Found Deceased WA - Andrew Spencer, 31, Granite Falls, 3 Nov 2015 *Arrest*

Hatt is being booked into the Snohomish County Jail on suspicion of murder.

Detectives were trying to track down the 49-year-old Hatt, whose accused of killing Andrew Spencer. They say witnesses told them the pair had recently had an altercation because Hatt suspected Spencer of burglarizing his house.

Spencer was last seen alive Nov. 3, and police found his body — shot, burned and buried — on Wednesday.

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keljo said:

If the sheriff's office had done their job to begin with, George Hatt would have been in jail or prison and would not have been around to kill another man. I don't believe Spencer attempted to steal or break in, but even if he did--Hatt could have called the sheriff's office...ah, but then again, the Snohomish County Sheriff's office RARELY does their job and will even fail to show up to calls.

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George Hatt Jr. doesn’t deny he killed a man in 2015 but it wasn’t a cold-blooded murder like prosecutors make it out to be.

That’s what jurors heard from Hatt’s defense attorney as the man’s trial got under way earlier this week. Elizabeth Mustin, a public defender, told the jury in opening statements that Andrew Spencer was out for blood the day he showed up unannounced on Hatt’s property in Granite Falls.

Spencer sucker-punched Hatt’s buddy in the face. He kicked and punched him while the man was down, Mustin said. Hatt was defending his friend when he shot Spencer, she said.

“He used lawful force,” Mustin added.

Deputy prosecutor Hal Hupp said evidence will show the killing was premeditated and motivated by revenge. Hatt had made it known around Granite Falls that he was out to get Spencer, whom he blamed for a break-in at his house. Witnesses will testify that Hatt threatened to kill Spencer more than once, Hupp said.

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Within seconds of taking the witness stand Monday morning a murder defendant admitted to fatally shooting another man in 2015.

The killing wasn’t premeditated, George Hatt Jr. said. He didn’t intend to kill Andrew Spencer, the defendant added. He believed Spencer had a gun when he saw Spencer kicking and punching his friend.

“I thought he was going to shoot me or my buddy,” Hatt said. Later Hatt admitted that Spencer was not armed with a gun, although he said he found a metal bar in the slain man’s hand after Spencer had fallen from a shot to the head.

Hatt, 50, was on the witness stand most of the day as his attorney walked him through the months leading up to the deadly shooting on a remote piece of Granite Falls property, where felons were known to squat.

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A Snohomish County jury didn’t buy a Granite Falls man’s story that he shot another man to protect himself and his buddy.

George Hatt Jr. faces decades in prison when he is sentenced later this summer. A jury Thursday convicted Hatt of first-degree murder with a firearm in the shooting death of Andrew Spencer. They also found him guilty of unlawful gun possession and tampering with physical evidence.

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Andrew Spencer’s 10-year-old daughter wrote her father’s killer a letter.

“I want to know why you had to kill my dad,” the girl wrote.

It doesn’t make sense to a 10-year-old. Spencer’s murder also didn’t make sense to a Snohomish County Superior Court judge Thursday.

“Mr. Spencer did not deserve to die,” Judge George Appel said.

The judge sentenced George Hatt Jr. to nearly 36 years in prison for the 2015 killing. Hatt’s cold and cruel actions earned him the maximum sentence allowed by law, Appel said.

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