| Notes |
- Dallas Morning News, Texas, Thursday, July 26, 1962
?Indestructible? Bass
Underworld Figure Dies
George Washington (Jettie) Bass, whose underworld brushed with death earned him the nickname ?indestructible?, died at his home in Grand Prairie after a heart attack Wednesday.
The 43-year-old underworld character who ran with such big-time hoodlums as the late Herbert Noble, Lois Green and Cecil Green had not figured in Dallas crime news since 1956.
But, he was once so well-known that in 1949 two Dallas patrolmen arrested him while riding in a car under a city ordinance that undesirable characters could not use the city?s streets.
Jettie Bass had earned his reputation.
He had a crime record beginning in Houston in 1938 which included jail terms for shoplifting, a state prison stretch for burglary and a federal term for violation of World War II gas rationing rules.
On the Dallas-Fort Worth scene, Bass was a top lieutenant of the late Lois Green gang which specialized in safecracking and trafficked in narcotics and prostitution.
Arrested in August 1950, he was fingered as the man who selected the victims for a gang which specialized in robbing wealthy families in four area states.
The much publicized case drew lawmen and wealthy victims from over Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Mississippi to Dallas to view Bass in the police line-up.
In almost a day-to-day hassle, Bass remained in jail until December when he was released on $13,500 bond after charged with the robbery of a Dallas oilman.
While attempting to rob a safe in Birmingham, Ala. in April, 1951, Bass stopped 19 machine-gun slugs in a police trap.
Bass recovered and stood trial, receiving a 2-year sentence for the attempted theft.
In Dallas in 1955, Bass again defied death. He was knifed severely in the abdomen by Herbert R. Pope in what police theorized at the time was a dispute over control of prostitution, safecracking and other gang pursuits in the area.
Five days later he walked out of the hospital, but he never again cut the same figure in underworld circles.
Veteran lawmen attributed Bass? close brush with death in the machine-gun trap with the decline in his criminal career. Bass faded from the crime headlines in 1956 and became known to authorities as and ?idle mobster? whose only activities included almost daily trips to the golf courses near his home.
One police official commented that the machine-gunning Bass survived ?left him a little bit off his rocker.?
?None of the characters would have much to do with him. Jettie played gold just about every day, and Nick Cascio let him hang around his used-car lots,? the official said.
In the police burglary and theft bureau, where Bass was well known, word of his death was posted on the squad room bulletin board.
The notice said that Bass ?died in his sleep.?
But only a week ago, as one police lieutenant heard it, here were rumblings that Bass was marked for a ?last ride.?
|
Bassett Family Association Database
1915 - 1962 (47 years)