head with the hammer.

When it came to the remaining children, George must have realized that the 3 older boys would not be as easy to get rid of as the small children and a pregnant teenager. According to Roth, they were, quote, hearty young country boys used to toiling on the farm, possessing, possessing the strength of most men.

Yeah.

On his way to the bedroom, 11-year-old Russell shared with his brother, 15-year-old Virgil, George spotted the shotgun and moved it to the kitchen so neither of them would have to run for it. However, when he went to hide the gun in the kitchen, he saw that Russell was not asleep in his bed but on the floor in the front room. So he woke the boy up and told him to get back to bed. Russell's return to the bedroom woke Virgil, throwing a wrench in George's plan. So he— his whole thing was he was going to try to kill them off one by one as they were incapacitated or at least asleep. But now he was gonna have to take on two at once.

Mm-hmm.

To make matters worse, as George sat in the front room trying to come up with whatever his plan was now, Virgil, no longer able to sleep, came and joined him in the front room. With the two boys now separated, George used the opportunity to go down the hall to where Russell was sleeping. And he said, "I just go in there and start choking Russell. He was the only one I hit with an ax because he started to make a noise. I couldn't handle him in the way I had the rest of them." The way he just is like, yeah, just had to. He just made a noise, so I had to hit him with an ax.

Like, what is wrong with you?

The noise from the bedroom got Virgil's attention, and when he went down to the bedroom, Virgil jumped on George and was hitting and scratching him. But George managed to throw him to the floor and ran to the kitchen where he'd left the shotgun. Virgil chased after him, and having armed himself with a brick, he managed to hit George 3 or 4 times.

Good for him.

Unfortunately, by the time he caught up with his stepfather in the kitchen, George had reached the gun, and when Virgil raised the brick to strike him again, he shot him in the chest, killing him instantly. Now, when he returned to the boys' room, Russell was nowhere to be seen. George tore the house apart until he found the boy hiding in a closet in the girls' bedroom.

Oh, that's so sad.

He dragged him from the closet and choked him to death. Then he tied a piece of rope around his neck. Now with all but one of his children dead, George began dragging the bodies out to the trench in the yard where he buried all of them that night. Now there was one child that wasn't in the house. That was 21-year-old Alton. So now that he had put everyone into the pit, he just sat inside and waited for Alton to come home. Oh, Alton was working in the fields, so he was coming home from work.

Yeah.

When he finally returned 3 days later and asked where his family was, George told him they'd gone to Shallow Water, Texas, to visit other family. So Alton was like, that's weird. So he just went to bed, and George sat up drinking whiskey. A short time after that, George picked up the shotgun, went into Alton's room, and shot him to death as he slept.

He waited 3 days to do that?

He waited 3 days just to finish. He could have left Alton.

Right. I thought you were gonna say he did.

What kind of, like, what is he really leaving him with at this point? I'm not saying, like, you know, it's warranted either way. It's horrific. Yeah. But then he threw his body in the mass grave in the yard. In one of his last interviews, a reporter asked why George didn't just flee after killing Susan and the baby in a fit of rage. Like, you could have just left at that point.

Mm-hmm.

His response was, "The impulse to kill was not satisfied until I had slain every member of the family." That is like terrifying, next level shit. Among the first people to notice that the Hassell family appeared to be missing was their landlady, Mrs. Hamlin. Sometime in early December, she asked George where they were. And he gave the same answer he told Alton just before killing him. They were in shallow water visiting Susan's sister. But when Mrs. Hamlin asked a similar question a few days later, George must have forgotten what he told her the first time because he then told her they'd gone to Oklahoma. Okay. One question from a neighbor seemed to lead to another and another. And with George seemingly incapable of keeping track of all his lies he was telling, they all got different stories about where Susan and the kids had gone. Now, in small towns, people have a tendency to talk.

Oh, honey.

And by the end of the month, the stories about Susan's supposed visit to her sister's house had gotten around. In late December, Mrs. Hamlin approached George again and asked where he planned to stay, or whether he planned to stay another year to keep farming as he'd intended to the last time they spoke. But this time he was evasive. She said, I looked at him sharply and asked him if he had been having trouble with his family. And it seemed to startle him. He hesitated before he answered me, and he didn't look me in the face for a little bit. He gave some vague response and indicated there were problems, but he didn't give any details. Here's the thing, man.

We know when you're lying.

Yeah, you're not good at it.

