WEBVTT - The Unsolved Murder of Hall and Mills 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:09.160 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:13.800 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:16.840 Chuck And this is another edition of Stuff you Should 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:21.680 Know is ongoing low key true crime. Sweet. 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:24.159 Yeah, it's been a while, if you. 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:26.599 Like, I'm trying to think of the last one, but yeah, 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:28.560 I mean clearly it has been if I can't think 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:31.000 of the last one, but yeah, I like it every 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:32.120 once in a while. I was just kind of add 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:34.800 to it. And it's just this kind of thing because 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:37.839 they're interesting, especially if you're not looking at them like 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:39.479 a total gawker, you know. 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:40.960 Agreed. 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:43.800 So we're talking today about what I hadn't heard of. 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:46.240 Let me ask you this before we get started. Yeah, 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:51.680 did you get your idea from People Magazine? No? Because 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:56.160 People Magazine ran an article on this very murder on 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:58.920 June twenty sixth, twenty twenty five. 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:02.480 Oh really, Yes, Like, where did you get this idea? 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:05.640 Well, I know it wasn't People, because you know, I 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:08.840 just I didn't read People. I'm not against it. If 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:11.959 I'm like, you know, waiting for the doctor or something, Well. 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:13.600 You're really digging yourself into a hole. Here. 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:15.640 I'll pick up a People magazine. That's fine. 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:21.120 I'm wondering now if this was a listener suggestion that 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:22.039 I need to look up. 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:24.640 I searched it and I did not really anything about it. 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:27.319 That's why I was like, holy cow, People magazine. He 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:28.600 really got it from there. 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:29.319 I don't know. 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:32.600 Maybe, I mean sometimes I might go so low as 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:37.000 to search for, you know, unsolved crimes or something. 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:37.399 I don't know. 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:41.160 Sure, there's nothing wrong with that. That my ideas well. 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:44.480 The crazy thing about this is it's I've seen it 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:48.600 described as like the first truly sensationalized trial of the 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:52.040 century in the United States, or that it was like 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:54.880 their first big trial of the century, something like that, 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:57.639 and I was definitely up there. I've seen it compare 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:00.680 with some other ones. Yeah, that came later closely on 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:05.280 the heels. But I never heard any of this. I've 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:07.680 never heard of any of these people. And yet some 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:11.080 other people say, hey, this might have even inspired the 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:12.840 Great Gatsby in some ways. 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:15.680 I have a feeling that's how it came to me. 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:18.200 And now I'm wondering if that was the search term 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:21.200 that I should have used for listener's suggestion. 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:25.200 Oh Great Gatsby, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't search 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:27.360 for that either. Well, well, I have to get to 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:30.560 the bottom of this, like a couple of true detectives. 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:32.200 Now, because you feel like we're letting someone down. 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:35.680 Yeah, we probably are, but we do need to get 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:38.080 their name. But I wonder if if this thing is 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:42.200 sent post June twenty six, twenty twenty five. Bet they 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:46.400 got it from People, Okay, because the People magazine article, 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:49.639 like in the headline it said that it inspired the 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:50.440 Great Gatsby. 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:54.600 Yeah, I mean, I definitely remember. That's what drew my 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:57.320 attention to it. But if you're trying to root me 0:02:57.360 --> 0:02:59.600 out as a People Magazine reader, you're going to fail. 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:01.960 I'm not going to stop. I'm not going to stop 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:04.840 until i'm successful. So just look out, buddy, because you're 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:06.079 my crosschairs. Now. 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:06.880 Who knows. 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.240 So let's talk about this crime. In short, there was 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:14.280 a reverend, well known reverend in New Brunswick, New Jersey, 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:19.240 home of Rutgers, and this reverend was having an affair 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:23.960 with one of his church members, a woman named Eleanor Mills. 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:26.920 The reverend's name was Edward Hall. He was about seven 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:31.040 years her senior from what I understand, and one night 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:34.200 or one morning, I should say, they turned up murdered, 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:38.360 brutally murdered, and it became, like I said, a very 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:41.520 sensational story, not just in New Brunswick, not just in 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:45.480 nearby New York, but everywhere across the country. I would guess, 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:51.680 probably out of the country as well. Who knows, how 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:54.000 would you find something like that out I. 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:58.360 Don't know, People magazine probably, yeah, probably in People International. 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:02.920 So yeah, Ed Hall was in his early forties, forty 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:04.440 one years old at the time of his death, and 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:07.880 he was a pastor, like you said, at Saint John's Episcopal. 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:10.080 About twenty miles from where I lived in New Jersey. 