Kentucky history: A love triangle sparked a Henderson murder on New Year's Eve 1922
HENDERSON COUNTY, Ky. – Gus Noffsinger, the popular manager of the Southland Coal mines, was reaching to close the garage door when his best friend closed his life instead.
The 31-year-old had his back turned. It was the early morning hours of Dec. 31, 1922, at 1514 Clay St. and the case became an on-going story in The Gleaner the first 11 days of 1923.
Noffsinger’s body was found lying face-down with two holes in the back of his head. The body was discovered by his father, who stumbled across it in the dark while checking to see if Gus’ car was in the garage.
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Neighbors came to the scene immediately, followed quickly by police officers, who roped off the area and began searching for clues. They found a set of well-defined footprints nearby, which they covered with a tub.
The Southland company offered a reward and hired the Davis-Houghland Detective Agency of Evansville to assist Henderson police with the investigation. Within the first four days they had interviewed about 40 people.
Who was to blame: bootleggers? Or an affair?
Several different lines of inquiry were investigated, according to a June 1940 article in Daring Detective magazine, which featured true-crime stories. One possibility was trouble in the coal fields. Another was Noffsinger’s pending testimony against a couple of bootleggers.
But those lines failed to play out. A more promising one was built on gossip about a romantic relationship between the widow, Lurlie, 28, and a former boarder named Ollie Gibbons, 31, who worked in one of the mines Noffsinger supervised. That possibility seemed even more promising when investigators learned Noffsinger carried $17,500 of life insurance.
The Gleaner of Jan. 6 carried headlines that screamed Gibbons had been arrested and Lurlie had been taken into custody for her own protection. The story said Gibbons had been a suspect from the beginning. He was rushed to the Owensboro jail for fear of a lynch mob and the next day he was put on a train to the Louisville jail after it appeared Owensboro was also unsafe.
Those developments came after Lurlie confessed – after being presented with the evidence gathered thus far – not only to keeping her mouth shut about Gibbons' plans to kill his best friend, but also to ending a pregnancy.
Both Gibbons and her husband had bought abortifacients. Her husband still had the bottle on his body when it was searched.
Deputy Sheriff Mike Abel watched Gibbons in the Louisville jail and was able to trick him into confessing. The Gleaner reported it in an extra edition published on a Monday – the one day The Gleaner normally never publishes a paper.
Gibbons didn’t know investigators had found distinctive shoe prints near the murder scene: the heels had eight nails holding them instead of the usual six.
“We’ve matched the footprints in the alley to your shoes,” Abel said.
“Well, I guess you’ve got me,” Gibbons said calmly. He then gave a full confession, which The Gleaner printed.
A confession – and a not-guilty plea
He said he positioned himself on the route he knew Noffsinger would be using to return home and waited until Noffsinger had parked the car and was reaching for the door. He grabbed a specialized hammer used for breaking up coal, which he had placed in the back seat, and hit Noffsinger behind the ear while his back was turned.
“I never had a better friend than Gus Noffsinger,” he said. “He was my friend at all times and his wife kept nagging at me to do this and I killed him.” (Throughout the illicit eight-month relationship Noffsinger refused to believe gossip about his wife and his best friend.)
The Gleaner of Jan. 11 reported Gibbons had been indicted for murder and Lurlie for being an accessory before the fact. She was released on $5,000 bond and returned to her family home in Muhlenberg County. The Jan. 31 issue reported she had been paid $5,000 of the life insurance. The remaining $12,500 was going to Noffsinger’s estate.
The Gleaner of Feb. 20 said a jury had been picked – made up entirely of farmers – and that Gibbons caused a stir when he pleaded not guilty. The prosecution called 22 witnesses the first day.
The footprints were not the only evidence. There also was Gibbons’ pair of bloodstained long underwear, and a chewed pencil connected to Gibbons found under Noffsinger’s car. Witnesses also told of overly friendly relations between Lurlie and Gibbons.
When Lurlie testified she “bared the inner depths of her soul and told of her shame,” according to the Feb. 22 issue.
The defense strategy essentially was a plea for mercy. “Ollie Gibbons struck Gus Noffsinger the blow that killed him and we have no defense in this case,” said defense attorney John L. Dorsey Sr.
Prosecutor Talbott Berry was asking for the death penalty. “You are a midnight assassin and this jury should not show you mercy," he said.
The verdict: 'Tickled to death'
The death penalty was one of three options for murder back then. The other two were acquittal or life in prison.
The jury deliberated 23 hours – and sent Gibbons to Eddyville for life.
He was “tickled to death,” he told Abel on the trip after he was quickly rushed from the courthouse and put on a train before most people realized he was gone.
He told Abel he also wanted to see Lurlie “get what I got” because she was as guilty. He said he hit Noffsinger once; she picked up the hammer and hit him again.
Gibbons gave a deposition for a civil case between Lurlie and the administrator of her husband’s estate that was published in full in The Gleaner of March 27. He said he had boarded at the Noffsingers’ house about a year beginning in September 1921. But he evaded many of the questions.
“I am done with it. I missed the chair by the skin of my teeth, and I am down here for life, and I don’t want to have anything to do with it," he said. (The civil case awarded the final $12,500 insurance payout to the couple’s 5-year-old daughter, Velma.)
Lurlie was set to go to trial in mid-May, and Gibbons was brought back to testify. Not only that, but 12 members of the Hopkinsville National Guard unit provided security – backed up with a Browning Automatic Rifle.
They set it up in the corridor of the jail, and the soldiers bedded down there, according to the May 18 Gleaner, which carried a photo of Gibbons guarded by soldiers at Union Station. That story said that was the first time troops had been used to guard a prisoner here.
That issue also said Lurlie’s original indictment had been dismissed and that she had been indicted again on three different charges: for murder, aiding and abetting Gibbons in the murder, and accessory before the fact.
Her trial last five days – and the courtroom erupted in applause when the not guilty verdict was read, according to the June 3 Gleaner. Bailiffs ordered to arrest the noisy throng reported they were “unable to locate the offenders.”
Lurlie headed back to Muhlenberg County – where she had been childhood friends with Gus Noffsinger – although she eventually wound up in Owensboro when she remarried.
Gibbons was a model prisoner and was among 243 people pardoned by Gov. Ruby Laffoon as he was leaving office, The Gleaner reported Dec. 5, 1935.
75 YEARS AGO
The Henderson County Board of Education extended an invitation to the City Board of Education to start talking about consolidation, according to The Gleaner of Jan. 4, 1948, although it didn’t expect the city to accept the offer.
A group of about 25 parents had asked the county board to build a centralized high school, which led to the consolidation proposal. Both ideas were years in coming true.
Henderson County High School (now North Middle School) was built at 1707 Second St. in 1954. The city and county school districts merged at the beginning of the 1976-77 school year.
50 YEARS AGO
A 13-car L&N train partially derailed near Baskett, according to The Gleaner of Jan. 2, 1973, although only six of the cars left the tracks.
Eight cars carrying liquid petroleum gas were part of the train and one of them was leaking, officials reported. Investigators quickly determined little danger was posed because the nearest buildings were 2,000 to 3,000 feet away.
25 YEARS AGO
The Gleaner of Jan. 4, 1997, reported newly appointed County Engineer Bill Hubiak was getting ready to present a proposal for his office and Building Inspector Terry Maish’s office to have regular office hours.
The problem, he explained, is that when he and Maish went out to perform inspections they often missed people who wanted to be issued building permits.
“There seems to be a lot of confusion with people coming out to get permits,” he said. “It’ll keep people from having to run back and forth.”
Readers of The Gleaner can reach Frank Boyett at YesNews42@yahoo.com or on Twitter at @BoyettFrank.
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: A love triangle sparked a Kentucky murder on New Year's Eve, 1922