We know when you're lying.

Things finally came to a head on December 22nd, the day of George's auction. Hundreds of farmers showed up with their families, and nearly everything George had put up for sale was sold. And he managed to make a big amount of money from the sale. Bringing everyone in town together, though, only seemed to amplify the gossip that had been circulating about what the fuck happened here.

Because not only did your entire family disappear, now, like you said, you're liquidating every asset you have.

Yeah.

Like, what's your plan here, dog?

What's going on? Uh, but yeah, so now it's just making people like, what the fuck is going on here? And so they disappear, they leave behind you, You also still— he still had injuries from being struck with the brick.

Oh, I didn't even think of that.

Yeah, they were still apparent. So people were like, what the fuck's going on? Come on. Now, the next morning, Sheriff James Martin and his deputy, R.A. Hawkins, paid a visit to George out at the farm to ask questions about his wife and family. Martin explained that several of the neighbors had expressed concern about what was going on, so he thought it was best Pretty wise to just check in with George, the only remaining family member. It seemed odd, Martin told— said later, that Susan would leave without saying anything to anyone because apparently she was a Russellite, which is a religion, and it relies heavily on strong ties to the community. Oh, so just leaving your community would be very out of character.

And almost— it sounds like kind of against her religion. Pretty much.

After a few minutes, Martin suggested they go to the county attorney's office to continue their conversation.

Oh, he said, boy, let's take you downtown.

George agreed. Now, at the attorney's office, the conversation continued, with George growing more and more uncomfortable each— with each question. Later, the attorney, J.D. Thomas, recalled George, quote, looked rather excited. But I expected that, of course, coming to the county attorney's office, whether guilty or not.

Like, he's still like, yeah, of course you're going to be nervous.

Despite his apparent discomfort with the line of questioning, he did manage to convince the attorney that it was at least possible his wife had gone to visit family in Oklahoma. Oh, okay.

Backtrack it now.

And he even provided contact information so they could verify it. That seemed to satisfy the authorities for the time being, and George was permitted to leave. But as the day went on, Thomas was unsuccessful in getting a hold of Susan or her sister, and George's story was starting to look like a lie.

Yeah.

Now, the next morning, Thomas and Martin were called to the Hassell farm for what they were told was an emergency. When the men arrived, they called out to George and didn't get a response. Finally, by the 4th or 5th try, they heard a reply from George at the back of the house. They followed his voice and found him lying in bed, bleeding heavily from his chest.

What?

When they asked what happened, he said, here is what they done to me, and this knife, and this is what they done with it.

So they came back from visiting family, shanked you. And then disappeared again and left the knife.

Yeah.

Okay.

Under the dim light of their flashlights, it was clear to the men that George had been stabbed. So they called an ambulance and they were like, okay, we'll find out what happened.

The fuck?

At the hospital, doctors cleaned and dressed his wounds. They also assured Sheriff Martin the wounds were very superficial.

Yeah.

George would be fine.

No surprise there.

Later in the day, in a drug-induced haze, George started muttering a story about how one of the boys had impregnated his sister. And had been having a sexual relationship with his mother.

What a douchebag. It's like, no, babe, you're the sexual deviant.

You're the disgusting predator.

Yeah.

He said that's how the row started. Now, the bizarre statement from George seemed to confirm the public suspicion that Hassell had in fact done something to his family.

Killed his entire family.

So the sheriff was notified and a group of men was assembled to the farm to search for evidence of a crime. Back at the farmhouse, it did not take long for the sheriff and the others to find what they were looking for. After all, by that time, most people in town had heard about the big trench that George had dug in the front yard— or in the backyard, excuse me— and how suspicious it was that he simply filled it in a short time later, right around the time that the family went missing.

Weird.

They didn't have to dig very deep to find the first body.

Oh.

And as the day went on, the other 8 family members were exhumed. By the side of the house, a deputy found the ax covered in blood.

Wow.

Between George's self-inflicted wounds and the body in the— bodies in the yard, it was becoming clear to Martin that George had very likely killed his entire family earlier in the month. And the fact that he'd sold off all their belongings strongly indicated he was planning to skip motherfucking town, make a break for it. On the afternoon of December 24th, George Hassell was indicted on 9 counts of murder. The only question remaining was, why the fuck did he do that? Yeah. Within a day or two, he had recovered enough from his quote-unquote injuries to speak, and the first person he wanted to talk to wasn't the sheriff or the county attorney, but a reporter. What? From his hospital bed, he gave a statement saying, quote, he was ready to be shot for the slaying of his wife and 8 stepchildren, which had been a poor way to serve the Lord.