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:12.160 Oh yeah, yeah, that's right. 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:17.480 And his wife's name was Francis Hall. She was seven 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:23.080 years older than him, interestingly, because I guess his mistress, 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:24.839 Eleanor Mills, was seven years younger. 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:31.200 Anything to that, I think it's just a fluke of nature. Yeah, 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:33.680 I think so too. But and this is kind of 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:34.200 key here. 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:37.960 She his wife had come from a you know, it 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:40.520 seems like a pretty wealthy, well to do, well connected 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:44.480 family in the area because he was just a pastor, 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:47.560 and you know, they didn't make a lot of dough. 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:49.920 Yet they lived in a really fancy house they had 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:52.800 a chauffeur, they had a staff, they had maids that 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:55.200 work there, which will come into play in this story. 0:04:55.880 --> 0:05:00.280 And they had been married about eleven years. His miss Dress, 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:03.960 who was also brutally murdered. She was a homemaker, married 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:07.560 to a school janitor named James, who also kind of 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:09.320 helped take care of the church. They had a couple 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:12.359 of kids. She sang in the choir, and this is 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:15.600 also key. She acted as sort of a very close 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:19.920 personal assistant to the reverend, like very closely assisted him, 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:20.720 if you know what I'm saying. 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:24.839 Yeah, I do know what you're saying. So one other 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:29.440 thing about Edward Hall and his wife Francis's fortune. He apparently, 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.159 when he first got to take over the church, the 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:35.680 Saint John's Episcopal Church, it was a hostel takeover. He 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:39.760 started courting a lovely parishioner, but she didn't really have 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.640 any money. He dropped her and put his sights on 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:47.000 Francis Stevens, who would become Francis Hall his wife. And 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:51.520 from what I've read, there's not a lot of note, 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:54.040 or there wasn't a lot of note about Francis Stevens 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:57.000 aside from her wealth, and she was wealthy. She shared 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:00.320 what would be worth today a forty million dollar fortune 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.160 between herself and her two other brothers, So she was 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:07.480 definitely wealthy, and so in addition to running around on her, 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:10.640 he also seemed to just have been after her money. 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:13.880 And let's not forget he's an episcopal reverend leading an 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.760 entire church. So that to me, when I put all 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:19.039 those things together, I was like, I don't really like 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:19.520 this guy. 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:25.320 Yeah, yeah, fair enough. So it was not a secret 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:27.160 among the church. You know, it's kind of one of 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:29.719 those things, you know, back in nineteen twenty two where 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:32.760 people might it might have been pretty clear and even 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:35.799 probably in a modern day church that somebody was having an affair, 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:37.400 but you didn't really talk about that kind of thing, 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:42.920 and so it was basically an open secret. After you know, 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:46.280 the sermons and after Sunday would end, they would spend 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:49.440 a lot of time together in his study. Apparently they 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.000 would leave love notes, and that will come into playing 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:54.359 the story for each other with a little secret system 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:56.120 where they would put it in a book on his 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:59.120 shelf and trade notes that way. Well, do you think 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:03.000 it was the Great gatsty just. 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:04.080 They traveled in time? 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:07.400 They did the day that the news broke though, The 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:10.320 New York's Time, The New York Times came out and said, 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:12.200 and this is how they would have to put this 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:14.360 kind of thing back then, they said they had long 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:15.320 been friendly. 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:19.560 Right, so yeah, like you said, this is an open secret. 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:26.640 Apparently their spouses knew. James Mills and Francis Hall both 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:29.920 seemed to have known about the affair. For one, when 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:33.920 they turned up missing that first day. Apparently, Francis Hall 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:38.080 the first time she spoke to James Mill, her husband's 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:44.440 mistress's husband, James said, do you think they eloped? That 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:46.360 was his response when he found out that they were 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:51.240 both missing. And apparently, also this is important too, Francis 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:55.480 Hall had a informal network of spies among the congregation 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:58.720 who kept tabs on those two and informed her of 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:02.280 their doing. Essentially, so both of them knew full well 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:03.400 what was going on. 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:07.840 Right, they knew, but they didn't project that publicly. Publicly 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:11.680 they both said, like my head didn't know this was 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:14.640 going on. And as we'll see later in court, she 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:17.720 even testified that you know, her marriage was perfect and 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:21.880 those these supposed love notes are fake and they were 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:22.760 not having an affair. 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.360 No, for sure, I think her first public response was 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:30.320 go wois So. 