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Speaker 1: and thanks for listening up. I don't know stories and
Speaker 1: the answer too. Hey there, welcome to another episode of
Speaker 1: Thinking Sideways. I am Joe, joined as always by my
Speaker 1: co hosts and Steve and almost almost gave it away
Speaker 1: as my surname is water Alert everybody. Okay, uh wow,
Speaker 1: So we've got another cool mystery this week. First off,
Speaker 1: I want to say this was suggested by Mike and
Speaker 1: a long time ago, I think a year or two
Speaker 1: something like that. Anyway, sometime in the one century. I hope, yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope you're like still alive and still listening to us. Mike. Thanks.
Speaker 1: What we're gonna talk about is a very notorious double
Speaker 1: murder that happened almost a hundred years ago in the
Speaker 1: far off axotic country of New Jersey. Uh you've heard
Speaker 1: of New Jersey probably, Yeah, home of like Atlantic City
Speaker 1: and all that good stuff. Yeah, and of course we
Speaker 1: got a riff on New Jersey a little bit, and
Speaker 1: you know, double murder, New Jersey. So what big freaking deal,
Speaker 1: every day occurrence? I know, pretty much. We're just kidding
Speaker 1: our New Jersey listeners. Hey, guys, don't take it seriously.
Speaker 1: We're just having a little fun. So let's get back
Speaker 1: to our notorious double murder here. Some of you might
Speaker 1: have heard of this. It was actually a huge deal
Speaker 1: back when it happened. It's like it was like up
Speaker 1: until that that time it was the biggest thing in
Speaker 1: the national news until it got bumped by the Lindbergh
Speaker 1: baby case. Yeah, it took about a decade before it
Speaker 1: got Yeah, but until that time, it was pretty freaking huge. Um.
Speaker 1: So what happened is on the morning of September six,
Speaker 1: two bodies were discovered in a field that was part
Speaker 1: of a farm that had abandoned farmhouse on it. And uh,
Speaker 1: it was kind of a lover's lane. It was a
Speaker 1: little a little old called Uh it's it's in northwest
Speaker 1: New Brunswick, New Jersey, and it's called Drusie Lane. And
Speaker 1: I look forward on Google, I can't find it. I'm
Speaker 1: hoping some of our New Jersey listeners, if they're not
Speaker 1: angry with us and they haven't shut us off already,
Speaker 1: hoping they can look at some old maps and they
Speaker 1: find it. But it's off of Eastern Eastern Avenue that
Speaker 1: kind of runs parallel to the river there. If you're PREMI,
Speaker 1: of course you all know where the river is New Brunswick, right, Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's where you dropped the bodies, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And these people apparently were too lazy or just too
Speaker 1: impatient to get all the way to the river, so
Speaker 1: they dump the bodies a little short of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not really. Yeah, the bodies were discovered by two
Speaker 1: young lovers. Of course, it was Lovers Lane, so they
Speaker 1: were out for a morning stroll. And I would give
Speaker 1: you their names. Actually their names are available and out there,
Speaker 1: but you'd forget them right away, and it's not that
Speaker 1: important anyhow, Right, it's Raymond Schneider and Pearl Bombers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and actually I probably should say their names. I guess
Speaker 1: there was talking about about possibly one of the other
Speaker 1: and being involved in the murderers, so oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know that that's kind of important. Yeah. So he
Speaker 1: was twenty three and she was fifteen. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if that wasn't partly legal, but so let's just take
Speaker 1: it one crime at a time, right, Our two lovers
Speaker 1: were walking down good old Drusy Lane and headed towards
Speaker 1: that abandoned farmhouse I mentioned about, but ago uh, and
Speaker 1: then they saw something. Reportedly she saw it first, a
Speaker 1: couple of bodies underneath a crab apple tree. I was
Speaker 1: gonna say, clearly, they've never seen any horror movies. You
Speaker 1: don't walk to an abandoned barn quite a thing in
Speaker 1: so sorry, good point. It's really true. Those weren't more
Speaker 1: innocent times. Probably people didn't really look at an abandoned
Speaker 1: thing and immediately thinking of serial killer Matt Slash or
Speaker 1: anything like that like we do today. That we totally do, right,
Speaker 1: Yeah I do. I do. Yeah, our listeners obviously do.
Speaker 1: We've got those emails. Yeah, for sure. So I don't
Speaker 1: go into those places without a clear warm mine duct
Speaker 1: taped to my chest. We should just talk about your
Speaker 1: defen the strategy for like a quick second. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: like it. Face towards enemy is not a good A
Speaker 1: good strategy, yeah, yeah, I would have pointed outwards. Yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely that. Yeah, and even then, I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: you would survive one of those, but I don't think
Speaker 1: you would. Yeah, I'm pretty sure you won't. We got
Speaker 1: to find a guinea pig anyway back to Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I don't mean like I don't I like guinea pigs.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about you know what I'm saying. It's what's
Speaker 1: interesting about this is the position of the bodies. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you guys have read about this. They were they
Speaker 1: were carefully posed. They were laid out on their backs,
Speaker 1: side by side, with their feet towards a crab apple tree.
Speaker 1: There was a man and a woman, and a man
Speaker 1: and a woman. His right arm was extended and was
Speaker 1: underneath her neck, and her left arm was extended towards him,
Speaker 1: and her hand was resting on his right leg, and
Speaker 1: she was she was on his right side, and they
Speaker 1: were closest to her. Yeah, okay, yeah, exactly. And his
Speaker 1: hat had been placed over his face and he was
Speaker 1: wearing his glasses by the way. Her scarf had been
Speaker 1: wrapped around her neck, and it appears that it was
Speaker 1: wrapped around her neck by the killer or kill. Yeah,
Speaker 1: postward you'll find out why in a sack that they've
Speaker 1: both been shot in the head. He was shot once
Speaker 1: in the head and she was shot three times. It
Speaker 1: was once above the right eye and then twice just
Speaker 1: below it. I think is where the entry wounds were
Speaker 1: at something like that. But yeah, and they were shot
Speaker 1: from the front, Yeah, mostly from the front. Actually, his
Speaker 1: one was kind of in the side. It kind of
Speaker 1: went in like I think like behind his ear and
Speaker 1: came out of his neck or something like that. Almost
Speaker 1: like maybe he turned his head at the last second
Speaker 1: or the Yeah, somebody's trying to shoot me, that's probably
Speaker 1: what I would do, or put my hands up that
Speaker 1: will stop that bullet. Yeah, as I said, it appears
Speaker 1: that the scarf was wrapped around her neck postmortem because
Speaker 1: when they unwrapped the scarf from her neck, turns out
Speaker 1: her throat had been cut from ear to ear and
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Uh, And apparently it was like
Speaker 1: infested enough with I guess that indicated that they the
Speaker 1: bodies have been there at least twenty four hours and
Speaker 1: probably more like you know, something like that. They were
Speaker 1: posed in a way that didn't really lead to very
Speaker 1: much suspicion, I would say, right. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: lover's lane if it's nice enough weather, like you know,
Speaker 1: they're just taking an app and that especially with the
Speaker 1: scarf over the gash in her neck and the hat
Speaker 1: over his face, that seems sort of like they're hiding
Speaker 1: the wounds. Yeah, you would maybe walk past and it
Speaker 1: would just look like, oh, they're just two lovers laying there.
Speaker 1: It does happen that kind of thing, you know, the
Speaker 1: dead bodies, and people just think it was somebody taking
Speaker 1: an app not unusual. So that's that's a good strategy.
Speaker 1: And of course guarantee the body is gonna be nice
Speaker 1: and right by the time they found And so yeah,
Speaker 1: the riper they are, the better it is for you
Speaker 1: the murderer. Right. Yeah, the cut, by the way her
Speaker 1: neck was from the right side, that's her right to
Speaker 1: the left, which indicates to me at least that it
Speaker 1: was a left handed kill. We had this conversation with Jackery. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, I I still disagree with the
Speaker 1: automatic presumption killer could have been behind her. It could
Speaker 1: have been instead of a forehand, a backhand slash. There's
Speaker 1: there's a number of ways that could go. Although when
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like we're talking haphazard slash, like I
Speaker 1: agreed with you with jack the ripper right that if
Speaker 1: you're just if you're like slash backhanded or slash back.
Speaker 1: You also don't know if this cut was done, was
Speaker 1: what killed her, or if the shots were I presume
Speaker 1: that the shots happened first at the point she's laying
Speaker 1: on the ground, so it would have been a slow
Speaker 1: cut either way. But you can drag your hand across
Speaker 1: one direction or the other on something that's laying on
Speaker 1: the ground and not resisting you. That makes it easy
Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah, but so anyway, it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1: There were no obvious suspects who were left handed, so
Speaker 1: at least that I know of, But Lefty got off
Speaker 1: yeah right now, Yeah, that's the guys nickname is Lefty.
