Daughter of Samuel E. Ferrington and his wife, Lucy Penrod (divorced). Hazel married Lyle H. Hopkins on 8 December 1919 in Henry County, Iowa, but later divorced. She married Edward Julius Loose in Burlington on 29 September 1926, and had filed for divorce in 1928, but was missing on the court date.

Hazel's decomposed and partially-eaten body was found December 2, 1928 by hunters. Identification was made through her clothing, and the tea towel tied around her neck. Until that time, her husband Edward denied any knowledge of Hazel's whereabouts, but had sold her clothes, tried to cash in her life insurance, and had moved to Rock Island, Illinois. He later admitted to police of murdering Hazel, and dumping her body in the woods outside of Burlington at one of his former moonshine still sites - a place where Hazel had played as a child. He blamed jealousy of other men who had been seeing Hazel for his actions, and that he would rather see her dead than divorced from him - this, despite witnesses who claimed Edward was seeing other women. In court, however, he denied killing her, and tried convincing the jury that she had been robbed, murdered, and dumped by unknown others. His testimony opened an investigation into the illegal moonshine trade in the Burlington area, which resulted in numerous arrests, including Hazel's brother Ray and his wife on federal charges.

Edward escaped being sentenced to hanging, as certain members of the jury felt Hazel was as much to blame for her murder as her husband. Although originally sentenced to life in prison for second degree murder, Iowa Gov. Beardsley decreed in 1951 that life sentences should be commuted to years served. Edward was paroled after 24 years of his 90 year commuted sentence, and planned to move to Denver upon his release. He was a suspect in another possible murder, that of a former bootleg associate, which was later ruled a suicide.