In Cold Storage by James W. Hewitt

Author:James W. Hewitt [Hewitt, James W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: TRU002000 True Crime / Murder / General
ISBN: 9780803280731
Publisher: Bison Books
Published: 2015-04-21T00:00:00+00:00

Since the Nokeses now had a lawyer, investigators no longer had easy access to them. The patrol instead focused on interviewing neighbors and following up on rumors and false leads, including tales of marital infidelity that involved several other McCook citizens. The Nokeses’ neighbors, however, were evasive and unwilling to become involved in the investigation. Virtually everyone the patrol contacted spoke well of Harold and Ena and refused to believe that they could have committed such a heinous crime. Opinions of Kay Hein, however, were not as gracious. A number of women told the patrol of Kay’s promiscuity and paired her with a number of McCook males, both married and unmarried. None of the stories proved to be true. Kay’s neighbors also related that someone had written “Hot Ass Bitch” on her house in July, and that they had attempted to remove the message, which seemed to be written in black crayon.

In a bizarre attempt to crack the Nokeses, Douglas and Schroeder found a woman in McCook who bore an uncanny resemblance to Wilma Hoyt. They dressed her in Mrs. Hoyt’s clothing after seeking permission from the family and seated her next to Ena Nokes at the lunch counter of a McCook restaurant. Ena never batted an eye.

On November 5 a memorial service for the Hoyts was held in the Culbertson Methodist Church, the church that they had attended. The small building was packed to overflowing. All the body parts that had been recovered were placed in two caskets, which were present at the service, though they remained closed. Interment took place that day in the Hoyts’ lot at Culbertson Cemetery.

On November 10 a team of divers from the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office searched the surface of Strunk Lake unsuccessfully for additional body parts. On November 11 two of the divers searched underwater, but due to the turbid condition of the water, they were unable to discover anything of relevance.

Little progress was being made in building a case against the Nokeses, so on November 20 Fred Schroeder filed an application in the District Court of Frontier County, seeking permission to implant a bug, or listening device, in the Nokeses’ home and in their car. The application asked for twenty-four-hour-a-day monitoring of the Nokeses’ home for a period of thirty days. Such a procedure had only recently been enacted into law by the Nebraska legislature, and there was no judicial decision interpreting the law or precedent allowing such action. The bulk of legal maneuvering took place in Frontier County, because the bodies were discovered there. The proper venue would have been the county in which the murders took place, but this fact was not yet known. Fred Schroeder was willing to act as the attorney in the petition for the listening device, while Red Willow County attorney Clyde Starrett wanted nothing to do with the investigation.

Starrett had been involved in the Ida Fitzgibbons case earlier that year. Despite McCook chief of police William Green’s conclusion that Fitzgibbons’s death was a suicide, Starrett, as was his right under Nebraska statutes, proceeded with a six-man coroner’s jury.

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