Speaker 1: That'd be funny. Yeah. There were two autopsies done on
Speaker 1: her body, one just after the murder and then another
Speaker 1: one four years later when the investigation was reopened, and
Speaker 1: that autopsy they discovered that her larynx and her tongue
Speaker 1: had been removed. Interestingly, and so I don't know how
Speaker 1: the first medical examiner managed to miss something like that.
Speaker 1: It seems like a pretty big thing. Yeah, I you know,
Speaker 1: all I can say is like, you know, maybe they
Speaker 1: just looked at the bullet hole to slit throat and
Speaker 1: they just sawt well cause of death open and shut. Maybe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe it wasn't an autopsy, but just because
Speaker 1: I had to look this up because the laryrics, it's
Speaker 1: the larynx that was missing, right, Yeah. That that is
Speaker 1: just below your basically where a man's atom apple is
Speaker 1: up to the bottom of the chin. It's somewhere in
Speaker 1: that range. So it's and it's connected to the tongue
Speaker 1: it's true sort of connected to the tongue by muscle tissue, yes,
Speaker 1: sort of, not perfectly. Yeah, it's so an interesting little
Speaker 1: little souvenir to take if you're the murderer. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: just seems like it would be messy, yeah, extremely and
Speaker 1: that it would have left like a lot of blood
Speaker 1: trace and stuff like that. That's why it brings zip
Speaker 1: block bags, I guess, yeah, but I'm just thinking, you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: if indeed all of this took place while she was
Speaker 1: alive or was the cause of death, there should have
Speaker 1: been tons of blood spatter. Well, there should have been
Speaker 1: tons of blood flow even if she was dead, unless
Speaker 1: her body had been drained of blood, which would be
Speaker 1: another really important thing true, you know, yeah, I know
Speaker 1: I didn't. The cram scene was kind of contaminated, but
Speaker 1: you think still that massive amounts of blood would be
Speaker 1: kind of like evidence. But I haven't found any evidence
Speaker 1: that there was. I'm sure there was lots of blood,
Speaker 1: it's just the writings or the investigation stuff is, but
Speaker 1: that it would be all over her as well, a
Speaker 1: lot of it on her. But she was very dark
Speaker 1: clothing too, so that's you know, there's that and a
Speaker 1: lot of it was soak into the ground. The state
Speaker 1: of the bodies. It could it could be like what
Speaker 1: Devon was saying, It could just be somebody who arranged
Speaker 1: him to look like two lovers taking an app or
Speaker 1: just hanging out, or it's kind of it could just
Speaker 1: just sort of a ritualistic kind of serial killer kind
Speaker 1: of pose. Um uh. And I doubt that I doubt
Speaker 1: that they actually did it themselves. Since they've been shot
Speaker 1: in the head, right, that kind of makes sense to
Speaker 1: the killer did. Yeah, this is not a murder suicide
Speaker 1: packed thing, no, or even a happenstance that that just
Speaker 1: happens to be how they fell. Yeah, because seeing the
Speaker 1: other Yeah, no, that that that theory is is completely
Speaker 1: out there. I don't even know why you put that in.
Speaker 1: I kind of I kind of like it. What my
Speaker 1: theory is this is that all the townsfolk, when they
Speaker 1: heard that there have been two bodies discovered, came running
Speaker 1: right away to trample the crime scene and take souvenirs.
Speaker 1: Yeah they did, They totally did. And I'm just imagining
Speaker 1: that they get there and he's laying there with a
Speaker 1: revolver in his hand, as somebody says, hey, that'd be
Speaker 1: a cool souvenir and just grabs it. So it could
Speaker 1: have happened. Well, yeah, you guys have both seen the
Speaker 1: photos of people all over that place. It was it
Speaker 1: was it was a circus, it wasn't. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: all these guys wearing their their suits and their derby
Speaker 1: hats and everything, and there's like a crowd of them
Speaker 1: around this crab apple tree and they're all grinning and
Speaker 1: carving their initials into this crab apple. They were carving
Speaker 1: their initials. They were carving chunks of it away images
Speaker 1: that I saw you could tell they were. They were
Speaker 1: taking big scrapes out of it down to bear wood.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that tree was done. I'm sure. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: that crab I will treat you to them, I know,
Speaker 1: I know, I mean it was a little crabby, but yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah what it makes kind of a crappy suit
Speaker 1: and here it really you know, it looks like a
Speaker 1: piece of wood. It's like, oh no, this came from
Speaker 1: like near a murder scene. Well, but also like really really,
Speaker 1: I mean, we all three are like weird people like
Speaker 1: unsolved mysteries and murders and things like that. I cannot
Speaker 1: fathom being like, oh, murder cool, I need a souvenir.
Speaker 1: What I can see you doing it? I would, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would get a son or two. I grabbed the
Speaker 1: murder weapon because you always want to get caught with
Speaker 1: that with your fingerprints on it and everything. That's exactly right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but anyway, yes, I said, there's not much else in
Speaker 1: the way of evidence, because again, it was all trampled
Speaker 1: on by everybody. So the bodies were really the only intact,
Speaker 1: untinted evidence at the scene. And I'm not even totally
Speaker 1: sure about that, because I wouldn't be surprised if their
Speaker 1: pockets weren't rifled seriously. Well, and so here's here's part
Speaker 1: of the problem we should we should explain this right now.
Speaker 1: Is that the property where the bodies were found, we're
Speaker 1: just on the edge of two different police districts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: two different counties. Yeah, and so the wrong county showed
Speaker 1: up first and oh my gosh, what's going on and
Speaker 1: then realized they had no jurisdiction and they were totally
Speaker 1: off the so they just left. From the way I
Speaker 1: understand it, Yeah, they didn't try to secure the scene.
Speaker 1: Should have the authorities who should have been investigating it
Speaker 1: showed up. They had to shoot away the giant crowd
Speaker 1: because there were no police keeping people back. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I kind of surprised they weren't like parading around
Speaker 1: with the bodies on their shoulders like weekended Bernie style. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I get a picture of this. Huh. But the the
Speaker 1: initial pose of the bodies was, I mean, that's what
Speaker 1: it was reported, right by the couple that found them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I kind of, yeah, it was. And I actually think
Speaker 1: that it's entirely possible that they were picked over a
Speaker 1: little bit, but they were pretty much I think left
Speaker 1: actually the way they were found. Yeah, again, it wouldn't
Speaker 1: surprise me if somebody like grabbed a Walter or watch.
Speaker 1: I mean, actually the guy's watch was missing, so maybe
Speaker 1: somebody kept it so hard to tell, wouldn't wouldn't surprise me,
Speaker 1: that's Mr Hall Yeah, Mr Hall' spoiler alert in the
Speaker 1: episode title or anything. I'm not sure how recognizable the
Speaker 1: bodies were because this is September, so it wasn't like warm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't super hot. It wasn't like a hot
Speaker 1: July you know week or anything like that. So maybe
Speaker 1: they were pretty right, or maybe they weren't too. Maybe
Speaker 1: they were recognizable. I'm not sure. But luckily there was
Speaker 1: a calling card at the man's feet. Uh. And by
Speaker 1: a college card, I don't mean the kind your dog leaves,
Speaker 1: or like the kind of card that like a serial killer.
Speaker 1: Not that kind of card. It's actually a literal calling card.
Speaker 1: It was like a business card, but it's just you
Speaker 1: don't get your name on it. Then in this case,
Speaker 1: the name was the Reverend Edward W. Hall. Calling cards
Speaker 1: are an interesting You should look it up everyone, because
Speaker 1: I really struggling to not just give you a little
Speaker 1: history lesson on the etiquette of calling cards. So if
Speaker 1: some of everybody looking up, yeah, you will enjoy it. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Should we get calling cards? Yeah we probably should. Yeah,
Speaker 1: with our logo on them and everything. I don't know
Speaker 1: if we want to do that. Why not they're gonna
Speaker 1: end up at crime scenes. Yeah, I know that would
Speaker 1: be Yeah. Luckily our last names wouldn't be on them,
Speaker 1: so good luck. Fine, he guess covered. Yeah. The dead guy,
Speaker 1: it turns out, was an episcopal uncle priest at the
Speaker 1: Church of St. John the Evangelist and New Brunswick. He
Speaker 1: was forty one and also, by the way, the card
Speaker 1: was found leaning up apparently against his shoe, and the
Speaker 1: crowd found it and they were all passing around and stuff.
Speaker 1: So it was covered in fingerprints. Yeah, it's got bloody
Speaker 1: fingerprints on it. I don't know if that was from
Speaker 1: the killer or if that was just from the crowd.
