Jefferson, Wisconsin Sheriff Joseph T. Lange and Dist. Atty. Harold M. Dakin had a dead body on their hands and a roster of suspects to choose from. Seems like everyone wanted Earl Gentry dead. Gentry, a 6-foot-3-inch 230 pound bully had fled from Irvington after evading conviction for the murder of Madge Oberholtzer by his old boss, D.C. Stephenson in 1925. At first, both men believed the killing to be a professional job, a gangster rubout. Then they discovered the blood-caked murder scene at the home of the saintly town do-gooder Carrie Gill and what looked like a darkened, secluded murder den lined with empty whiskey bottles. Sheriff Lange’s lone murderer-in-waiting theory was challenged when Henry Hafermann, night watchman at a milk condensery near the Gill home, came forward with this information: “About 1 o’clock Sunday morning I saw two men drive to the Gill home and go inside. Half an hour later I saw the same car, containing two men, park at the spot where the murder car was found.”
Carrie Gill had said she was glad Gentry was dead. Was the sunshine lady a murderer? The sheriff couldn’t believe it. Mrs. Gill was too gentle a soul, too devout a Christian to ever do something that vile, even to a brute like Earl Gentry. Still, the sheriff had a dead body on his hands and a job to do, so he confronted Mrs. Gill with the will and asked for an explanation. “I think that Mr. Gentry’s notation that I threatened him is too ridiculous to be considered,” she said. “I am even more puzzled about his motive in making a will when he had nothing to bequeath. Everything he possessed he got from me. So far as I know he was penniless.”
“You Gave Him Money? You gave him money — regularly?” asked the sheriff. “Yes, I believed I could set him straight. Last March he told me he was going to turn over a new leaf, that he was sure he could get work In Evansville if he only had enough money to get there. He promised that he would never trouble me again if I would give him $400 to make the trip and tide him over until he found work. I gave him the money and he left. From the tone of his letters I knew that he had no intention of looking for work and he constantly mentioned a blond school teacher. When he asked for more money I told him to forget about her and find a job.” said Mrs. Gill.
“Carrie, why did you continue to give him money? You knew that he was a chronic loafer, an incorrigible good-for-nothing. Why did you do it?” asked the sheriff. “I might as well tell you,” she sobbed. “I didn’t give him money willingly. He held me in a grip of fear that prevented me from going to the authorities for help. I was virtually a prisoner and a slave in my own home. He beat me often. Only a week ago ho put a knife to my throat and threatened to cut me to ribbons unless I gave him the insurance money I received when a log cabin I owned burned to the ground. In spite of the way he mistreated me, I want you to know that I would not be a party to his murder.”
Dr. J. L. Daniels of Jefferson verified Mrs. Gill’s statements. “She always appeared in a highly nervous state and her body bore bruises, apparently inflicted in a brutal attack by the hands or feet of some person,” he said. Now there was motive, but the sheriff refused to believe that Mrs. Gill could commit such a horrid crime. Was it possible that someone had murdered Gentry out of sheer pity for Mrs. Gill? The sheriff’s mind went back to Ferdinand and Donald Probst. They had to know more about this crime than they were letting on.
In an effort to get a fresh viewpoint on the mystery, Sheriff Lange called in Joseph Kluchesky, head of the bureau of identification of the Milwaukee police department. For hours the sheriff and Kluchesky grilled the two men like cheeseburgers on a barbecue pit. The men stuck to their original stories and both insisted they were glad Gentry was dead but had nothing to do with his murder. In frustration, Lange grabbed Ferdinand by the shoulder. ”This is your last chance,” he barked. “Unless you tell what you are hiding, we’ll arrest you and Donald and Mrs. Gill for the murder!” Ferdinand hesitated a moment, glanced at Donald and said softly, “All right, I’ll talk.”
“About 1 a.m. Sunday a fellow who had done some painting for Carrie came to my home and told me he had killed Earl Gentry at my sister’s home and that the body was so heavy he needed help to get rid of it.” Ferdinand continued, “He was driving Gentry’s car and we went back together and drove the car into the garage behind the house. When we entered the house, the body of Earl Gentry was lying on a rug and covered with a rug and some towels. We dragged the body into the back seat of the sedan. We drove around the condensery and over the Crawfish River Bridge and he let me out near my house. I went home to bed. About 5 a.m. he came to see me, and I told him to beat it out of town. Carrie had taken care of him when he was sick and after nursing him back to health had given him odd jobs to earn a little money when he didn’t have a friend. He thought Carrie was a saint and when he heard that Gentry had abused her, he thought he was doing her a favor by getting rid of him.”
