In the late summer of 2016, the small town of Woonsocket, South Dakota, was shaken by the tragic death of Jennifer Ann Gibson, a 26-year-old Caucasian female. On the morning of August 31, 2016, local police received a call about a possible situation at a residence on South 3rd Avenue. Responding officers discovered that Jennifer Gibson had been killed in the very early morning hours. An investigation later revealed that she had died from a fatal stab wound to the neck.
The home where the incident occurred belonged to her mother, but was where she resided with Matthew Walter Novak and their four children.
The report of a disturbance led to a brief standoff with law enforcement. A SWAT team, along with the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation and police from Sanborn and Jerauld counties, secured a block-wide area around the home. Woonsocket High School, located nearby, was placed on a self-imposed lockdown for about ten minutes until an arrest was made. Matthew Walter Novak, 33, also of Woonsocket, was taken into custody at the scene without incident and led in handcuffs to the county courthouse. He was initially charged with one count of second-degree murder.
Following the initial arrest, a Sanborn County Grand Jury indicted Novak on alternate counts of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and two charges of first-degree manslaughter for Gibson's death. Novak pleaded not guilty to the charges. He was held in the Beadle County Jail on a $350,000 bond. The case was investigated by the Sanborn County Sheriff's Office and the Division of Criminal Investigation, with prosecution handled by the Attorney General's Office. Earlier that same year, Novak and Gibson had been featured in local media for having the first baby born in 2016 at Huron Regional Medical Center. According to her obituary, Jennifer Gibson was engaged to be married to another man the month following her death.