Speaker 1: They got a little blood on their on their hands
Speaker 1: and then we're just passing this card around, so great,
Speaker 1: great job, guys. I wouldn't you know what. It can't
Speaker 1: be from the crowd because if if the bodies have
Speaker 1: been there for thirty six hours and the heat, the
Speaker 1: blood would have coagulated. The blood would have coagulated. It
Speaker 1: wouldn't be as if it was just fresh and wet.
Speaker 1: It would be mostly dried, possibly a little sticky. Well. Although,
Speaker 1: although I have to say this, the pictures that I've
Speaker 1: seen of the card that were only black and white,
Speaker 1: so I saw smudges and fingerprints on it. Maybe, yeah,
Speaker 1: it could have been Maybe it was just dirt, you know,
Speaker 1: people had dirty that's true. But I do know they
Speaker 1: dusted the card for fingerprints. His fingerprinting was coming. It
Speaker 1: was in it. It was like the only thing you
Speaker 1: could do. Yeah, yeah, it was definitely fingerprinting. Was it
Speaker 1: was its thing. But god knows how many fingerprints they
Speaker 1: found on those you've seen the picture, Oh yeah, and
Speaker 1: that was h and the real trick and fingerprinting in
Speaker 1: those days, right, it was like you had you had
Speaker 1: a suspect to compare the fingerprints too. It's not as
Speaker 1: though they had a database that they could run that
Speaker 1: fingerprint through. You had to actually say, Okay, we think
Speaker 1: this might be your fingerprint, Bob, so we're going to
Speaker 1: take your fingerprints and oh, yep, they match. It's you. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: and and definitely. I don't I can't imagine what it
Speaker 1: was like back in the day before computers. I mean,
Speaker 1: now the FBI and everything they can to database isn't
Speaker 1: just easy, but in the old days, can you imagine
Speaker 1: what it hideous job that would be. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: slipping through the book, haircuts, the mail, Oh, another set
Speaker 1: of fingerprints for me to look through all of our files.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure I know they had methods of identification
Speaker 1: to sort them out and stuff and and narrow it down,
Speaker 1: but still what a tedious job. Oh yeah, I know
Speaker 1: there was there were some ways to speed it up,
Speaker 1: but yeah, yeah, you'd have to listen to a podcast
Speaker 1: to get through your day. Right then I know who
Speaker 1: Tim Radio shows, Yeah, basically podcasts. Yeah. Uh. And as
Speaker 1: for as for idea, the woman and apparently everybody in
Speaker 1: the church congregation knew that the reverend was having a
Speaker 1: little thing with one of his choir singers. Turns out
Speaker 1: her name was Eleanor Mills, age thirty four. Uh, and
Speaker 1: so she was easy to identify. Now. She was married
Speaker 1: to Jimmy Mills, who was a church sexton in the
Speaker 1: Episcopal Church. And also he was also a janitor to
Speaker 1: near my school. And so the sexton is the guy
Speaker 1: who's responsible for opening the church and ringing the bells
Speaker 1: and things like that. Is that I read about it,
Speaker 1: but it just it didn't I was like, I'm so
Speaker 1: ignorant of that stuff. I know one of their duties
Speaker 1: was ringing the bell, so he did things at the church.
Speaker 1: All I know is the first three letters are sex.
Speaker 1: That's all I know. I have no idea what the
Speaker 1: sex and does. To be honest, okay, I know I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to know everything, but I prefer to know all
Speaker 1: about crime and stuff like that. Yeah, it's the person
Speaker 1: who's charged with the maintenance of the buildings and or
Speaker 1: surrounding graveyards. Okay, so yeah, basically he was a janitor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, Devon, Thank You're welcome. Good job. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Should we have Syria on the show one of these
Speaker 1: days special guests, Sirie. That'd be kind of fun to interrogate, it,
Speaker 1: wouldn't it. H And also there was one of the
Speaker 1: little piece of evidence that the crime scene, which was
Speaker 1: some love letters apparently fragments torn up, apparently written by
Speaker 1: Eleanor to her lover, the Reverend Hall. They've been torn
Speaker 1: up and scattered about the scene, although some accounts there
Speaker 1: were just some fragments between the bodies and that was it.
Speaker 1: So if I've heard of both ways, and I guess
Speaker 1: it's possible that when the bodies were initially discovered, they
Speaker 1: were all over the place, and they're the ones that
Speaker 1: were left by the time the cops got there were
Speaker 1: the ones that were in between the bodies. That's also
Speaker 1: very very possible. I'm pretty sure at least a few
Speaker 1: of those things got snagged by the locals and you know, pocketed. Also,
Speaker 1: that's not looking very great for the husband. Love letters
Speaker 1: being torn up and scattered around their dead bodies. They
Speaker 1: were from her to him. So how are you saying
Speaker 1: that's for her husband? That's not looking good? How was
Speaker 1: he going to find him? They weren't in his home?
Speaker 1: She who said she sent them? Yet that's true, I suppose,
Speaker 1: I guess when when it's love letters plural, I would presume,
Speaker 1: and I seem to remember that they were letters written
Speaker 1: to this affair been going on for years. I seem
Speaker 1: to remember that they were letters over a significant span
Speaker 1: of time. Okay, So I would seem the point more
Speaker 1: of a fat finger of guilt at the wife of
Speaker 1: the He had a wife. He did have a wife. Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: he did have a wife. Let's talk about her. He
Speaker 1: was married to Francis Stevens, who, of course became Francis
Speaker 1: Steven's hall. Uh. She was seven years older than him,
Speaker 1: and frankly, she was really not nearly as much of
Speaker 1: a looker as Eleanor. I'm sure you've seen her pictures, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean she was like yeah, I mean she was
Speaker 1: like late, you know, almost fifty. Where is Eleanor is
Speaker 1: thirty four? It's kind of rare, I mean, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah it is. It is. But um, so that
Speaker 1: probably explains the wandering eye and the part of the reverend. Now,
Speaker 1: the thing that Frances really did have, though, going for her,
Speaker 1: was she had lots and lots of money because she
Speaker 1: had married. They married, I think about eleven years before
Speaker 1: the murder, and she was thirty seven at the time,
Speaker 1: and then a few years later she inherited family a
Speaker 1: family fortune which was like millions, like in today's money
Speaker 1: or like those days line, So a lot of money.
Speaker 1: That's a good reason to marry, someone says, the not romantic.
Speaker 1: Good news is my boyfriend doesn't look at this podcast
Speaker 1: if he has no idea. Oh thank god. Yeah. Yeah, people,
Speaker 1: I don't know. People might have been a little more
Speaker 1: practical about marriage back in those days too. I think
Speaker 1: it was much different, different perspective, and I think some
Speaker 1: people were, but not, I mean not everybody. Yeah. Uh well,
Speaker 1: And speaking of marriage, Eleanor of course was married. She
Speaker 1: got married at age seventeen. She had had a couple
Speaker 1: of kids with her husband, Jimmy Mills, and she had
Speaker 1: been involved with the church, the Episcopal Church for about
Speaker 1: ten years or so. And did the Halls have children, Uh,
Speaker 1: not that I know that I have ever seen anything. Now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think she was already thirty seven when they're married.
Speaker 1: So especially it's hard enough to these days to have
Speaker 1: a child at your thirty seven. I mean, it happens
Speaker 1: even in the old yep. I'm just remembering some emails
Speaker 1: that we got after we talked about Elizabeth's supposed potential
Speaker 1: utility at that age. So I'm just not going to
Speaker 1: say one way or another if that was a thing
Speaker 1: now it's it's entirely possible, but the odds, the chances,
Speaker 1: the odds are less, but it's still totally possible as
Speaker 1: long as they are doing the practice that results in children.
Speaker 1: And what is that it's the first part of the
Speaker 1: thing that the husband was the ton okay uh, But
Speaker 1: then what I In one account, I've heard that Eleanor
Speaker 1: Mills on the fourteenth, the day of the murder, she
Speaker 1: had found an article apparently discussing justifications for a mr
Speaker 1: getting a divorce. Because apparently that was like, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of frowned upon. The divorce in general. Was it
Speaker 1: was a lot rarer in those days. It was not
Speaker 1: nearly as easy as things it is today. But she
Speaker 1: called Hall and essentially wanted to meet him in andy
Speaker 1: Rusy Lane to talk about this article and to talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe them, you know, somehow ditching their spouses
Speaker 1: isn't getting together and wait to just because I keep
Speaker 1: getting them mixed up. So Mrs Mills, the lady who
Speaker 1: was killed, found an article and got Mr Hall to
Speaker 1: meet her to talk about this. Okay, okay, just making
Speaker 1: sure to talk about other stuff. Maybe to have sex,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but a liaison if you will. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it could have been all kinds of things. But apparently
Speaker 1: he left his house around seven thirty pm. He was
Speaker 1: seen by somebody or another walking towards Drusy Lane on
Speaker 1: Eastern Avenue. Um, that was the last time any of
Speaker 1: those guys were seen alive. She was last seen at
Speaker 1: her house about six that night, I felt, and so
Speaker 1: she had church business to deal with. Yeah, apparently happened
Speaker 1: to me. Technically she was telling the truth, but her husband, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of did what she said to you know,
Speaker 1: he tried to argue with her and she just said, fine,
Speaker 1: then come with me, and he's like, okay, And that
Speaker 1: was the last time he's on her. Uh huh. I
Speaker 1: guess he's wishing he would have gone with him, but
Speaker 1: oh well, hindse. Yeah, the next day Francis Hall, that
Speaker 1: would be the reverend. Hall's wife noted his absence. I
Speaker 1: think I had heard that she went by like the
Speaker 1: church about two am to check to check on him.
