Hall-Mills death duet: pastor and singer (10 photos)

On an ordinary September day in 1922, worker Raymond Schneider and his girlfriend were leisurely strolling around Somerset. The walk had to be interrupted due to a terrible discovery: human legs could be seen in the grass, and the limbs clearly belonged to the dead.





Crime scene



Surroundings of the crime scene

The bodies were clearly given a special pose. A man and a woman lay side by side next to an apple tree. The man's face was neatly covered with a hat, and his companion's head rested on his right hand.

Between the bodies lay torn pieces of paper (later it turned out that these were love letters to each other). There was a business card stuck to one of the man's shoes. The killer or killers took the time to clean up the remains after death. In general, the murder scene turned out to be non-trivial.





Inspection of the remains

Witnesses reported this to the police, who quickly arrived at the scene. Police discovered the man had been shot once in the head and the woman had been shot three times in the head. Her throat was also cut and, as it turned out later, her tongue was removed. The bodies were quickly identified as Reverend Edward W. Hall, pastor of a church in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and Mrs. Eleanor R. Mills, a singer in the choir of Hall's church. Both were married, but they had an affair for some time.

Reporters flocked like flies to honey. Together with a crowd of onlookers who diligently trampled the crime scene, despite the efforts of the police, and added a lot of unnecessary evidence.



Everyone managed to touch the card lying at Hall’s feet. As a result, there was no longer any chance of getting fingerprints.

Almost immediately, the police suspected the victims' spouses, which is logical. Both claimed to have spent the evening at their home. When their halves did not return home in the evening, they went in search of them. Unsuccessfully. Then Mrs. Hall's two brothers came under suspicion.

Police are examining numerous clues



Eleanor Mills

A crowd of local residents vied with each other to claim that they had been near the crime scene and heard gunshots, seen Mrs. Hall and several men at the apple tree that night, or seen other terribly suspicious characters in the area.

The police howled quietly with frustration, and the heads of the law enforcement officers were spinning from many versions, many of which clearly contradicted each other. The most notable witness, and a newspaper favorite, was a local woman named Jane Gibson. The woman kept a pig farm, and therefore received an apt, but not the most euphonious, nickname - Sow. Her versions of what she saw differed significantly each time she testified. But she received an abundance of emotions from the process, lazily basking in the rays of glory.

Who's the killer?



Pastor Hall

Eventually, the police arrested Mrs. Hall and her two brothers, Henry and William Stevens. Their trial began on November 3, 1926 and lasted a month. Many witnesses were called. The prosecution's main witness, the same Sow-Gibson, was so ill that she had to be taken to the courtroom in a hospital bed.



Business card

Her testimony was even questioned by her own mother, who stood in the courtroom and shouted that her daughter was a liar. Other witnesses confirmed the presence of the business card, the autopsy results, and what they allegedly saw on the night of the murder. The prosecution was unable to present compelling arguments of guilt or even involvement, and all three defendants were acquitted.

Theories, versions, hypotheses



Frances Noelle Stevens Hall, widow of victim Edward Wheeler Hall and accused in the murder case

Many theories were later put forward about what happened that night. Some believed that Mrs. Hall and her brothers committed the murders but were released due to lack of evidence. Others insisted that the Ku Klux Klan killed Reverend Hall and Mrs. Mills to turn them away from immorality in general. According to other versions, the killers were local teenagers, Mrs. Mills' husband, or an assassin. At the trial, the defense even put forward the version that the Sow did it.



Who is the killer?

Things have calmed down. It acquired a new twist thanks to lawyer Alexander Simpson, who intervened on the personal orders of the governor. The lawyer demanded an exhumation and a second autopsy. As a result, it turned out that Eleanor had not only her tongue removed, but also part of her trachea and larynx. That is, the voice apparatus. What clearly resembled the revenge of a jealous woman - the reverend was too carried away by the nightingale with a heavenly voice in his choir. But the evidence was not conclusive. The case again ended up in the archives, became covered with a layer of new speculation and dust, and remained unsolved.



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