Ted and Gary Noble
Real Names: Gary Lee and Ted Noble
Aliases: Larry Juster (Gary)
Wanted For: Burglary, Armed Robbery
Missing Since: February 1996
Case[]
Details: Becky Wood still remembers the terror, the choking fear of being bound, assaulted, and absolutely convinced that she and her four grandchildren were going to die. It happened on February 12, 1996, when two men, disguised in masks, invaded her home in Franklin Township, near Akron, Ohio. At 7am, shortly after her husband left for work, the men broke in through a side door. They seemed to know exactly what they were looking for. Unable to open the safe, they went into Becky’s room and woke her up, demanding her to open it. The first thing she remembered was seeing a man with blood on his head and eye. At first, she thought she was having a bad dream. But when they demanded again for her to open the safe, she realized that it was real.
Becky’s granddaughter was sleeping beside her, and Becky thought to hide her with a blanket. Three other children were asleep in different bedrooms. The men pulled her out of bed at gunpoint and walked her out of the room. Looking back, she said that she had never felt so helpless. She was afraid for her grandchildren; she prayed that they would sleep through it. As the men led her through the house, one of them kept screaming at her, “Where’s the combination? Where’s the combination?”
The men took Becky to the kitchen, where they continued to ask for the combination to the safe. She tried to explain to them that she did not know it and that she did not have it with her. She asked if she could call her daughter. The man with the bloody mask became enraged; he pushed her to the floor and kicked her in the head. He then told her that they were going to take the children and she would never see them again. She kept telling them that she did not have the combination, and that she would open it if she knew it.
Sounds of ransacking came from upstairs, where the second man was looting Becky’s dresser of jewelry. At that point, her nine-year-old grandson Matthew wandered out of his room. The man grabbed him and took him downstairs to where Becky was being held. Michael remembered his heart beating fast and being scared because he did not know what was going on. The man threw Matthew on the floor, put his hands behind him, and tied him up with duct tape. He then put a trash bag over Matthew’s head.
The men bound Becky and wrapped her up in a rug. She believed that they were going to take her out of the house and kill her, and that they were going to smother Matthew. Then, one of the men told them, “Count to 2,000 before you move, or else we’ll be back to kill you!” Becky heard them drag the safe across the floor. She heard her car start. Then, silence as it was driven away.
One of the other children awoke and cut Becky and Matthew free. She then discovered that the men had sliced all the alarm and phone lines. Neighbors summoned police. In addition to stealing Becky’s '91 Lincoln, the men had made off with $20,000 worth of jewelry, and the locked safe containing the Woods’ life savings, another $18,000 in cash. Becky stated that, while the men stole many of their possessions, she is thankful that she and the children are alive.
That afternoon, police found Becky’s car at a nearby car wash. The safe turned up a week later, emptied of cash, but yielding evidence that could help convict the robbers once they were identified. As police began to review the case, the facts pointed to one conclusion. The assailants had known exactly where to find the wires for the home alarm system. They knew just where the safe was kept. They knew just where to look for Becky’s jewelry. They had known too much to be total strangers.
Detective Michael Korach met with Becky and her husband Woody. He asked them to put together a list of people they knew, dealt with, or worked with, who would have had intimate knowledge of their home and belongings. It would prove to be a solid hunch. When the jewelry showed up at pawnshops in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 100 miles away, police there believed it had been sold by a man named Larry Juster. State computers yielded a photograph of him, which was relayed to Ohio.
Becky and Woody had left town to recover some peace of mind after the robbery. Their daughter offered to review the pawnshop leads for local police. When they showed her the picture of Juster, she identified him as twenty-nine-year-old Gary Noble. She told them that Gary’s thirty-two-year-old brother, Ted, had briefly worked for the Wood family eight months prior to the robbery. He was also on the list that the Woods had provided to the police. When Ted and Gary found that detectives were closing in, they fled Ohio.
Police were given information that the Nobles had made statements that they had no intention of being taken alive if confronted by law enforcement. Police entered the warrants with “extreme caution” on both of them. They have tracked them as far south as Houston, Texas, but have been unable to locate them. They are considered armed and dangerous. Becky said that the robbery has changed her life and her family’s lives greatly. She is angry at what they did to herself and her grandchildren.
Extra Notes: This case first aired on the March 14, 1997 episode; it was updated on the May 29, 1998 episode.
Gary (left) and Ted after their 1997 arrests
Results: Captured. As a result of viewers' tips from a repeat broadcast, police learned that Gary was working on a construction crew at the football stadium being built for the Tennessee Oilers in Nashville, Tennessee. On Tuesday, August 26, 1997, the Tennessee Violent Crimes Task Force responded to the site and saw him driving away in a vehicle. When the agent turned around to follow him, he lost him in traffic. He alerted the rest of the task force, who again found him in traffic in an area where he and Ted frequented. By this time, Ted was also in the car. A short chase ensued before the two were caught near an exit ramp to Interstate 265 after their car collided with a police car.
By coincidence, a TV camera crew happened to be on hand as Gary was taken into custody and led to a patrol car, where Ted had already been secured. For Becky and her family, the image of the Noble brothers in handcuffs brought a long-awaited sense of relief. She was shocked yet happy that they were finally caught. She hoped that they would “get what’s coming to them.”
In December 1997, Gary and Ted pleaded guilty to charges of theft, burglary, robbery, and tampering with evidence. Both received sentences of three-to-fifteen years. They both served several years in prison and were released.
In December 2010, Gary was arrested and charged in the shooting death of Mark Shafer. Mark was killed in his home during a robbery gone wrong on September 22. In April 2011, Gary pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to twenty-three years in prison.
Links:
- Gary and Ted Noble on Unsolved Archive
- Two burglary suspects are found in Tenn. - August 27, 1997
- Task force nabs brothers sought in Ohio robbery - August 27, 1997
- Tenn. arrest pleases victim - August 28, 1997
- Akron pair captured after chase in Tenn. - September 4, 1997
- Grand jury indicts suspects in robbery - September 19, 1997
- Arrest made in fatal Akron shooting - December 10, 2010
- Barberton man gets 23 years in prison for fatal shooting - April 29, 2011
- Gary Noble Inmate Information
- FBI Poster for Ted Noble