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- Time Magazine
Monday, May 16, 1938
Crime: Case Solved
In 1928 James Eugene Bassett of Annapolis, Maryland, just out of the United States Naval Academy, was transferred to the Pacific Fleet at Manila. He drove across the United States to Seattle. There he put an advertisement in the newspapers to sell his car. An unsmiling 63-year-old woman named Mary Eleanor Smith and her crippled son, Earl, answered the advertisement. James Bassett drove out to their house, Mrs. Smith engaged him in conversation while Earl hobbled up behind and hit him over the head with a hammer. Then they cut him into pieces, burned part, buried part, and scattered his teeth up and down the road.
Thus, last week in the Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla, Mary Eleanor Smith told the story. The murder of James Basset was the most celebrated West Coast crime of the 1920's. Mrs. Smith and her son, Earl, were picked up in Oakland, California in Bassett's car. The fragmentary corpse was never found though much excavation was done about Mrs. Smith's premises. The trial of Mrs. Smith was the first in the United States in which the prosecution used the lie-detector and "truth serum". Mrs. Smith and Earl, who were rather simple people, were so terrified by science that they confessed enthusiastically to everything. But the public indignantly protested the newfangled lie-detector. The defense got an injunction, mother and son were finally sentenced only for stealing Bassett's car, which, when not under the lie-detector's influence, they claimed they had legitimately bought. Mrs. Smith got eight years; Earl, as an habitual criminal, got life.
The efforts of the State to get a confession by less scientific methods were unending. Earl at one point was put in solitary confinement for a year. A year ago State Patrol Sergeant Joseph McCauley disguised himself as a clergyman and went to see Mary. After a few visits he got her to thinking along religious lines and finally last week, five days before her sentence was up, she decided "to make herself right with her Maker". And Earl, she said, had not only killed James Bassett. When he was younger, in Montana, he had killed three other people. He had been disguised as a clergyman at the time, which must have given State Patrol Sergeant Joseph McCauley quite a start. When she was taken to Earl and taxed him with his crimes, Earl said, "Ma, do you feel all right?" But two days later he confessed, too. The State Parole Board let Mrs. Smith out a few days early, and she went to Seattle with State Police carrying shovels, to see if she could help them dig up a piece or two of James Bassett's body.
1900 Federal Census of Baltimore, Baltimore County, Maryland (13 Jun 1900)
Frank Bassett - 30 - M - May 1870 - MI-MI-MI - Head - Ass. Supt. Furnace
Marion - 27 - F - Nov 1872 - PA-NJ-NY - Wife
Emily H. - 9 - F - My 1891 - PA-MI-PA - Daughter
J. Eugene - 7 - M - Oct 1893 - PA-MI-PA - Son
Melvin H. - 1 - M - Jun 1899 - PA-MI-PA - Son
(Married 11 years, 3 children, 3 living)
1910 Federal Census of Baltimore, Baltimore County, Maryland (15 Apr 1910)
Frank P. Bassett - 39 - M - MI-Mi-NY - Head - Supt. Furnace Steel Mfg. Co,
Marion F. - 37 - F - PA-NJ-NY - Wife
Emily H. - 18 - F - PA-MI-PA - Daughter
James E. - 17 - M - PA-MI-PA - Son
Melvin H. - 10 - M - VA-MI-PA - Son
1 Lodger and 1 Servant
(Married 19 years, 3 children, 3 living)
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Bassett Family Association Database
1892 - Abt 1928 (35 years)