Speaker 1: With her brother too. Yeah, yeah, she had one of
Speaker 1: her brothers was living with her at the time. The
Speaker 1: other one was living close, very close by. A real
Speaker 1: recipe for romance when you have your brother living with you. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. Uh So she had noted the next day
Speaker 1: that Hall was gone, and she at one point did
Speaker 1: call the police apparently and asked them if any they'd
Speaker 1: turned up any bodies or anything, because that was just
Speaker 1: kind of a strange thing. Usually you call them and say,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, my husband is missing. Have you had any reports,
Speaker 1: you know, or anything like that, and said you call
Speaker 1: him and just say, hey, I found any corpses. I
Speaker 1: guess I can see it from the perspective of if
Speaker 1: she's in a bit of a panic, then have you
Speaker 1: found any bodies? No? Okay, great, God, I gotta keep looking. Well,
Speaker 1: like I could see that that that side of it,
Speaker 1: or that she you know, as possible she had called
Speaker 1: the local hospitals or was friendly with a local doctor
Speaker 1: or you know whatever, and new had already found out. No,
Speaker 1: he's not in any kind of medical care. So okay,
Speaker 1: well the next step is turn up dead somewhere or
Speaker 1: you know, you call up that colinel says, it's he
Speaker 1: in the drunk tank. Yeah, although I did you arrest him?
Speaker 1: I am? Did he get into the line at the church? Yeah? Communion, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because that's good stuff. The following day, the sixteenth, of course,
Speaker 1: the bodies were found, and of course the immediate obvious
Speaker 1: suspects are the spouses, right, James Mills in Francis Hall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so James Mills was rounded up first, probably because he
Speaker 1: was poor. She was rich, Yeah, super rich, affluent. You
Speaker 1: don't go after the affluent, yeah, want to want to
Speaker 1: treat them with the more kid who loves Also, I
Speaker 1: think realistically in the twenties, it it's definitely more likely
Speaker 1: that they would have just assumed that it was a
Speaker 1: man who did Jane. That's definitely well, I think typically,
Speaker 1: I mean, women commit murder all the time, but you
Speaker 1: know that definitely when in situations like that, it's probably
Speaker 1: the guy who's more likely to become a homicidally violent
Speaker 1: you know, I would think, I mean some women would,
Speaker 1: but you know, I'm more likely the guy right statistically, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll get some angry emails about that, but you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's true probably. And then it's not long
Speaker 1: after that some people, some people, they were like about
Speaker 1: four different people in the area and the immediate area
Speaker 1: said they had her gunshots. And then one of them
Speaker 1: was Jane Gibson, who became known as the Pig Lady.
Speaker 1: Such a terrible nickname. The newspapers are terrible. She had
Speaker 1: a pig farm. Yeah, she had a pig farm, and
Speaker 1: I think she was growing some crops too, And I
Speaker 1: don't know she was growing up for sale or just
Speaker 1: to feed to her hogs. I'm not sure, but she
Speaker 1: said I told police that she had heard a dog
Speaker 1: barking about nine pm and that she saw a man
Speaker 1: standing in her cornfield, and so she hopped on her mule,
Speaker 1: which is kind of funny when you think about it.
Speaker 1: Why not just walk out there, But she got on
Speaker 1: her mule and rode out there, and a mule can
Speaker 1: trot faster than you can walk. That, yeah, I suppose. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe she didn't want to get her feet dirty either, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And she when she got closer to where this guy was,
Speaker 1: she sat. There were actually four people next to a
Speaker 1: crab apple tree, and that appeared to be maybe some
Speaker 1: accounts as two men, two women, Oh yeah, and oh
Speaker 1: she also identified one of us having white hair, which
Speaker 1: the reverend did no but his wife actually she had
Speaker 1: graying hair. I'm not I'm not sure exactly how how
Speaker 1: moonlit than it was, how how easy it would be
Speaker 1: to see if somebody had dirty on September it's still
Speaker 1: pretty fairly light out at Uh. Well, I'll just mention
Speaker 1: one thing briefly, and that is in the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 1: any woman of any standing or affluence wouldn't really go
Speaker 1: outside without a hat on, so to her hair would
Speaker 1: be weird, but she could you wear it up? Oh okay,
Speaker 1: never mind apologize. Although she might have decided to go
Speaker 1: casual because she was murdering people, that's true, but it
Speaker 1: would be weird. I mean, I guess in my mind,
Speaker 1: and I would presume I would presume in her logic
Speaker 1: as well, if she were thinking through. And that does
Speaker 1: make a presumption there certainly, But she would know that
Speaker 1: it would be weird if anybody saw her after she
Speaker 1: had committed this before after that she was just like
Speaker 1: out like a deranged human being yet happen, or her
Speaker 1: hair up or nice clothes. I mean, this is this
Speaker 1: is you remember, this is when people are dressed, still
Speaker 1: dressing to leave the house, way before pajama Central. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like that. Yeah, it's like that. That picture of
Speaker 1: all those guys taken apart the crab Apple Tree and
Speaker 1: Derby had that's because that's what proper people wore at
Speaker 1: that time. And they're all they're all acting like, you know,
Speaker 1: like they're all acting kind of teenagers, all dressed up.
Speaker 1: And so sorry I interrupted you, but poke that hole
Speaker 1: right there. So she said she saw someone with white hair,
Speaker 1: someone with the white hair, two men too. Women. She
Speaker 1: said she also heard some woman to say, you know,
Speaker 1: shout explained news letters unquote. I've heard her say that
Speaker 1: she heard several different things shouted. She actually changed her story,
Speaker 1: uh kind of numerous times, which made her you know,
Speaker 1: in the end, I'm sorry she changed her story of
Speaker 1: hopping on a mule and writing out into the Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but she changed there. We should have they should have
Speaker 1: asked the mule. I know than Meal probably would have
Speaker 1: had more likely than Meal would have been more consistent.
Speaker 1: But anyway, but her original account, at least as far
Speaker 1: as now. She said she heard a shot and one
Speaker 1: of the people went down, and then she heard screams
Speaker 1: from a woman's A woman screamed, don't three times loudly.
Speaker 1: Of course, you can't really scream softly, I guess, not easily. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then there were more shots and then uh uh,
Speaker 1: another woman's voice shouted Henry. And it turns out there
Speaker 1: were some Henry suspects in here, so uh, that's what
Speaker 1: That's what the pig lady heard. And then she turned around, Well,
Speaker 1: she turned her real around and left first obvious. Yeah, actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: she was already leaving when she heard all the shouting
Speaker 1: and the other shots. And you can't blame her. I
Speaker 1: would have done the same thing, I think, so. Uh
Speaker 1: and uh. With the police investigation everything, of course, they
Speaker 1: took that into account, but they still didn't have any
Speaker 1: really strong suspects, no evidence to really point the fingers
Speaker 1: strongly at anybody. Uh, And so there were no indictments
Speaker 1: just like that at that time. At that time, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was two four years went by, and then there
Speaker 1: was a little domestic dust up. It turns out the
Speaker 1: riverend Halls and his wife's made her name was Louise
Speaker 1: Geist and she was married to a guy named Arthur Real.