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:36.400 On the day of the murder, this was Thursday, September fourteenth, 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.800 they each you know, left their respective houses, and another 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.840 couple reported to seeing them meeting up on a bridge nearby. 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:46.920 And then a couple of days later another couple came forward. 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:50.480 This woman named well woman, she was fifteen years old. 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:53.440 She was a young girl named Pearl Bomber. Yet she 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:55.800 was in a relationship because this was in nineteen twenty 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:58.320 two with a guy who was anywhere from nineteen to 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:01.480 twenty three who can tell. His name was Raymond Schneider. 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:05.079 They came upon the bodies a couple of days later 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:08.160 on Old Philip Swarm. This is the other side of 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:10.319 the Raritan River there, and this is about ten thirty 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:13.640 in the morning. They went to the closest house, had 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:15.600 the owner called the cops, and the cops showed up 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:16.280 pretty quickly. 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:20.720 Yeah, the bodies. They it was pretty disturbing. So they'd 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:24.120 been left on a path off of Derusi's Lane. This 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:26.720 is a dure road I think in Somerset County, and 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:28.960 it was a well known lover's lane. Like this is 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:30.520 the kind of time where you had to go out 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:33.160 to a lover's lane to either have an affair or 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:36.880 have premarital sex or both. This is where their bodies 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:39.880 were found, on a path off of this lover's lane. Right, Yeah, 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:43.920 a reverend Hall had been shot once through the temple 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:49.240 and exited the opposite temple and that was it for him. 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:54.280 But Eleanor Mills, his mistress, she had really been worked over. 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:58.400 Right, Yeah, she was shot three times in the head 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:02.440 and her neck was cut so severely that she was 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:06.960 close to being decapitated. His shot was point blank, sort 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:09.319 of you know what we'd call execution style, with a 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:10.640 thirty two caliber pistol. 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:13.520 And the bodies were posed. 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:15.840 Together after that, they were under a crab apple tree, 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:21.360 kind of posed as cuddling lovers. Her head was placed 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:23.640 on his arm, not you know, separate from her body, 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:27.000 just laid against him, and a scarf was draped over 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:30.640 her cutthroat, and he had a hat, a Panama hat 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:33.800 kind of partially covering his space. So, you know, from 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:36.720 twenty yards away or whatever, looked like a couple just 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:39.640 sort of laying there, cuddling, maybe taking a nap under 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:40.080 a tree. 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:43.640 Yeah, So that's how they were found. But apparently as 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:46.560 Pearl and Raymond were coming upon them, they saw very 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:50.040 quickly that they were dead. There was one other thing 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:52.200 that wasn't noted at the time when the bodies were 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:54.840 found in nineteen twenty two, but it would be noted 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:57.920 when the case was reignited four years later in nineteen 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:04.560 twenty six, that that Eleanor mills tongue and vocal cords 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:07.480 had been cut out and removed. That had been missed 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:10.520 in the first autopsy, but a subsequent optopsy found that. 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.200 So this was the state that these bodies were found in. 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:19.000 I think also, the Reverend Hall's business card was found 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:22.120 propped up against his foot. I think that's the only 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:24.120 other thing we left out. Oh no, there's one other thing. 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:27.080 This is really important too. This is the clue to me. 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:31.560 You ready, Chuck, I'm ready. There were love letters that 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:35.120 Eleanor Mills had written to Edward Hall, the Reverend Hall, 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:39.000 and they had been placed all around them. So this 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:43.400 was a highly staged crime scene. Not just the bodies 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:48.120 were staged, but there were actual props involved among an 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:53.000 executed and a mutilated body left out in public, essentially 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:56.680 to be found almost immediately after they were killed. 0:11:57.280 --> 0:12:00.920 Yeah, I mean the business card almost feels like, hey, 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:03.480 if anyone stumbles upon this, who's not from around here? 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:04.520 This is who this is? 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:07.000 Right? You know, yeah for sure? 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:08.320 Like what else could that be? 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:12.240 I don't know. I mean they're sending some sort of message. 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:14.400 If that's not that, there's something else that they're sending, 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:16.800 Like that's a that's pretty in your face, you know. 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:20.800 Yeah, for sure. So the bodies were found locals. You know, 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:23.079 word gets around a little bit, locals starts showing up. 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:25.560 Then once the new newspapers get a hold of it, 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:26.160 like you said. 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:29.760 Earlier, it became a big deal. And I guess this 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:30.439 was such a. 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:32.640 Sensational thing at a time where this kind of thing 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:36.200 didn't happen much that like people really started coming to 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:38.760 this town to like just see what happened. They wanted 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:41.680 to walk on the grounds of that road and near 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:45.680 that farm, and they wanted to like literally take pieces 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:47.720 of that tree and dig up dirt around there as 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:48.360 a keepsake. 