REMEMBER: THE HALL-MILLS MURDER

The Hall-Mills murder was one of the messiest, most scandalous, and most complicated murder cases in the history of the state of New Jersey (US).

In 1922, Reverend Edward W. Hall, pastor and a woman were found murdered, lying side-by-side near a crab apple tree in De Russey’s Lane, a well-known lover’s lane spot.

On the morning of 16 September 1922 a couple wandering in a lovers’ lane on the outskirts of New Brunswick, New Jersey, discovered the corpses of a man and a woman carefully arranged under a crabapple tree.

Both had been shot to death. The woman’s throat had been cut, nearly severing her head, and her larynx and tongue had been cut out. The murder victims were identified as 41-year-old Rev, Edward Wheeler Hall, rector of the Church of St. John the Evangelist and Eleanor R. Mills, 34-year-old.

Their clothes were in perfect order and there were scattered pieces of torn paper around the bodies, later identified as love letters to each other.

Both the reverend and Eleanor were married to other people, but police discovered that the whole parish knew that the two have a love affair.

These two crimes became a murder mystery: the victims’ spouses, families, relationship were all possible suspects, even the Ku Klux Klan, also, has been pointed out as a possible murderer.

Even if the pastor’s wife and family has been suspected, at the end, no one was ever charged for the murders and this bloody event till now, remains a complete insolved mystery and cold case.