Speaker 1: And in nineteen six Reel wanted to get a margin
Speaker 1: lemon because they've been married for running what four years
Speaker 1: or something like that, or maybe a little longer. And
Speaker 1: during the whole things, you know, all these kind of things,
Speaker 1: divorced and all, but whatever you can get a little
Speaker 1: ugly little yeah, I kind of happened. And he stated
Speaker 1: during this whole thing, uh, that that his wife, Louise
Speaker 1: guys had said and did I mentioned she was the maid? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I didn't mention that. Oh, I don't think I ever said. Okay,
Speaker 1: yeah she was. She was a made at the Hall's
Speaker 1: house or probably mansioned more likely that she was a
Speaker 1: made there. And she said that she heard her scuttle
Speaker 1: button in the house that the Reverend Hall was leaving,
Speaker 1: that he was eloping with his hunting Eleanor. And she
Speaker 1: said that she had knowledge that Frances and her brothers
Speaker 1: and her cousin, another cousin named Henry h took off
Speaker 1: in one after him. That's all she knew. And uh,
Speaker 1: apparently he said, rial, this is Arthur Real again said
Speaker 1: that she was given five thousand dollars in hush money
Speaker 1: to keep her mouth shut about the whole thing. Do
Speaker 1: you know how much that is today? Five sixty grand
Speaker 1: today's money is a huge shut up payment. Although for
Speaker 1: somebody who's just inherited millions, it's to drop in the
Speaker 1: bucket for her, But for the maid it's a nice
Speaker 1: little windfalls. Yeah, she wouldn't have had to keep working,
Speaker 1: she could have left her job. I'm sure that the
Speaker 1: guy who's trying to get the annulment probably brought that
Speaker 1: up to his proof that she had money and didn't
Speaker 1: need him, therefore the annulment could move forward. I'm sure
Speaker 1: that's how that came out. Or he thought he was
Speaker 1: entitled to part of it if it was still around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that had already been spent. Yeah, it's usually where that
Speaker 1: stuff goes. Actually, even sixty, I could blow through sixty
Speaker 1: pretty fast today. You could not then though, Yeah, wouldn't
Speaker 1: bring everything to your door at that time. Well, but also,
Speaker 1: things just costed less. Yeah they costed Yeah, they costed less.
Speaker 1: They did costed less. Yes, that's a good point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's all I want to get. I want to perfect
Speaker 1: my time machine so I can go back in time
Speaker 1: and you gotta you gotta make those time machines only
Speaker 1: go forward. Is that what? It is very important? You
Speaker 1: don't want to go back and be your own grandfather
Speaker 1: four years after the fact. Oh yeah, so that's the Uh.
Speaker 1: And so the word got out. It was picked up
Speaker 1: by the New York Daily Mirror, and they ran a
Speaker 1: bunch of stories on this. Sounds like a bunch of
Speaker 1: stories is a bit of an understatement. Yeah, the tons
Speaker 1: of stories about this they did, and uh, they sort
Speaker 1: of brought the whole story back to life. It was.
Speaker 1: It had been kind of more of a fammy when
Speaker 1: you think about it. Since some people were put on trial.
Speaker 1: Their lives probably would have been easier if this whole
Speaker 1: annulment thing hadn't come up. You know, sleeping dogs would
Speaker 1: have like, you know, just been left alone. Everything would
Speaker 1: have been okay. But there was such a stink made
Speaker 1: by the Daily Mirror that Harry Moore, who was governor
Speaker 1: in New Jersey at the time, decided to order another
Speaker 1: police investigation. Uh. And sot and so Francis and her
Speaker 1: brothers and let me give you her brother's names, by
Speaker 1: the way, Uh, Williams Stevens, Henry Stevens, and William was
Speaker 1: the guy that was living at home in the house
Speaker 1: with her. It was said to possibly have Asperger syndrome,
Speaker 1: but of course he wasn't diagnosed. Yeah, yeah, uh. And
Speaker 1: then Henry was the guy that was living down the
Speaker 1: street a little bit. And then her cousin, Henry Carr.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I don't know if it's Carpenter
Speaker 1: or just Carpenter, but it's like Carpenter but with a
Speaker 1: D instead of a T. He lived what twenty away
Speaker 1: something like that? Yeah, he was, he was, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so yeah, that's that's a little less convenient to round
Speaker 1: him up on short notice and haven't come over and
Speaker 1: participate in the murder. Yeah, But there was a trial
Speaker 1: and Francis and her two brothers were put on trial.
Speaker 1: Henry Carpenter. I'm just gonna go with Carpenter's pronunciation here.
Speaker 1: He wasn't died separately, but before the trial ended, the
Speaker 1: charges against him were dropped. Apparently, what I mean the
Speaker 1: main reason they liked him as well. One of the
Speaker 1: pig Lady heard the word Henry being yelled number one
Speaker 1: and number two. He was supposedly kind of a sharpshooter,
Speaker 1: had guns and was handy with guns and yeah, so
Speaker 1: he was Other than that, it was an substantial Yeah,
Speaker 1: not barely, if even that. Really, So it was a
Speaker 1: big It was a big trial lasted about five weeks,
Speaker 1: and of course it was hugely covered by the press.
Speaker 1: The famous people actually covered it, like Damon Runyon for example.
Speaker 1: Is this the trial where the pig lady came to
Speaker 1: trial in bed to testify? Yeah, she had come down
Speaker 1: with cancer unfortunately, and so they just like wheelded literally
Speaker 1: giant bed her in it and she's leaving her arms. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's laying there testifying and stuff. And of course, like
Speaker 1: I said, her story was changing it and she didn't
Speaker 1: get a lot of support from her mother, who was
Speaker 1: stated in the spectator's gallery her mother was yelling a
Speaker 1: liar at her. That's how that didn't help her with
Speaker 1: the jury. Yeah. So the jury deliberated five hours and
Speaker 1: delivered an not guilty verdicts. Shocking. Yeah. You know who
Speaker 1: didn't testify at this the people who found the bodies. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's right, that the lovers didn't. They never got isn't that. Well,
Speaker 1: there's some there's some stinky history with them that I
Speaker 1: want to bring up when we get into the theory section,
Speaker 1: but there's probably a good reason that they weren't brought
Speaker 1: up on the stand. Alright, let's time to get into theories.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the first one, which we already kind
Speaker 1: of like made fun of, but let's talk about it
Speaker 1: for a second. Anyway, that's literally all I'm going to
Speaker 1: give this. Yeah, murder suicide, Yeah, yeah, exactly. So the argument,
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously it could have been that there was
Speaker 1: a gun in his hand the locals took it. But
Speaker 1: the problem I think that argues against this is you know,
Speaker 1: the slit throat and the missing larynx and the happening
Speaker 1: on his face. Yeah, there's that start to shoot yourself
Speaker 1: in the head and then fall and arrange your hands
Speaker 1: and have your hand to start being over you know,
Speaker 1: a cut wound and heard you kill her for eartht
Speaker 1: and then you and then you wrap it around her,
Speaker 1: put around the ground, laid down next to her, and
Speaker 1: then blow your brains out. Yeah. I don't think the
Speaker 1: entry wounds, because they wound on him would have been
Speaker 1: very difficult because it was still front to back ish,
Speaker 1: which is very it's a very weird angle. So we
Speaker 1: don't need to debate and I don't think any of
Speaker 1: us believe that this is even remotely possible. No, I
Speaker 1: don't think so either. So okay, uh, you know whose
Speaker 1: idea was this years No, Devin, somebody whose initials are Day.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about our next cool theory, which is the
Speaker 1: ku Klux Klan. I kind of like this one in
Speaker 1: a in a weird sort of way. Yeah, there's really
Speaker 1: no evidence, you know, it's kind of a shame. But
Speaker 1: this theory was actually put forward by William Kunstler, who
Speaker 1: some of you might have heard of, very famous like
Speaker 1: civil rights attorney, kind of became a big, big, big
Speaker 1: name in the sixties and seventies and stuff, and probably
Speaker 1: a lot of her younger listeners haven't really heard of him,
Speaker 1: but yeah, he was. He was a well known name
Speaker 1: back in the day, and in the early sixties he
Speaker 1: wrote a book about this case, which was called the
Speaker 1: Hall Mills Murder Case. Original name colon the Minister and
Speaker 1: the choir singer. But I do have to say, as
Speaker 1: we said, fairness to the KKK counsider has actually been
Speaker 1: criticized quite a bit for this series because he actually
Speaker 1: doesn't really present any evidence to speak of. It's just
Speaker 1: kind of entirely speculative in his book. And if you
Speaker 1: look at photos, if you're looking for a racial angle,
Speaker 1: if you look at photos of Eleanor Mills, she looks
Speaker 1: like she could possibly maybe have a little bit of
Speaker 1: African ancestry. Maybe maybe maybe. I mean, it's it's really
Speaker 1: could have she could have Indian haag, Native American hairitange,
Speaker 1: or she could just be pure solid white too. You
Speaker 1: don't know. But it's it's hard to telling his old photographs.
Speaker 1: He here's here's the problem when when we say this,
Speaker 1: you and and both of us have looked at the
Speaker 1: same photos. And what people need to remember is something
Speaker 1: that was done as a practice was painting negatives back
Speaker 1: in the day, and so people would go in and
Speaker 1: they'd fix your eyebrows and yeah, they was. It was
Speaker 1: the original photoshop, and so that his dramatically altered the
Speaker 1: look of the images. I've had to go fix images
Speaker 1: like that, and it is so tough because it's negatives
Speaker 1: are so small and you just slip and you suddenly
Speaker 1: give somebody a uni brow without me do Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: It's so you're right, it's very hard to tell. I mean,
Speaker 1: and uh, frankly, even if she was a little bit,
Speaker 1: like just a little bit black or suspected of it.
