FULL TEXT: Watsonville – A hefty, 28- year-old barmaid says
she smothered three persons in Texas during the past 15 years, including her
own child, "so I could get attention."
Georgia Rutledge Hanson who confessed the slayings on the
advice of a priest, said she ran away from the orphanage, where she claimed the
first death occurred.
"I was a problem child," Mrs. Hanson said.
"All I needed was love and attention."
Authorities in Mineola, Tex., thought enough of her story to
file a complaint yesterday in nearby Quitman, charging the 219-pound woman with
the murder of her mother-in law, Mrs. May Melinda Hanson, in 1950.
The young Mrs. Hanson told Watsonville police Thursday that she
smothered her estranged husband's mother after an argument. She said he was out
working in the yard, and, because of a history of heart trouble, death was
attributed to a heart attack.
The Jefferson Davis Hospital in Houston said Mrs. Hanson's
nine-week-old son was dead on arrival in December, 1949. Cause of death was
officially listed as natural, possibly a cerebral hemorrhage.
Natural causes were listed on the death certificate of a
girl Mis. Hanson said had been entrusted to her care at the Bucker Hospital
orphanage is Dallas.
Watsonville Police Chief Frank Osmer said Mrs. Hanson told
him "I got attention when the girl died – I got attention to me (sic) when
my mother-in-law died.. ."
Osmer said she would be held on en open charge pending a
decision by t grand jury, which meet Monday.
[“Barmaid Killed for ‘Attention’,” Salinas Californian
(Ca.), Aug. 5, 1961, P. 1]
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FULL TEXT: Watson Ville, Calif. – A barmaid’s retracted
confession that she strangled her mother-in- law, her infant son and an orphan
girl in Texas has been supported by a lie detector test, authorities said today.
Santa Cruz County Deputy District Attorney Dick Pease said there
was nothing in the reactions of Georgia Rutledge Hanson, 28, to indicate that
she had strangled anyone as she confessed Aug. 3 to Watsonville police.
Pease said she withdrew her story because she became
concerned over the possible consequences.
“She came to realize that murder is a hanging offense in
Texas,” he said. (Actually, murder is punishable by death in the electric chair
in Texas).
Miss Hanson was being held in county jail for a psychiatric examination
Monday.
Authorities in Mineola, Tex., where the slayings were
supposed to have occurred, said they would not proceed with the matter and
would drop a criminal complaint, Pease said. Miss Hanson claimed to have smothered
her three victims because they “made noise and wouldn't go to sleep — so I put
them to sleep.”
Pease said she thought she would “enjoy a prison term in
California.”
He said she had spent most of her life in and out of
institutions and wants to go back, “She has no objection to sending her life in
prison,” he said.
[“Woman Who Likes Prisons Admits Murder Story Hoax,” The
Hanford Sentinel, Aug. 15, 1961, p. 10]
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MORE Discredited Female Serial Killer Legends & False Reports
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