Career
After appearing in a television documentary, her remains were cremated by her Nashville owners. Hearing gun play, the neighbors summoned the police, but Hazel dispatched the three responding officers as well. A deputy sheriff gained entry and attempted to restrain her, shooting off one of her fingers in the process.
He was also killed.
A Check of the ODMP listing however shows that no Kentucky—or any other-Lawmen were killed August 6, 1905—the date these killings are alleged to have occurred. With a $500 reward for her capture, Hazel fled to Bessemer to begin a new life. She took up with a man (some say a police officer) who ended up selling her out for the reward, when Hazel told him who she really was.
Hazel committed suicide by drinking gasoline and arsenic before the police could arrive.
This was December 20, 1906. Hazel"s body was taken to Adams Vermillion Furniture which also sold caskets and functioned as a funeral parlor.
Number one showed up to claim her, but the body wasn"t decomposing, either—supposedly an effect of the poison. With an endless supply of curious visitors the proprietor started charging 10¢ a gander to see the notorious outlaw. was later loaned out to various exhibitors, including Adams" brother in Tuscaloosa, and Captain Harvey Lee Boswell, before it came into the possession of O. C. Brooks in 1907.
He featured the well-preserved remains in his traveling show for 40 years.
As the story goes, Brooks" nephew used Hazel to raise money to build churches in Tennessee before bringing her back to Bessemer, where she became an infamous attraction at the newly formed Hall of History. After a long run, and an appearance in a National Geographic Channel documentary, Hazel"s owners decided to finally lay her ashes to rest. An autopsy performed for the documentary indicated that the mummified woman died of pneumonia.
A finger was, indeed, shot off about a year before her death.
The procedure further determined that the body was replete with arsenic, but it appeared she had been immersed in, not ingested, that particular poison. Bessemer had no embalmers in those days, so any preservation bath would have been done by amateurs using materials at hand.
The documentary makers found no archival evidence from newspapers of these events, leading to the assumption that the story was crafted to fit the remains.
