Is it any wonder I became a crime fancier?????? When I was growing up, in Highland Park, New Jersey, many of my relations lived in New Brunswick, North Brunswick and beyond. As far back as I can go I recall hearing, from members of a generation old enough to remember, about something called the Hall-Mills murder case. The local paper, the Daily Home News, would periodically (maybe once a decade) print a story on the anniversary of its passing, which just happens, girls to be........tonight!
Yes, 90 years ago this evening, was perpetrated the most sexational criminal act of the day for its area. While it would pale in the face of today's crimes, it was heady stuff back in 1922, and the case celebre of my childhood.
It had everything--sex, religion, murder, and affluence. The Reverend Edward Hall, pastor of St. John's Church in New Brunswick, was clearly married to Frances Noel Stevens, aka Mrs. Hall. She happened to be from a wealthy family, and had connections to the founders of what is still the cottage industry of that area--Johnson and Johnson!!!!!!!!! Like any church, St. John's had its choir, and in it was a woman named Eleanor Reinhardt Mills, married to one James Mills, who was not from money. Now, none of these people were what you would call great beauties. But something must have clicked between Hall and Mills, because the two struck up an adulterous relationship that, while not flaunted, was widely known. One of the era's more popular 'lovers' lanes" was De Ruse's Lane, outside the city, over in Somerset County (the residents were all of Middlesex County) where there was what came to be the most famous crab apple tree in the nation.
On the morning of September 16, 1922, a couple walking there discovered the bodies of a man and woman under the tree, feet facing toward it. It was Reverend Hall and Mrs. Mills. Their throats had been slit, and there was the especially salacious rumor that his penis had been cut and stuffed in her mouth!!!! And this was generations before Lorena Bobbitt, darlings!!!!!!!! An investigation, a trial, was held, and to this day many are not convinced of who killed the minister and the choir singer.
My paternal grandmother, a wise woman, always maintained it was Willie Stevens, the somewhat what we today would call mentally challenged sibling of Mrs. Hall. I am convinced she is right, but I think Mrs. Hall was there, too. They went and confronted the couple in adultery, and the lovers were murdered out of white hot revenge!!!!!!!!!! Mrs. Hall's affluence and connections got she and her brother off!!!!!!!!!!! But I maintain they were guilty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Which was a scandal the community at the time could not afford to have, which leads me to suspect this is why things turned out the way they did. Years later, while still at Rutgers, opportunist lawyer William Kuntsler wrote a book about the case, called "The Minister And The Choir Singer." He maintains it was done by a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan!!!!!!!! Yeah, right!!!!!!!! While the Klan might have been in Jersey, and were as bigoted as might be expected, this was too outside of their topical sphere. Why should they care about this adulterous pair????????? Let's face it, they may have been found out, but they were not the only adulterers in the state!!!!!!! You can be damn sure of that!!!!!!!!!!!!
The case was a national phenomenon, with people coming from all over to rip off pieces of the crab apple tree, till it was completely gone. Eventually, De Ruse's Lane became Franklin Boulevard--and this is when I was growing up. Now, I don't know what it is like, so it is virtually impossible to stand on the exact location of where this once famous crime was committed 90 years ago, tonight!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But blood cries out from the ground, darlings, have no fear!!!!!!!!
So....let's acknowledge the anniversary!!!!!!!!!!!! But just to be safe, loves, this weekend, don't sit under any crab apple trees!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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