On the cold New Year's Eve of 2018, U.S. Army Sergeant Tyrone Hassel III, a 23-year-old male, was spending the holidays with his family in his hometown of Benton-Harbor, Michigan. He, his wife Kemia, and their one-year-old son had traveled from their station at Fort Stewart in Georgia to celebrate with his father. Shortly after 11 p.m., after bringing food to the residence for his wife, Hassel was ambushed in his father's driveway. He was shot multiple times in the head, neck, and torso. First responders found him on the ground, his wife by his side, and rushed him to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.
What initially appeared to be a random act of violence quickly unraveled into a story of betrayal and a meticulously planned conspiracy. The investigation began to focus on Tyrone's wife, Kemia Hassel, after an anonymous tip suggested she was involved in an extramarital affair with a fellow soldier. Simultaneously, Army investigators at Fort Stewart interviewed friends of a soldier named Jeremy Cuellar. One soldier confessed that Cuellar, who was also stationed at Fort Stewart, had admitted to the killing. The soldier revealed that Cuellar and Kemia Hassel were having an affair that began while they were deployed in South Korea and that they had been planning to murder Tyrone.
Detectives in Michigan brought Kemia in for questioning. After failing a polygraph test, she confessed to her role in the murder plot. She admitted that she and Cuellar had planned the killing for months, communicating through Snapchat to coordinate the details. The motive behind the murder was to collect on Sergeant Hassel's significant life insurance policy and military benefits. Investigators learned Cuellar had traveled from Georgia to Michigan multiple times to plan the attack with Kemia. On the night of the murder, a license plate reader had even captured Cuellar's vehicle in Benton Harbor just hours before the shooting. Kemia had contacted Cuellar to let him know her husband was returning to the house, at which point Cuellar ambushed and shot him.
Both Kemia Hassel and Jeremy Cuellar were arrested and charged with Tyrone's murder. In July 2019, a jury found Kemia Hassel guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. She was subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. To avoid a trial and the potential of facing the death penalty under military law, Jeremy Cuellar pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. He confessed to Tyrone's father before being sentenced to a term of 65 to 90 years in prison for his role as the gunman in the cold-blooded killing.