Speaker 1: I can't I can't believe that would have actually driven
Speaker 1: the New Jersey chapter of the KKK off the rails. Well,
Speaker 1: here's that wasn't the main concern. It wasn't. I was
Speaker 1: gonna say, that's the problem in kk K was they
Speaker 1: were white, and they were Protestant, and they were trying
Speaker 1: to defend the faith. They were more based on anybody
Speaker 1: that they felt I was doing wrong by the not
Speaker 1: only the race, but the religion at the same time.
Speaker 1: So they would have they were a bit of a
Speaker 1: moral crusade. And there's a lot of angles here, but
Speaker 1: I'm looking at where they are and not being in
Speaker 1: the South, that would I guess that was a little
Speaker 1: a little more credence. I mean, if if your concern
Speaker 1: is to kind of protect the faith a reverend cheating
Speaker 1: on his wife with another marriage, it is. But I
Speaker 1: also don't think I mean the you know, murders aside.
Speaker 1: The treatment of these corpses was relatively respectful. Well it was.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing about these guys are all about
Speaker 1: sending a message. They leave their own calling card, and
Speaker 1: they always they tend to make claims. And I don't
Speaker 1: think the letters would have been torn up. I think
Speaker 1: it would have been even maybe sent to the newspapers
Speaker 1: a couple of days later them, or they would have
Speaker 1: been left attacked and just stick to the ground with
Speaker 1: a knife, I mean bodies or something like that. But
Speaker 1: but the thing you have, the thing about it is
Speaker 1: is they wouldn't have posed the bodies the way they did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I do want to apologize to all of our
Speaker 1: KKK listeners. We're just kind of, you know, trying to
Speaker 1: get at where the thought might have been. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure we got a lot of those guys. But well,
Speaker 1: let's move on. So I think we've got to give
Speaker 1: this one to fail. Okay, our next theory it was
Speaker 1: the Zodiac Killer. Great similarities between the two, right. I
Speaker 1: can't believe that you added this. It was just entirely random.
Speaker 1: How old would he have had to have been he
Speaker 1: could have I think that if he had been twelve
Speaker 1: years old when he committed the murder, then he could
Speaker 1: conceivably he would have been like what in his early
Speaker 1: sixties when the Zodiac was on his crime spree, right
Speaker 1: around that old You are stretching. I also happened. We
Speaker 1: also happened to know that Ted Cruiz is the Zodiac Killer,
Speaker 1: so he can't possibly have been that old. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't Ted unless he or something maybe Benjamin Button ng.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I know, I just th there was.
Speaker 1: You know, I've talked about Steve Hodell, that who wrote
Speaker 1: the book Black Dall you Avenger, and wrote a book
Speaker 1: about his dad, you know, being this Black Tellia killer
Speaker 1: would also being the Zodiac Killer and everything else. And
Speaker 1: so I thought i'd saw that in just a sort
Speaker 1: of an unwash just Steve Hodell, even though yeah, obviously
Speaker 1: it seems unlikely although it could have been maybe son
Speaker 1: of Zodiac or father of Zodiac. What am I saying? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but like family tradition. Yeah, I don't feel like that happened.
Speaker 1: I don't think serial killing runs and families, so hopefully not. Well,
Speaker 1: there's the Bloody Benders that's different though. That actually and
Speaker 1: and actually nobody's really a hundred percent sure that those
Speaker 1: people were even related by blood. There's also that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we should probably not go too much into this.
Speaker 1: I know this is something that people have asked us
Speaker 1: to put on the list, and it is there, so
Speaker 1: let's not talk about the bloody Benders. It's actually it's
Speaker 1: kind of a fun little story. Yeah. Yeah, so you
Speaker 1: have other theories, yeah yeah, yeah, so the Zodiac, Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the actually there there were similarities, being a
Speaker 1: lover's laying kind of case. But that's where it pretty much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because he didn't mutilate bodies or pose bodies. I mean,
Speaker 1: he just wanted to people and shot them. Also, he
Speaker 1: liked to tease people about it. You know, there was
Speaker 1: that follow up aspect on the notes and all the
Speaker 1: coded messages, yeah, which they still haven't broken. So there
Speaker 1: was like a mental aspect to it that you would
Speaker 1: have thought would have maybe come out. Although if it
Speaker 1: was early days. Yeah, now I'm going to rule out
Speaker 1: rualize the Zodiac. I think it um fact is that
Speaker 1: there were lots of other serial killers around, as you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about other ones like the Atlanta Ripper for example,
Speaker 1: but you know, people wasn't around that Jack the Ripper
Speaker 1: for that matter. I mean, you know, seriri killers have
Speaker 1: been around a long time. Uh So, okay, well, scratch zodiac.
Speaker 1: There's also random murder. But still, you know there's this
Speaker 1: it's kind of a similarity. Would a random murder thrill
Speaker 1: killer mutilate Eleanor's body and slitters a and also the
Speaker 1: matter of the letters and the letters, Yeah, there's that,
Speaker 1: and so it could be. Okay, let's let's just let's
Speaker 1: just play this out a little bit. Let's say it
Speaker 1: is a rando rando and the person comes up and
Speaker 1: holds them up and then ends up killing them and
Speaker 1: sees this lot of paper in his pocket and presumes
Speaker 1: that it's money and then takes it out after he's
Speaker 1: dead and discovers it's nothing but freaking love letters, which
Speaker 1: are useless, they're worthless, and in frustration tears them up.
Speaker 1: That but still, why pose them? Why then split her
Speaker 1: throat and take her tongue in larynx? Why cover up
Speaker 1: the crime scene in the way that he would have
Speaker 1: or she would have had a stagecraft? That's all I got. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's if it was a random thing or
Speaker 1: or a robbery that you know what kind of went south,
Speaker 1: then yeah, there's no reason to stick around and risk
Speaker 1: getting caught by spending all that time leading here, imposing
Speaker 1: the bodies and all that stuff. That very true. I
Speaker 1: so regretfully got to scratch that one. Another one James Mills,
Speaker 1: who was Eleanor's husband. Now, this guy really had a
Speaker 1: good motive, wouldn't you say? Yeah, I'd say so. Uh.
Speaker 1: He never really got serious consideration as a suspect, though,
Speaker 1: he said when he was questioned by the police, he
Speaker 1: said that he had never had had no idea that
Speaker 1: the Reverend Hall and his wife were having a thing,
Speaker 1: which later he kind of recanted. There were it's I've
Speaker 1: heard it both ways. You know that he had actually
Speaker 1: been aware of it and had been kind of a
Speaker 1: source of tension. Well, it seems like the congregation seemed
Speaker 1: to know it was happening, so it would be hard
Speaker 1: to hide it from a member of the congregation. You
Speaker 1: would think, uh, yeah, so yeah, it's one of those
Speaker 1: things where they got to sign out in front. It's
Speaker 1: got the changeable letters on it. I'm pretty sure doesn't know.
Speaker 1: I guess he's blinking. Who yeah, So yeah, So he
Speaker 1: had a good motive. But the one reason I think
Speaker 1: that he was not the murderer is the mutilation. Again,
Speaker 1: I disagree with that too. Well. I just think that
Speaker 1: he would have been more likely to relieve the Reverend
Speaker 1: of a few bodies I totally disagree with that. You
Speaker 1: don't think he would have been because you know what,
Speaker 1: because you know what that makes me think of is
Speaker 1: like this expletive deleted was lying to me. I'm going
Speaker 1: to tear out her, you know anything she could have
Speaker 1: used to lie to me, especially she had, maybe even
Speaker 1: point blank earlier that night, said no, nothing's going on.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to meet him. Do you want to
Speaker 1: come with me to prove it? And he said no, fine,
Speaker 1: go and then followed and it was like the last
Speaker 1: draw of like she's been lying to me this whole time,
Speaker 1: Like I'm going to take her voice, even in death,
Speaker 1: away from her so she could never lie to me again.
Speaker 1: There's also the weird blame dynamic that happens between men
Speaker 1: and women. So she suffered the most. And if Mr Mills,
Speaker 1: yes Mr Mills felt like he was being wronged, she
Speaker 1: was the one who was wronging him. I mean, still
Speaker 1: killed the reverend, but it was her fault. She must
Speaker 1: have been the one who initiated. She's the one who
Speaker 1: betrayed me. She's the one who did that to me.
Speaker 1: She could have been cheating with anyone. My wife did
Speaker 1: this to me exactly. That's she's the worst. So that's
Speaker 1: why I think that's why Devan and everyone's like, no,
Speaker 1: we've got you've got that down on the wrong way.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, but not always that. That is why though
Speaker 1: I do think that the next three theories kind of
Speaker 1: go together nicely. Is that is that the mutilation and
Speaker 1: the removal of the larynx and the tongue indicates to
Speaker 1: me that this is a very personal I would agree
Speaker 1: with that. Very personal murder. I would agree with that.