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:50.479 Apparently, they said. 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:51.960 You know, they were showing up at a rate of 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:54.800 a thousand cars a day. Sounds a little overblown, maybe, 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:58.560 mm hmm. But there were like vendors selling popcorn and 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:02.400 balloons and you know, the dirt they were selling for 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:04.560 twenty five cents a bag. It was really out of 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:05.760 hand very quickly. 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:07.800 You don't. It reminded me of was like the circus 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:10.920 atmosphere that grew up when Floyd Collins was trapped in 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:14.440 sand Cave. Yeah, around it was around the same time, 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:15.400 so people were. 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:16.640 Just looking for something. 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:20.480 Yeah, pretty bored apparently. Yeah, so yeah, it was a 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:23.040 big deal. There was a huge problem with all of 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:30.959 those people showing up combined with incompetent an incompetent police investigation, 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:34.360 and that was that these people trod all over the 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:40.240 crime scene. They apparently messed with the scarf, they took 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:43.360 samples from the tree. Apparently the tree was stripped of 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:46.439 everything except its trunk. After everyone was done with it. 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:51.440 There's the guy selling the dirt. This stuff was really important, Like, 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:54.640 for example, the dirt was important because that's how they 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:58.400 would establish whether those two had been murdered in the 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:01.400 spot they were found in or somewhere else and transport 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:04.120 it because the blood they found trickled into the dirt, 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:06.480 which is a sure sign that they had had been 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:10.480 killed there on the on the spot. But with people 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:13.520 stealing dirt from that there goes all of that evidence too, 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:16.640 So the crime scene was completely useless. And this is 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:19.480 at a time when people knew, like, no, you really 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:21.080 need to preserve crime scenes. 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:24.680 Yeah, for sure, I think that's a good spot for 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:29.800 a break a A. All right, Well, since Josh said, ah, 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:31.440 we're gonna take a little break and come back with 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:34.120 more of this grizzly murder right after this. 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:11.800 All right, so we're back. 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:14.920 When we last left you, Josh was sort of detailing 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:17.480 the problems with the crime scene and people trotting about 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:20.880 and messing that up, and you mentioned something about the 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:23.600 police work wasn't so good. One of the issues was 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:26.200 and this is something it seems like it happens a lot, 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:29.240 if you believe TV and movies at least, is that 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:32.040 there were various jurisdictions kind of battling for this case. 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:37.600 They lived in Middlesex County, the old Phillips farm was 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.080 in Somerset County, like you mentioned, and initially, like you said, 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:44.200 they didn't even know where their murders took place. They 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:46.920 later found out that they were alive when they got 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:49.440 to the farm, so they finally found that out. But 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:52.880 at the beginning, you had Middlesex County in Somerset County, 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:54.320 both saying like, no, this is my case. 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:55.120 This is my case. 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:57.920 And for a while, it seems like for a pretty 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:01.320 great while they had two sort of separate investigations going on, 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:04.080 which never, at least in the movies, seems to be 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:04.680 a good idea. 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:06.720 No, not at all. Apparently the governor had to get 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:09.440 involved and be like, you guys need to join forces, 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:12.280 and they eventually did. But I mean, this is this 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:15.000 happened for I don't know exactly how long, but long 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:17.760 enough for it to be significant enough to mention, and 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:21.040 this is a really important time during an investigation, the 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:23.520 first several hours forty eight. 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:25.280 You might even say, yeah, that's what they say. 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:32.520 So there was a statement that was issued that Missus 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:35.760 Hall issued essentially to back up a theory that had 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:38.640 been posed that this was a robbery. There was a 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:42.480 robbery gone wrong, and a woman named Sally Peters acted 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:48.160 as Missus Hall's spokeswoman apparently for most of this time 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:50.920 because Missus Hall didn't really want to be seen in public, 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:55.080 so a good friends stepped up and essentially they pointed 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:59.200 out that Missus Hall's husband, the Reverend Hall, he walked 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:02.160 around with the gold watch and in his wallet he 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:05.879 typically carried about fifty dollars, just like one thousand dollars today. 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:08.440 That's what he walked around adjusts. 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:09.919 One thousand dollars of cash in their wallet. 