Hall-Mills murder case
The Hall-Mills murder case, one of the most notorious unsolved crimes in U.S. history, revolves around the double murder of Reverend Edward Hall and choir member Eleanor Mills in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1922. The couple was discovered under a crab apple tree, having been shot and with Mills having suffered additional violence. Hall, a married Episcopal priest, and Mills were known to have had a romantic relationship, which was publicly acknowledged through love letters found at the scene. The investigation involved hundreds of witnesses and significant media coverage, yet ultimately led to the indictment of Hall's wife and her brothers in 1926 without any convictions due to insufficient evidence. The case garnered immense public interest and remains unresolved, spawning numerous speculations and books over the years. Its enduring infamy is underscored by its prominence in the media landscape of the time, drawing comparisons to other high-profile criminal cases. The Hall-Mills case highlights themes of scandal, betrayal, and the complexities of human relationships within a tightly knit community.
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Hall-Mills murder case
The Event: The double murder of Reverend Edward Hall and Eleanor Mills, a member of his church choir
Date: September 14, 1922
Place: New Brunswick, New Jersey
The double murder of Edward Hall, a married Episcopal priest in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and Eleanor Mills, a choir member in Hall’s church, attracted widespread news coverage, including verbatim transcripts of their love notes to each other. In 1926, Hall’s wife and her two brothers were indicted but were never convicted, ensuring the case’s continued infamy as an unsolved crime.
The bodies of Reverend Edward Hall, aged forty-one, and Eleanor Mills, aged thirty-four, were discovered on the morning of September 16, 1922, on property surrounding an abandoned farm in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Reverend Hall had been rector of the Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist in New Brunswick, where Mills sang in the church choir and served as an informal assistant to Hall. They were found lying side by side under a crab apple tree, neatly dressed, with his arm, positioned after death, under her shoulder, and her hand resting on his thigh. Each had been shot with a .32 caliber pistol—Hall once, Eleanor three times—and Eleanor’s throat had been cut. Love letters that Mills had written to Hall were found with the bodies.
Neighbors and parishioners knew the pair had been romantically involved for years. Hall’s wife, Frances, was related to the wealthy and powerful Carpender family and possibly the Johnson family of Johnson & Johnson medical supply founders. Eleanor’s husband, James Mills, was a school janitor. Both denied any knowledge of the affair.
The investigation uncovered hundreds of witnesses, including servants in the Hall home and many citizens of New Brunswick, who claimed to have been near the murder scene. Frances Mills and her brothers William “Willie” Stevens and Henry Stevens were indicted and tried in September 1926. William Stevens was developmentally disabled and lived with Frances and Edward Hall; Henry Stevens was an accomplished marksman. Although Frances Hall and her two brothers had the means and the motive for the murders, there was not enough evidence to convict them.
Impact
The Hall-Mills case became notorious for the authorities’ inability to solve it despite its having occurred in a relatively small community of thirty thousand inhabitants, the wealth of physical evidence available, and the hundreds of witnesses interviewed. It drew national attention and was one of the most reported on trials in U.S. history, surpassed only by the Lindbergh kidnapping case in the 1930s. The Hall-Mills case was never officially solved, generating speculation for decades afterward and leading to several books on the subject.
Bibliography
Katz, Hélèna. Cold Cases: Famous Unsolved Mysteries, Crimes, and Disappearances in America. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood Press, 2010.
Kunstler, William M. The Hall-Mills Murder Case: The Minister and the Choir Singer. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1980.
Tomlinson, Gerald. Fatal Tryst: Who Killed the Minister and the Choir Singer? Lake Hopatcong, N.J.: Home Run Press, 1999.