Speaker 1: And also the posing of the bodies makes it seem
Speaker 1: very perfect. I agree with the posing of the bodies.
Speaker 1: I am still not completely convinced that the tongue and
Speaker 1: the larynx have and at that time it's entirely possible
Speaker 1: they were removed. Later, they could have been removed in
Speaker 1: the first autopsy and not noted, and then when she
Speaker 1: was buried, the second autopsy comes along and they're like, well,
Speaker 1: that's weird, her tongue lyrics are gone. Well, you know, actually,
Speaker 1: I think I mentioned this actually one of my earlier theories,
Speaker 1: but you guys were paying I think it's when we
Speaker 1: were poo pooing the murder suicide, the murder suicide that said,
Speaker 1: the yeah, so I was wondering, is if perhaps after
Speaker 1: the first autopsy it wasn't even removed. But back in
Speaker 1: those days, the medical schools and researchers, et cetera did
Speaker 1: a lot more sketchy stop when it came to getting
Speaker 1: corpses to train on and practice on and do experiments on.
Speaker 1: And I could totally picture some researcher or medical student
Speaker 1: or medical school taking her larynx in her tongue and
Speaker 1: just saying, hey, she's acquired singer with the great voice.
Speaker 1: That's kind of see what makes it? Tickets, See if
Speaker 1: we can make figure out what makes for a good
Speaker 1: singing voice. Yeah, I mean it's entirely possible to somebody.
Speaker 1: We've talked about burke and hair before. It's the same
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Yeah, And so it's entirely But but
Speaker 1: even so, obviously I still think it was a very
Speaker 1: personal crime because somebody did slit her throat. Yes, And
Speaker 1: also I do think the murderer took out her larynx
Speaker 1: because she was a singer in the choir. That's what
Speaker 1: I think is significant about that is that she was
Speaker 1: a singer in the choir. And well, imagine, for example,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the next one, Francis. Yeah, let's talk
Speaker 1: about the next one and then they will flesh this out,
Speaker 1: because I think we're all in agreement that Mr mills
Speaker 1: Is was kind of a bit of a patsy and
Speaker 1: no wonder he didn't get charged. Yeah he was. But
Speaker 1: but if you think about Francis, um, what would what
Speaker 1: would her grievances against eleanor Ben? She lured her husband
Speaker 1: away with number one, her beautiful face, which by the way,
Speaker 1: got three bullet holes in it. Yeah, and her lovely
Speaker 1: voice saying in the choir. I mean that's how they
Speaker 1: kind of got drawn together, was she was sitting in
Speaker 1: the choir and so I could sort of see, you know,
Speaker 1: messing up her face and then cutting out of voice box.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a retribution. The other thing that I
Speaker 1: guess kind of makes me think that it probably was
Speaker 1: more on Francis is that also, um, his face was
Speaker 1: covered after he was killed. And I think the psychology
Speaker 1: behind killing somebody that you've loved, regardless of if they
Speaker 1: had a great relationship or not, somebody you've been with
Speaker 1: for a long time, you might cover their face. You
Speaker 1: don't have to look at it, so you don't have
Speaker 1: to see their dead face, so that face was covered,
Speaker 1: and then the competitor was mutilated and left uncomed and
Speaker 1: left uncovered and kind of out to waste, so I
Speaker 1: think by the animals. Yeah, and that then again, that's
Speaker 1: that other side of that power dynamic that I was
Speaker 1: talking about before, or which is with Mr Mills, he's
Speaker 1: taking it out on her because she's betrayed him. For
Speaker 1: Mrs Hall or Hill gonna keep I almost had it.
Speaker 1: They sounds so similar. So for Mrs Hall, she's going
Speaker 1: to be taking out her anger on the woman because
Speaker 1: again this is that weird dynamic of she's to blame.
Speaker 1: My husband's an idiot, but it's her fault. And then
Speaker 1: well there's also a jealousy component. There's a whole bunch
Speaker 1: packed into that that we could spend a long time
Speaker 1: unpacked that we shouldn't because we are not professional, probably
Speaker 1: just sound profiling. But yeah, that's why Frances is one
Speaker 1: of my more favorite suspects in this in this case,
Speaker 1: so I would agree with that, But I also don't
Speaker 1: necessarily think that she did it herself. It's entirely possible
Speaker 1: that somebody she knew maybe did it, or somebody she
Speaker 1: hired maybe she could have hired it done. It's entirely possible.
Speaker 1: And the theory I've had, and this kind of fits
Speaker 1: with these, with the whole physical evidence, was what's that
Speaker 1: there was somebody else's competitor of Eleanor in the church
Speaker 1: who also had the hots for the reverend and who
Speaker 1: maybe perhaps wasn't quite as pretty and wasn't I didn't
Speaker 1: have a good enough voice to get into the choir.
Speaker 1: Too many, you're adding too many elements of that story, Joe.
Speaker 1: It could have been somebody who was a member of
Speaker 1: the congregation who simply did not think that what they
Speaker 1: were doing was the right thing. I can boil it
Speaker 1: down to something because much simpler, and it is you.
Speaker 1: I think I said something like this before. But you know,
Speaker 1: you're in the face of God, you're doing this, and
Speaker 1: you're a reverend. This is not okay and you need
Speaker 1: to be taught a lesson. Yeah, I could totally say that.
Speaker 1: I you know, since we did mention that Eleanor was
Speaker 1: much better looking than Francis, I will just go ahead
Speaker 1: and say turn about his fair play and that, like
Speaker 1: I've seen pictures of the referend, he's not a looker.
Speaker 1: Balding and like shovy and he's thought like a double chin,
Speaker 1: And like just the fact that we have these theories
Speaker 1: where it's like maybe there were five women fighting over him.
Speaker 1: It's like, what, I'm not saying that. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that it's a man or a woman that's a part
Speaker 1: of the congregation. I'm saying that this is a person
Speaker 1: who's trying to defend the fate. I just still, you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, well, yeah, yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 1: do you have any more theories? And I was I
Speaker 1: was wondering. I kind of considered the possibility that perhaps
Speaker 1: Frances wasn't actually directly involved. It might have been her
Speaker 1: brothers who did it. I guess there's some room for
Speaker 1: if the brothers were seeing that she was being so
Speaker 1: know that she was being so disrespectful, disrespected, if the
Speaker 1: whole congregation knew that this reverend was cheating on her,
Speaker 1: and so in the public eye, even people were kind
Speaker 1: of giggling behind it, behind her back, about it, behind
Speaker 1: her back, behind she knew about it, though, I would presume,
Speaker 1: I mean, she initially said she didn't know about it,
Speaker 1: but later statements seems to support the fact that yeah,
Speaker 1: just like everybody else she knew. Yeah, it's prudent if
Speaker 1: somebody says, hey, your husband and his lover were found dead,
Speaker 1: did you know he had a lover. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to discribe. I don't think anybody in their right mind
Speaker 1: would be like absolutely, I knew I would lie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say no, I had no idea what. I'm horrified.
Speaker 1: I'm horrified he's dead. And also I'm horrified he had
Speaker 1: a lover. I know he was having sex with a woman.
Speaker 1: I thought he was gay. Yeah, yeah, that kind of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Do you have you have your book out? Though?
Speaker 1: I was letting Joe finish his last Yeah. Now the brothers,
Speaker 1: I mean again the same thing. I mean, the lack
Speaker 1: of evidence and everything else. I could totally see that
Speaker 1: they had a bit of a motive, you know, avenging
Speaker 1: their sister. It might be that again back to my
Speaker 1: theory about you know, if they had talk with her
Speaker 1: and she was going on and crying and crying and
Speaker 1: crying about oh my god, she's got these things. He's
Speaker 1: got this pretty face and this wonderful voice I have
Speaker 1: and I never will, you know, And so that I
Speaker 1: could totally see that the brother that lived with them.
Speaker 1: His fingerprint was found on the card, on the calling card. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's that's not that doesn't say anything because they
Speaker 1: lived in the same house and the calling card could
Speaker 1: have he could have it could have been out of
Speaker 1: the pocket dozens of time. It doesn't point to anything,
Speaker 1: but it is one thing that you will see. And
Speaker 1: her brother's fingerprint was um yeah yeah, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: good luck at a conviction. But yeah, yeah, obviously it
Speaker 1: didn't work. Yeah, yeah, no, they all went free. And yeah,
Speaker 1: the pig lady I think went on to reward. I
Speaker 1: don't think she survived about with cancer alas. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: did kind of do her in unfortunately. Yeah. So there's
Speaker 1: one thing that I have that you've left out that
Speaker 1: I kept wondering about, and that was Schneider and Bombers,
Speaker 1: the couple that found the body. We've talked about this before.