I'd say so.

I think— way to serve—

I feel the— I'm not in touch, but I feel the Lord himself himself. Yeah, would call that an understatement.

Yeah.

Hello?

Yeah.

Hello?

Hello?

You know, goodbye.

Yeah, it's not— it's no, not great.

I'm not having this conversation.

Now, it's unclear why he chose to confess rather than come up with another story about what happened to his wife.

Maybe it was the Lord.

Whatever his reasons, on December 27th, he met with the sheriff and the county attorney and told them that not only had he killed his family But, oh, he had also killed another woman and 3 children a decade earlier in California.

Wow.

He just admitted it all. The best he could offer by way of explanation was that, quote, the initial slayings were in a moment of passion, and then he just couldn't stop.

Okay.

After giving his full confession to 13 murders, George refused to say anything else, and he was transferred to the hospital— from the hospital to Hale County Jail.

After that, what's really left to say?

Yeah. Now, after his confession, a special session was called at the county courthouse. George's lawyer, W.H. Russell, petitioned to have his client examined by a psychiatrist.

I bet.

After evaluating George, the doctor reported, quote, although Hassell has had some strange ideas about religion, which— about which he did not elaborate, Hassell appeared to be a normal person who was conscious of his actions. During this period, George also told authorities about his life as George Baker. And gave them instructions on where to find the bodies of Marie and the 3 children.

I wonder if it was, like, for religious reasons, like he needed to clear his conscience.

Maybe.

He probably— well, he was probably drinking a lot of hell.

He was very much into that.

So.

In early January 1927, a trial was convened, and after 2 days of testimony, the jury found Hassell guilty on all 9 counts, and he was sentenced to die in the electric chair.

Bzzz.

Bye. When the verdict was read, all George told reporters was that he was confident, quote, "prison authorities or officers of the law would would make any investigations apparently necessary before they would execute an insane man.

You're not insane. You're just awful.

Well, and it turned out he was right. The authorities did investigate as to whether George was sane at the time he committed the murders. But after being evaluated a second time, the death sentence was upheld.

They said, you're just awful.

Yeah. And his request for a new trial was denied when the George— when the judge confirmed that the sentence would be upheld because he was indeed sane. All George said was, "Thank you." Now, on February 10th, just after midnight, George Hassell was taken from his cell and led to the electric chair. Good. When the warden asked whether he had anything to say before being strapped into the chair, George said, "I would like to announce to the world 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." How can you be so sure, though? How can you be so righteous after what you've done?

Yeah.

And with that, George was strapped into the chair, and after 3 strong volts of electricity, he was pronounced dead at 12:29 a.m. What a way to go. In summing up the case of George Hassell, Michael Roth wrote, no one knows exactly what drove him to murder the whole family because he never provided an explanation. What is certain is that when he set his mind to do something nefarious, he usually followed through. And that's horrific. And that's George Hassell, the family axeman.

That's wild.

Yeah.

I never heard of that case before.

I know, I hadn't either.

That's a rough one.

It's like a, a more unknown but really gruesome, super horrific case.

Yeah, yeah, I really hated it. Yeah, but you told it good.

I'm saying I'm looking for a fun fact. How's that? Let's find a fun fact.

All right, I got a poop fact.

Oh, a poop fact?

I got a poop fact, which some may argue is a fun fact. Wombats make cube-shaped poop. Poop, and they are the only known animal in the world to do this. Huh. Um, to go even further for you, from, from Goog, it stops the feces from rolling away, and that helps them mark their territory on raised rocks. Huh. Just like evolution or some shit.

All right.

I feel as though that's gotta suck to pass.

Goddamn, that would definitely suck to pass.

Cube-shaped poop. And maybe that's not the most fun fact.

Yeah, I don't love that.

It is crazy though.

I don't love that.

I kind of do. All right. Why don't we go clean this room?

We got to clean it.

All right. Well, thanks for supporting us by listening to how disgusting we are.

Yeah. Appreciate you.

And then listening to the show. And next time we record, it's going to be from a clean, sparkly pod lab. Woohoo! So we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird, but not so weird that You shit cubes.

Don't do that.

That would be so painful. Ouch. I call your doctor.