On December 31, 1922, Henderson, Kentucky experienced it’s first “mystery murder” in many years. As it was pieced together, it was learned that Gus Noffsinger, Jr., age 34, the general manager for the Southland Coal Mine Company, had met with a large stockholder of the company, one Edward Potter, the evening of December 30, at the Hotel Kingdon. He left for his home at 1514 Clay Street, in Henderson, just before midnight. He had lived in Henderson some five years before, having moved from Midland, in Muhlenberg County.
At about 5 a.m. the morning of December 31, his father, Charles Bradford Noffsinger, went to the garage. He found his son lying in a pool of blood, at the open door of the garage. Upon investigation, police believed that Gus Noffsinger’s killer had been hiding in the garage and when Noffsinger pulled in, turned off his lights and started to leave the garage, the man attacked Noffsinger with a regulation size miner hammer later found in the garden. He was found to have been struck twice, once behind each ear. Since Noffsinger was a big, powerfully built man, over six feet and over 220 lbs, it was believed he had to have been ambushed.
Noffsinger’s wife, Lurlee, called “Lurlie,” slept through the attack, in a bedroom only 20 feet away.
The only other clue, besides the hammer, were footprints of a man’s small foot, a size 5 1/2. The next day, another clue appeared, a pencil found in the garage, sharpened in a a completely different method than Noffsinger used. It was “half used up and deeply bitten into.”
Robbery was quickly eliminated as a motive, as Noffsinger’s gold watch and a small amount of money was untouched. However, he was also known to have taken the day’s coal receipts and several unclaimed pay envelopes, presumably in cash, home with him, but did not have them with him at the time of the attack. The only other motive put forth was that Noffsinger was to testify in a liquor trial soon.
Noffsinger was reported to be a “home man,” devoted to his wife and a young daughter, Velma. The couple had lost a son, age 2, just the year before.
Evansville, Indiana police were called in to assist. In particularly, Bertillion Officer John Heeger was assisting with fingerprints and footprints at the scene. Bloodhounds from Owensboro were brought in and they followed a trail from the garage through an alley, but lost the scent.
In an odd side detail, two young men who worked for the Henderson Gleaner (the small local newspaper) took the initiative to put out an “extra” of the newspaper with details on the murder. They had finished their work, one as a printer’s devil and the other as a carrier, and were shooting craps with the janitor. They gathered up the available news and put together a single page edition, and “lighted the gas” on the linotype machine. The pressmen and printers quickly rolled out the news!
A representative of the coal company reported that the hammer belonged to Noffsinger. Rewards were pledged by the company and two United Mine Workers unions.
Gus B. Noffsinger’s body was transported to, and in due course he was buried in, the Cedar Grove Cemetery near Midland.
Investigators believed the killer was “familar with his home and habits.” Normally he parked his “machine” – his car – in front of the house when he returns late at night, but due to the rain, he follows his habit of garaging it during bad weather, instead.
The mystery was solved, it was thought, with the arrest of Ollie Gibbons at the Kingdon Hotel by Detective John Houghland of the Davis-Houghland Detective Agency out of Evansville. In fact, he approached Houghland, as he said, he knew he was a suspect and thought that he “might as well be in jail.” He was immediately whisked away to Owensboro due to a fear of a lynching. The public also learned that Noffsinger’s widow, Lurleen, was being “held in a secret place” and was also to be charged and that her daughter was, for the moment, with her. The motive, it seemed, was the victim’s $20,000 life insurance police. Mrs. Noffsinger (who was never referred to with her first name, even upon being arrested) confessed that the pair had plotted to kill her husband, and that Gibbons was to marry her and take her, and her daughter, out of the country. Gibbons had roomed with the couple the year before, for several months and during that time, Mrs.Noffsinger fell in love. She claimed her husband had abused her and they quarrelled, and Gibbons was sympathetic to “her troubles.” They became “very intimate,” and Gibbons told her (via a note) that he intended to killer Noffsinger. She said “it did not shock me as it should” and that she told Gibbons that she would not do it, but didn’t care if he did. She refused to poison him. There was also an earlier attempt when Gibbons was waiting outside for her to send her husband on an errand, so that Gibbons could attack him, but her never failed her. On the night of the murder, while her husband was out, Gibbons came to the house and then waited outside, while she “went to bed” and “slept soundly.”
