| Notes |
- Independent, Long Beach, California, Saturday, 29 February 1964
Killer of Parents Adjudged Insane
Fred Kipp Bassett, suspected slayer of his mother and father, Friday was declared insane by Superior Court Judge Maurice C. Sparling.
Judge Sparling said that, in his opinion, based on reports from two court-appointed psychiatrists, Bassett was unable to assist in his defense against charges that he shot his mother, Mrs. Margaret Bassett and his father, Fred Emery Bassett, in the family home Dec. 19.
Bassett was committed to the California State Hospital at Atascadero, where he will be held and treated until doctors believe him to be same. If the come to that opinion, criminal proceedings against Bassett will be reinstated.
The Youth appeared completely relaxed while he stood before Judge Sparling. He chuckled at one point in the proceedings.
Bassett, an 18-year-old former Long Beach State College psychology student, is accused of killing his parents in their home at 183 W. 234th St., Carson, then attempting to make the crime look like a murder-suicide.
He has reportedly admitted the slayings, and also that he planned killing them for a long time because his parents were ?hypocrites.?
His older sister, Judy, was a weeping spectator to Friday?s proceedings.
Santa Cruz Sentinel, California, Friday, 20 December 1963
Youth Follows Script To Kill Mom and Dad
Wilmington (AP) ? For eight years, Fred Kipp Bassett told sheriff?s deputies today, had planned to kill his parents.
It was to be a perfect crime, he said.
Thursday night was the night, Bassett, 18, a wavy-haired, bespectacled psychology student, ran to a neighbor?s house shouting:
?Me mother and father are having an argument over money, and there?s been a shooting. I can?t get in because the door is locked.?
The neighbor called sheriff?s officers. They broke open the locked door and found:
Fred Bassett, 47, an insurance man, dead on the floor, a bullet wound in his chest.
His wife, Margaret, 43, an aircraft worker, next to him, fatally wounded from a shot in the temple.
In her hand was a 22-caliber, single-shot derringer pistol.
Mrs. Bassett was rushed to a hospital where she died. Sheriff?s detectives began their investigation of what seemed to be a murder-suicide.
But something was wrong.
Homicide Capt. Al Etzel could not find the empty from the first shot in the parents? bedroom. And someone would have had to reload the single-shot pistol.
The cartridge was found in the boy?s bedroom. So was a bloody plastic sack.
Under questioning, Bassett, who was booked on suspicion, told this story:
?I?d been planning to kill them for years. At first, I was going to sue a rolling pin. Then I thought an icepick would be better. I finally decided on the gun.?
He said he wrote out a seven-point script to follow in committing the crime. He learned from watching a television crime show how to make a slip noose with which he could slide the bolt of the door lock from outside the door, and then remove the twine by pulling it through the door crack.
Thursday his mother came home from Christmas shopping, and he told her:
?Go in the bedroom and close your eyes. I have a surprise for you.?
Then, he said, he shot her.
His father ran in, was unable to understand what happened, leaned over his wife to aid her, and the boy shot him. Then he tried to suffocate his dying mother with the plastic sack, gave it up, positioned the bodies and the gun, latched the door and ran to the neighbor?s home, crying for help.
Young Bassett showed officers his script. It was dated December 19, and use code letters M for Mother, F for father and G for Gun:
1. As planned.
2. Then remove shell and put F?s prints on it.
3. Then put G in M?s hand.
4. Muss room and lamp.
5. Put F. nearby.
6. Lock door
7. Get Glassed (the neighbors).
Wear plastic hood, leather gloves for shots, white gloves for finger prints.
Officers said Bassett, a psychology major at Long Beach State college, could give no reason for the shooting. Said one interrogator:
?He just seemed to withdraw from reality after confessing.?
|
Bassett Family Association Database
1946 - 