Sheriff Lange soon learned from Mrs. Gill that she had hired a painter named George King to do some odd jobs for her and that perhaps Ferdinand might be referring to him. A local man informed Lange that he had seen George King walking along the railroad tracks toward Fort Atkinson at 6:30 a. m. the day the body was discovered. He had talked with him a few minutes but noticed nothing unusual. The sheriff told police at Fort Atkinson to be on the lookout for the wayward painter.
The sheriff then raced to Fort Atkinson himself and began searching local taverns, flophouses and hobo jungles for George King. Several bartenders said they knew a man answering King’s description, but they knew him as Carl Church. He got a tip that a man answering George King’s description was seen loitering in front of the Fort Atkinson county building. Sheriff Lange jumped from his car and approached the man.
“Is your name Carl Church or George King?” he demanded. “Why?” came the cautious reply. “We want you for the murder of Earl Gentry.” barked the sheriff. “I’m the guy. Let’s go,” said Carl Church. Once they got the suspect back to police headquarters Church seemed anxious to get the crime off his conscience. “I did it, and I’m glad I did it,” he boasted. “And I’d do it again if it were necessary. I kept thinking how he was beating her until I nearly went crazy. Then I decided to put him out of the way for good. I got into the house with one of my keys and drank two bottles of whiskey waiting for him to return. Then I shot him and got Ferdinand Probst to help me dispose of the body.”
Carl Church, Carrie Gill, Ferdinand Probst and Donald Probst were arrested for the murder of Earl Gentry. What happened next was one of the most sensational southern Wisconsin trials of the 1930s. Attorneys for both sides got the all-male jury they wanted because they thought female jurors could not stomach some of the testimony. At one point in the trial, the language was so strong that several women left the courtroom. One potential juror was dismissed because he was an ex-Klansman. Mrs. Gill pleaded innocent by reason of temporary insanity, maintaining that she was driven crazy by the many physical, psychological and emotional abuses that Gentry inflicted on her, including “sexual tortures” to try to make her submit to Gentry’s demands for sodomy. Her attorneys argued that Jefferson County authorities ignored Gill’s pleas for help because they were afraid of Gentry, a 6-foot-3, 230-pound brute who carried a knife and bragged of the violence he had done and would do.
At trial, prosecutors charged that the 59-year-old widow Gill was an ex-bootlegger who had become jealous when Gentry had transferred his affections to her niece, Josephine Probst, an “attractive, 23-year-old school teacher,” according to The Janesville Gazette. One expert witness for the prosecution testified that Gill had gunpowder residue on her right hand, while Church did not, implying the widow, not the painter, fired the fatal shot. Gill’s defense team made much of Gentry’s past with the KKK and his involvement in the D.C. Stephenson/Madge Oberholtzer crime.
Church recanted his confession, saying that his and Gill’s original plan was simply to tie up Gentry and coerce him to confess that he tried to force sodomy on Gill starting in 1931. But he fell asleep, Church said, and woke up to find Gentry confronting him, not the ambush he had planned. He was forced to kill the much bigger Gentry, Church testified. Within days, Church changed his story and said that he killed Gentry because Gill asked him to and paid him $60. Eight psychiatrists, called “alienists” in the newspaper, testified, and they disagreed about Gill’s sanity when the plan was hatched. After deliberating five hours, the 12-man jury found Carrie Gill innocent of complicity in Gentry’s murder. “I have sinned, I know, but I have not murdered,” Gill said. “Now I shall work and pray in repentance and thanksgiving.” Ferdinand was fined $100 and costs for obstructing justice and Donald was found not guilty. And the Sunshine Lady Carrie Gill went back to her work of brightening the lives of the unfortunates in her community, her faith in mankind as strong as ever. On July 5, 1934 after pleading guilty to first degree murder and receiving a life sentence in Wisconsin’s Waupun prison, Carl Church said: “I am not in the least sorry for the act I committed, as I feel I did a good deed for society when I killed Earl Gentry.”
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.
