Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Marlowe J. Churchill visited Farwell in 2017 to learn about his ancestors' murders.
Marlowe J. Churchill heard about his family's greatest tragedy many times growing up. He didn't really feel it until he visited the gravesite for his murdered great aunt and her eight children in Farwell in 2017.
Tears ran down his cheeks when he placed his hands on the gravemarker and followed the letters of the nine names carved into the stone.
"It surprised me, it really did," Churchill said about the emotion that raced through him when he first encountered his ancestors.
"I guess I just never really fully believed my mom. I just couldn't believe this story of this family being massacred like this."
The murders committed by George Hassell nearly 100 years ago have been the subject of multiple books and hundreds of newspaper articles. Churchill's account in his book "Murder on the Llano Estacado" is the first I know about that comes from the research of a blood relative.
Churchill dedicated his book to his mother, Bonnie Belle Churchill, sister of Susan Hassell who was beat to death with a hammer a few weeks before Christmas in 1926. That's according to her husband George's own confession. Most of the children were choked to death, George Hassell said.
Churchill included Hassell's confession and much of the court testimony from his trial in 1927, which makes the book an easy read in fewer than 250 pages.
Other books that detail the Hassell murders – likely motivated by Hassell's fear of getting caught after he impregnated his oldest stepdaughter – include "Man with the Killer Smile" by Mitchel Roth and "Lonely Graves" by Lana Payne Barnett.
They're all worth the time if you're interested in exploring one of our residents' darkest souls. Find them with a Google.
Also from the bookshelf
One other recent book published that includes local ties is "So Long As It's Wonderful" by Sheila Quinn.
Her work of historical fiction is subtitled "A Roosevelt County Novel."
She said her Western love story "draws inspiration from the rich stories of her family's roots in eastern New Mexico."
Quinn said her great-grandparents were John and Willie (Tollett) Musick.
David Stevens is editor and publisher of Clovis Media Inc. Email him at:
