Earl Gentry was a bully who thought he was above the law. The 6-foot-3-inch cigar-chomping ex-cop had wriggled off the hook for his involvement in the murder of Irvington resident Madge Oberholtzer in early spring of 1925. Afterwards. he fled to the small town of Jefferson, Wisconsin and began a reign of terror that lasted nine years. Townsfolk avoided eye contact, ducked into doorways or moved to the other side of the street whenever Earl Gentry walked past. On the morning of July 1, 1934 Earl’s blood-covered body was found in the back seat of a car parked in the Jefferson City Park by a passing fisherman. No one was sad at the news.
Earl Gentry had been killed “gangland style” according to Sheriff Joseph T. Lange. Upon further investigation by the Sheriff and D.A. Harold M. Dakin, Earl had been shot in the head with a large calibre weapon at close range. It was also clear to both men that the murder had not taken place in the car. But, why had the killer (or killers) gone to the added risk of removing the body from the scene of the crime? There could only be one answer — the murder scene would finger the actual perpetrators. For the moment at least, the gangster theory was thrown aside and the search for an answer started a little closer to home. They didn’t need a motive because everyone was glad Earl Gentry was dead.
The body was taken to the morgue, where University of Wisconsin criminologist Dr. J.H. Mathews performed the autopsy. While pathologists searched for clues on the marble slab at the deadhouse, Lange and Dakin drove to Gentry’s last known address. They headed to the house of local humanitarian Carrie Gill, a wealthy widow who had taken Gentry in to try and reform him. Unlike Earl Gentry, everybody loved Carrie Gill. She was a wealthy widow with a golden heart and warm smile to match known to everyone in Jefferson as “The Sunshine Lady.” She would help anyone with anything and believed it was her mission in life to help those in need, regardless of their past reputation.
The officers rang the doorbell a number of times with no response. They were about to kick in the door when they saw Mrs. Gill coming up the walk. She greeted them with a smile and told the men that she was just returning from her brother’s farm, where she had spent the night and all of that Sunday. She said she left her home about 9 p.m. Saturday.
“Was Earl Gentry at home when you left?” asked Lange. “No, he left about a half hour before, saying he was going uptown.” was Carrie’s reply. “Did you hear that he was found murdered in his car a little while ago?” asked Sheriff Lange. The color drained from Mrs. Gill’s face. She clutched the side of the porch for support. Then, slowly, she regained her composure and said quietly, barely above a whisper, “I’m glad he’s dead.” The Sheriff and the D.A. were startled by Mrs. Gill’s response. She was the lone defender of the hated Earl Gentry — how could she be glad that he was dead?
They tried to question Carrie further, but the news had stunned her into silence. She silently led the officials to Gentry’s room and sank into a chair as the two men examined the room thoroughly, taking with them all the letters and papers they could find. Mrs. Gill pointed out that Gentry’s revolver was missing from its usual place on the nightstand. On a table in the middle of the big man’s room lay an unopened letter, postmarked from Evansville. Tearing it open, Lange discovered that it was from Earl Klinck, his friend and fellow D.C. Stephenson bodyguard who had also been acquitted in the Oberholtzer murder trial. Klinck expressed relief that Gentry had reached Jefferson County safely. “I was afraid that they would get you sure before you got out of Indiana,” he wrote. During the search of Gentry’s room at the Gill house, the officers found a long envelope hidden beneath a stack of newspapers on a closet shelf. It contained a will made by Gentry dated March 16, 1931, leaving all his property to Mrs. Gill. However, a large X had been drawn across the front of the will with the startling notation: “Nulled and void by Earl B. Gentry Nov. 28, 1933, when I was threatened to be killed by Carrie Gill. She said she would have done it on the highway.”
The lawmen had barely enough time to digest this peculiar piece of evidence when they were startled away as they heard Mrs. Gill, who had gone downstairs, suddenly call out, “Sheriff, get down here quick!” They hurried down to the kitchen and found Mrs. Gill, her hand covering her open mouth, pointing to dried streaks of crimson-colored goo on the floor and walls.
“These stains weren’t here when I left,” she said. The streaks were blood and they had obviously been there for awhile. Someone had made a clumsy attempt at wiping them up but only succeeded in smearing the muck wider and deeper. “And those whisky bottles,” cried Mrs. GiII, pointing to two bottles in corner, “they weren’t there when I left last night.” Sheriff Lange retrieved a couple of clean cloths from a drawer, carefully wrapped the bottles in them and set them aside for fingerprint testing. He took out his pocketknife and scraped off what blood spots he could, whisking the flaky residue into an envelope. Dr. Mathews would try to match these samples to the blood of the murdered man.
Later examination revealed that only one set of fingerprints was found on the whiskey bottles and those prints didn’t come from either Carrie Gill or Earl Gentry. “These prints are undoubtedly those of the slayer,” said District Attorney Dakin. “And there was probably only one slayer because there were no glasses in the house to show that drinks had been poured for anyone else. The killer must have nerved himself for the job by draining both bottles as he waited in the dark. Had one of the bottles been emptied before he entered the house he would have tossed it away.”
The next step was to retrace the movements of Earl Gentry on the night of the murder. Sheriff Lange learned that Gentry had left the Gill home and headed straight to a nearby tavern. There he had purchased a package of cigarettes and two shots of whisky before driving off toward Fort Atkinson.
The officers headed south for the 10-minute drive to Fort Atkinson. On the way, they stopped at the Ferdinand Probst farm to check Mrs. Gill’s story that she spent Saturday night and Sunday with her brother. The Probst home had no telephone so Mrs. Gill could not have reached him before they arrived. Probst corroborated his sister’s story in every detail and added that he wasn’t a bit sorry to hear of Gentry’s death. Even Ferdinand’s nephew Donald told the sheriff he was glad Gentry was dead. “What did you have against Gentry?” asked the sheriff. “I didn’t like to have him going with my sister,” snapped the 17-year-old. “I warned her about him several times, but she wouldn’t listen to me. So I went to Aunt Carrie and pleaded with her to break it up before it went too far.”
Donald continued. “As soon as Aunt Carrie spoke to him about it, he came over to my house and gave me a terrific beating. I swore out an assault and battery charge against him and he was arrested. But when my father paid Gentry’s fine and got him out of jail, I left home and went to live with my uncle Ferdinand.” Their fingerprints didn’t match those found on the whisky bottles either. At the Albert Probst home, Donald’s older sister Josephine Probst gave a clear account of Gentry’s movements the night before. “Earl called for me early Saturday evening and took mother and me for a ride,” she said. “We dropped mother off at a church ice cream social and drove around for two hours alone. Then we picked up mother again and drove home and had lunch. Earl left at 12:15 a.m. He had not been drinking.”
By this time the autopsy was completed and Dr. Mathews reported that Gentry had died from a .38 caliber bullet to the brain. There were slight traces of alcohol in his stomach but not enough to cause intoxication. The dried bloodstains were the same blood type as Gentry’s. It was now clear that Gentry had been killed in the Gill kitchen by a perpetrator who left his prints on the two whiskey bottles and Gentry was killed with his own gun. But whodunnit?
Next week: Part 3
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest book is “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
