Killing of Edward Hall and Eleanor Mills

Edward Wheeler Hall, an Episcopal priest, and Eleanor Mills, a member of his church choir with whom he was having an affair, were murdered on September 14, 1922, in Franklin Township, New Jersey. Their bodies were discovered on September 16, 1922, in a field near a farm in Somerset County. Both had been shot in the head with a .32-caliber pistol — Hall once, Mills three times — and were found lying on their backs, feet pointing toward a crab apple tree, with torn-up love letters placed between them. A police officer noted that Mills' throat had been severed and that maggots were already present in the wound, indicating death had occurred at least 24 hours earlier.

The crime scene straddled the border of Somerset and Middlesex counties, and confusion between the two jurisdictions' police forces, combined with crowds of curiosity-seekers who trampled the scene and took souvenirs, severely compromised the physical evidence. Eleanor Mills was identified as the wife of James E. Mills, sexton at St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church, with whom she had two children. Edward Hall was identified as a New Brunswick Episcopal priest married to Frances Noel Stevens Hall.

The original 1922 investigation, led by Joseph E. Stricker, produced no indictments. Renewed press speculation, notably in the New York Daily Mirror, prompted New Jersey Governor A. Harry Moore to order a second investigation, leading to a 1926 trial of Frances Hall, her brothers Henry Hewgill Stevens and William "Willie" Carpender Stevens, for the murders. A cousin, Henry de la Bruyere Carpender, was also an initial suspect but won a separate trial and was ultimately never tried.

The trial began November 3, 1926, at the Somerset County Courthouse in Somerville and lasted about thirty days, drawing enormous national press attention due in part to the social standing of the Stevens and Carpender families. Alexander Simpson led the prosecution; Robert H. McCarter and Timothy N. Pfeiffer led the defense. The prosecution's key witness was Jane Gibson, a local pig farmer known as the "pig woman," who testified to having seen four people near the crab apple tree and hearing gunshots and a woman shouting the name "Henry." Gibson's account varied between her statements to police, to newspapers, and at trial, and the defense worked to undermine her credibility. All three defendants were acquitted on December 3, 1926.

After the trial, Frances Hall sued the New York Daily Mirror for defamation, which was settled out of court. The case attracted extensive contemporaneous newspaper coverage, including from The New York Times, and has since been the subject of numerous books, including works theorizing alternative explanations for the killings; no such theories have resulted in further prosecutions. The murders remain formally unsolved following the 1926 acquittals.