Slain Family Feared Son, 16, Now Held In Their Deaths -- Mother Was Sleeping With A Baseball Bat

McCLEARY, Grays Harbor County - A teenager whose increasingly violent behavior had frightened his mother so much that she had slept with a baseball bat was charged yesterday in the shooting deaths of his parents and the drowning of his 5-year-old brother.

"He was always mad at them, but I don't know why," a former girlfriend said of Brian Bassett, accused of killing his family with the help of a friend, Nicholaus McDonald.

Bassett, 16, and McDonald, 17, were charged yesterday with three counts of aggravated first-degree murder.

Wendy Bassett, 40, and Michael Bassett, 42, died of multiple gunshot wounds; their younger son, Austin, was drowned in the bathtub at the family home Thursday night, Coroner John Bebich said.

Aggravated murder is the only crime in Washington that carries the death penalty, but the state Supreme Court in 1993 ruled out execution for acts committed before the accused turns 18. The only other penalty is life without parole.

The teens, handcuffed, shackled and wearing orange jail jumpsuits, appeared calm at the preliminary hearing. They told Grays Harbor County Superior Court Judge Gordon Godfrey they understood the charges. Attorneys were appointed for them, bail was continued at $500,000 each and arraignment was set for Monday.

Godfrey imposed a gag order, prompting prosecutors to cancel a news conference on the case.

Friends and relatives said Bassett had been quiet and shy, an average student, until about a year ago, when he started "hanging out with the wrong crowd" - including McDonald, said Wendy Bassett's brother-in-law, Ed Olson.

His ex-girlfriend said she dated Bassett for about a month last fall but broke it off when he "got into alcohol so bad he had to be hospitalized."

"He always had a lot of anger toward his parents," she said.

Olson said Bassett had become so violent lately that Wendy Bassett began sleeping with a baseball bat.

"They tried to get help," said Barb Lamb, Wendy's mother. "They tried counseling and even asked the Sheriff's Department if they could put him in juvenile hall. Nothing worked."

Finally, the Bassetts told their son to move out.

According to court papers, Bassett and McDonald returned to the family's house near McCleary, about 30 miles east of Aberdeen, late Thursday, ostensibly to pick up Bassett's property, including a .22-caliber rifle.

The telephone line to the house was cut, and the pair had fashioned a silencer for Bassett's rifle, prosecutors claimed.

While McDonald waited outside, Bassett crawled through the window of his second-floor bedroom, where he was confronted by his father, the papers said.

"An argument followed, and Brian Bassett shot his father several times with the .22-caliber rifle. The father staggered out of Brian's room," the documents said.

Wendy Bassett heard the shots and began climbing the stairs with her bat, and was shot several times, the documents said. Bassett then went outside and told McDonald his dad was still alive and McDonald would "have to finish him off."

McDonald allegedly found Bassett still breathing, "placed the rifle against (his) head and fired at least one shot into Michael Bassett's head."

Brian Bassett was "yelling and screaming at his parents and kicking at their bodies," the documents said.

Austin, awakened by the noise, had sought out his parents and was lying against the bodies.

"It was decided that the boy should be drowned. . . . A bath was drawn, and Austin was told to take off his clothes and take a bath." When he did so, McDonald drowned him, according to the court papers.

Brian Bassett's sister, Stephanie, reportedly was out of town at a softball tournament when the family was slain.

No one was aware of the killings until Friday, when McDonald surrendered to police in Grants Pass, Ore., 350 miles to the south, and led officers to a van in which Bassett was sleeping.

The police notified the Grays Harbor County Sheriff's Department.

The bodies of the father and the little boy were found near a logging road 3 miles from the Bassett home. Wendy Bassett's body was found behind the house.