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:12.040 A guy who marries a woman for her money and 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:15.280 then runs around on her almost publicly. Yeah, probably so, 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:17.760 And that those things were missing when they were found, 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:21.160 So they had been robbed, right, But the question was 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:25.600 was that really the motive behind this murder where Eleanor 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.600 Mills's throat had been cut to the backbone and they've 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:31.000 been staged in some really weird ways. 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:32.399 Right, Yeah, for sure. 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:36.840 So this is the Middlesex assistant prosecutor at first, because 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:40.240 again they were conducting separate investigations. This guy's name was 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:43.000 John Chulan, and he came out and said, hey, wait 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:46.560 a minute. Basically, I mean he couldn't come right out 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:49.280 and accused her, but he was basically like, hey, there's 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:51.199 no information to back this up. Kind of listen to 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:55.960 our statements and maybe not the ones from the deceased family. 0:17:57.040 --> 0:17:59.119 I'm sure he had to couch that because she was 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:02.680 from a wealthy family, but he basically said, hey, there's 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:06.080 no evidence to back this up, and we think that 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:08.040 and this to me is a little hinky, but he said, 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:10.840 if it was a robber, he wouldn't have been using 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:13.320 a thirty two. He would have been using a larger caliber, 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:15.040 which to me doesn't really make much sense. 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:17.240 He would have been using a forty four magnum, the 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:20.879 most powerful handgun in the world. Do you feel lucky. 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:25.679 So there was another theory too that I hadn't heard of, 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:29.520 but kind of makes sense. Apparently the Klan had recently 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:35.560 become highly active in the area around that time, and 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:40.399 they were known for severely punishing moral transgressions like affairs. 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:42.760 Yeah, but not their own, no. 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:46.560 Of course, not so if they had come upon or 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:49.200 had targeted these two, because I mean, if this was 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:51.560 an open secret and this guy's a prominent member of 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:55.199 the community, they could have been a target for the 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:59.160 Klan to punish somebody like that. So that was a 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:02.719 decent theory, but it didn't really go too far, at 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:03.520 least at first. 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:06.440 Yeah, for sure, And we mentioned this next one just 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:08.800 because it was has been mentioned, but it really also 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:12.840 went nowhere. But very briefly, there were apparently there were 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:15.400 two Italians who had showed up in New Brunswick and. 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:18.280 They had revolvers. 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:20.760 Like that was known that there were these two Italian 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:23.000 guys who no one knew and they had guns. But 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:25.960 that was just a very quick sort of They had 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:27.320 nothing to do with the kind of deal. 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:29.960 For sure. That's just what you did in nineteen twenty 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:32.840 two when somebody turned up murdered. How many Italians came 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:33.200 into town? 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:34.639 Yeah, exactly. 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:40.400 So the cops were like, okay, like we can't possibly 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:45.240 like train our sights on on the wealthy widow and 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:47.959 her family. Let's see who else we can blame to 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:51.520 just basically make the public, let us make this go away, right. Yeah, 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:53.639 they were just looking for somebody to pin it on, 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:58.640 and they turned their attention to the two people, Pearl 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:02.840 Balmber and ra Schneider, who had run over to a 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:04.959 farmhouse and told a woman we just found some bodies. 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:07.520 Called the police. Right when they found the bodies. They 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:09.840 were like, that seems a little fishy. We're going to 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:12.520 start looking at you guys, because you're probably just providing 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:17.200 grown alibis who would possibly call in finding the bodies 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:18.680 of a murder they just committed. 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:20.000 Yeah, for sure. 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:24.719 So they discovered like hey, they were also on the 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:27.160 farm that night, because this was remember two days later 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:30.680 in the morning when they called it in, but they said, hey, 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:33.760 they were also there that night. A couple of weeks 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:37.160 after that, those two and then a couple of other 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:39.360 friends of theirs that were also with them that night, 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:42.399 a guy named Clifford Hayes and a fifteen year old 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:45.080 kid named Leon Kaufman. They were all four brought in 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:48.920 for what sounds like a straight twenty four hours of questioning, 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:52.000 which is always very suspicious, you know, when you try 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:54.240 and get someone to their weakest point. So they signed 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:58.040 some weird false confession. So they wore them out questioning 0:20:58.080 --> 0:20:58.720 for a full. 0:20:58.600 --> 0:20:59.400 Day and night. 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:03.880 And at the end of this Ray Schneider, the original 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:07.520 guy who reported it with his young girlfriend, signed a 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:12.800 statement that said, hey, around midnight that night, me and 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:16.720 Clifford Hayes, my buddy, came across a couple of people. 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:18.480 Sitting on the ground near that farmhouse. 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:21.880