Adding to the situation, she said, was that her in-laws were living with them as well and “they were old and couldn’t understand [their] ways.” She also overheard her father-in-law express concern the night of the murder that Noffsinger had not returned home, but her mother-in-law dissuaded him from talking to Mrs. Noffsinger because she had not been feeling well. She had not heard any shots and did not realize that Gibbons had chosen a different method of murder.
In addition to the hammer and the pencil, another piece of evidence linked Gibbons to the murder, an undershirt with a bloodstain that was dropped off at a Henderson laundry, with the initials O.G. HIs landlord also idenified the pencil as belonging to Gibbons.
The same afternoon as the arrest, Mrs. Noffsinger had called at an attorney’s office to settle the estate and to request a guardian for her daughter. Det. Houghland questioned her there and her “nerve failed,” leading to the confession. Houghland had, it was noted, considered the pair as suspects from the beginning, and had even questioned Mrs. Noffsinger at the “dead man’s bier,” to no avail.
The news reported that Mrs. Noffsinger had been married before, at 16, and was, according to her first husband, just a “plain country girl.” He learned after they were married awhile that she was “corresponding with other men,” so he left her for a time. When he returned from California, they divorced.
Swift justice was demanded. The County Attorney stated he intended to ask for the death penalty for both. At some point, with Owensboro fearing mob violence against Gibbons, he was taken to Louisville. In his confession, he coolly recounted what had happened and that Mrs. Noffsinger had told him that since it was raining, it was a “good night” for their plan. He claimed that he had tried to leave town when rumors started about his apparent relationship with his boss’s wife, but Noffsinger had begged for him to stay. He had several times “played sick” to spend time with her during the workday. She told him once, he related, that “Ollie, I love you well enough to let you take my heart, string it around your neck and wear it for a charm.” He claimed he “never had a better friend than Gus Noffsinger” and put all the blame on his paramour who “kept nagging at me to do this” and as a result, he killed his friend.
The following months, with legal matters proceeding, Charles Noffsinger, the victim’s father, moved to block the insurance payout, on behalf of his granddaughter, Velma. Although Gibbons was held in custody, Mrs. Noffsinger had been given bail and was released on a pledge of $10,000 by “prominent Muhlenberg county people.” had been allowed to go home to Central City, only returning to Henderson for the trial. Once there, she went into seclusion and friends were told she was “too ill” for visitors.
At trial, Mrs. Noffsinger sobbed but finally was able to regain her composure to some degree, and testified to the plot. claiming that she had objected but when Gibbons was finally successful, she “said nothing.” She continued to claim that her husband was “mean and cruel to her and she had gotten to such a point that she did not care what happened to him, but she would never consent to kill him as she did not want murder on her soul.” She admitted to “illicit relations” with Gibbons and that her husband suspected it.
In a slight twist to what had been reported before, she claimed she awoke at 5 a.m. and raised the outcry, and her father-in-law went outside to look, finding the body. Her , it was thought, were help her in her upcoming trial on conspiracy.
Ollie Gibbons was convicted and given a life sentence, as a result of his confession to the murder.
In May, Lurlie Noffsinger was acquitted. The final chapter was written when the final payment on the life insurance was released, on behalf of her daughter, some $12,500; Mrs. Noffsinger had previously received $5,000. The child also received the residence. Mrs. Noffsinger soon remarried and lived in Owensboro with her new husband, and remained there until her death.
Despite being reviled by fellow prisoners for testifying against his paramour, violating the prisoner code of “not to tell” on anyone, Gibbons proved to be a model prisoner. He had been hissed by fellow prisoners upon his arrival and would lead a lonely life there. Later in the same year, some evidence suggests he was commended for his help during the October 3, 1923, prison riot in Eddyville that led to the death of three guards. although his help was in fact questioned by the warden. In 1935, he was pardoned by Governor Ruby Laffoon but it is unknown where he spent the rest of his life.
Kentucky Cop Stories 