Speaker 1: Leads you to the body. They they had some weird
Speaker 1: stuff going on because the night before the bodies were found,
Speaker 1: they were seen heading that direction though they were having
Speaker 1: an argument. She said or he said, so this is
Speaker 1: Raymonds said that he saw his girlfriend Pearl with several
Speaker 1: other men in that area, one of whom it is
Speaker 1: supposedly was her father. His name is Clifford Hayes. So
Speaker 1: there's there's this there they were in the area. Hayes,
Speaker 1: I believe it is is the one who had a gun,
Speaker 1: so he actually had a gun. There's all these there
Speaker 1: was um she got locked up for a while for
Speaker 1: what sounds like contempt of court, and then her father
Speaker 1: got locked up for a while under charges of incest,
Speaker 1: and the boyfriend got if he didn't get locked up,
Speaker 1: he almost got locked up one time. So this is
Speaker 1: part of the reason that they were never actually brought
Speaker 1: to the stand at the trial, because they were very
Speaker 1: questionable uh witnesses. But at the same time, if they
Speaker 1: were in the area, it seems that they may have
Speaker 1: had the means to commit this murder. The set of murders, Now,
Speaker 1: what was their motive, I don't know, or maybe there wasn't.
Speaker 1: It might have been kind of one of those thrill
Speaker 1: kill situations. But they they are totally a set of suspects,
Speaker 1: and because they were discounted and pushed out of the
Speaker 1: story pretty quickly. It's one of those ones that I
Speaker 1: can't help but always wonder about. Have a theory. Okay,
Speaker 1: do you know how old. The um the father was
Speaker 1: the well, she was fifteen. I'm going to guess the
Speaker 1: father was in his thirties to early for those days,
Speaker 1: so it could have been, like I'm starting to suspect
Speaker 1: that maybe it's a case of mistaken identity to men
Speaker 1: that they were out and he was like, I see
Speaker 1: you with your dad all the time, and she's like, no,
Speaker 1: it's not my end. He's like, look, there's your dad
Speaker 1: there and shoots him and it turns out actually, oops,
Speaker 1: it's the referend. And this whole time, Eleanor is like,
Speaker 1: oh my, you killed him? What is going on? And
Speaker 1: then obviously they have to kill her because they're questionable
Speaker 1: because it's a crazy scenario, right because it right well
Speaker 1: or not or you know that happens later, you know,
Speaker 1: one of them slits her throat. I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's possibility that was total case of mistaken identity that
Speaker 1: he thought it was the father at first, and then
Speaker 1: they just had to cover their tracks. Actually, the throat
Speaker 1: slitting was because she refused to die because they were
Speaker 1: shot with a thirty two. Uh, there were a lot
Speaker 1: of thirty two revolves, like five shot thirty two revolvers
Speaker 1: and circulation. Back in those days, you were very small, handy,
Speaker 1: little pocket guns. So one shot goes into the reverend's
Speaker 1: head and it kills him. Three shots go into her head,
Speaker 1: and believe me, thirty two, and the thirty two was
Speaker 1: in anemic little round. It's entirely conceivable that somebody could
Speaker 1: get shot three times with the thirty two and still
Speaker 1: not be totally dead. Well, especially if it was the
Speaker 1: right parts of the brain, which she got shot in
Speaker 1: some weird spots, so they could have the one below
Speaker 1: her eye socket could have just gone into her the
Speaker 1: base of her skull and her neck and done damage.
Speaker 1: The one that went in above her eye should have
Speaker 1: done her in, but maybe not, maybe not. People survived
Speaker 1: some instantly fatal. Yeah. Now the thirty two is, like
Speaker 1: I said, an anemic enough little round. And again, back
Speaker 1: in those days, they didn't have jacketed bullets so much.
Speaker 1: It would have been just a lead bullet. So it's
Speaker 1: entirely possible if the heavy the heavy plaiting in your
Speaker 1: forehead could actually keep it from penetrating into your brain pan.
Speaker 1: And it was a five shot most likely that was
Speaker 1: typical for those little pocket revolvers. It might have been
Speaker 1: a misfire on the last one or whatever, or they
Speaker 1: just didn't they heck with it and just cut her
Speaker 1: throat because she's not dying, so let's cut her throat. Job. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and yeah, maybe and maybe she was making noise, so
Speaker 1: they decided to you know, it's crazy scenario, Why I'll
Speaker 1: go with it. She was making noise, So they were like,
Speaker 1: we'll take that, thank you, and then posed them and
Speaker 1: then walked away, and then you know, a couple of
Speaker 1: days later. Yeah, I mean, there's there's a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of scenarios that could go on there, and I and
Speaker 1: Joe brings up really good points about the actual weapon
Speaker 1: that's used, so it kind of maybe adds some whether
Speaker 1: it's these two or three or any of the others,
Speaker 1: kind of explains like maybe why the throat was actually cut.
Speaker 1: It's one possibility for it. Yeah, but as far as
Speaker 1: there isn't. These two that found the bodies were a
Speaker 1: little questionable characters, but I don't know, and maybe they're
Speaker 1: just dumb. But for me, if I had committed a murder,
Speaker 1: I would stay the hell away from the murdercy and
Speaker 1: I wouldn't come wandering back and go, oh, look, somebodies,
Speaker 1: let's go to the police. So many times have we
Speaker 1: seen that, We're like the smart killer would stay away,
Speaker 1: and instead it turns out it's really dumb killers, like, hey,
Speaker 1: look at this, I found a body, and some of
Speaker 1: them just can't resist that. For me, I don't know,
Speaker 1: For whatever reason, always seems like something that people who
Speaker 1: are pathological about killing do less than people who like
Speaker 1: accidentally might have come If it's okay, I think that
Speaker 1: we've we've beaten this one almost completely into the ground.
Speaker 1: All I'm going to say is that if these two
Speaker 1: or three folks were to do a very impulsive set
Speaker 1: of murders, then it would not be beyond them to
Speaker 1: have the to be impulsive enough to say, let's find
Speaker 1: him too. Yeah. No, I know it's entirely possible. That's
Speaker 1: just their egos wanted. They just wanted to be involved
Speaker 1: in this story, you know, And it happens a lot
Speaker 1: with a problem. Dot Com is so freaking big, you know.
Speaker 1: I know, that's why you get these killers to try
Speaker 1: to insert themselves into the investigation. That happens a lot.
Speaker 1: And that's why if I do that, if I kill anybody,
Speaker 1: which I'm not applying I'm doing, but I'm gonna stay
Speaker 1: the hell away. We know, hy, you guys got any
Speaker 1: more theories? All right, let's do a little housekeeping here.
Speaker 1: Let's you guys probably want to know if we have
Speaker 1: one of those website things. Yes, we do. Actually, it
Speaker 1: turns out which is got It's called Thinking Sideways podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. And you can go out and download episodes
Speaker 1: or listen to them right there and there, and there's
Speaker 1: all kinds of other cool stuff there too. We've gotten merched.
Speaker 1: There's links to Zazelin Red Bubble, you can you can
Speaker 1: get shirts, mugs, stickers, and all kinds of stuff that
Speaker 1: merch off of our website. Uh. You can also find
Speaker 1: us on iTunes where you can subscribe and you can
Speaker 1: give us a rating and review, preferably really great review
Speaker 1: and a great rating. Uh. And of course we you
Speaker 1: can stream as damn near anywhere, including Google Play. And
Speaker 1: we're on social media. You guys know what that is, right? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: Facebook that we have a group and we have a page,
Speaker 1: so join the group and there's a lot of fun,
Speaker 1: a lot of people that are posting stuff and it's
Speaker 1: a lot of fun than it. Uh. And we are
Speaker 1: on Twitter, where we are thinking sideways. Yeah, and yeah,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, we twit a lot. Uh. And subreddit,
Speaker 1: we are thinking sideways of course. Uh. In our little subreddit,
Speaker 1: there's some activity. What's going on our subread these days stuff.
Speaker 1: There's actually a lot of emails coming through from conversations
Speaker 1: and stuff, so it's been pretty busy. Yeah yeah uh.
Speaker 1: And then last of all, if you'd like to contact
Speaker 1: us for any reason. You want to suggest a cool story,
Speaker 1: a great mystery, or you want to like complain, or
Speaker 1: you want to tell us, especially me, how awesome we are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we like that. Uh, so send us an email at
Speaker 1: Thinking Sideways podcast at gmail dot com. And uh, alright,
Speaker 1: so so much for all that stuff. Any final thoughts
Speaker 1: before we stick a fork in it? No, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: but I got this really cool piece of cherry tree
Speaker 1: crab I want to show. Yeah, great grandpa gave me this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. I got a piece of wood from my
Speaker 1: great grandpa too, and it's a treasured heirloom. Alright, so
Speaker 1: chat everybody. We will see you next week. Bye bye, bye, guys,