Deiner Treuer Liebhaber
A 1920s tale of betrayal, possible revenge, and a pig woman.
Edward Wheeler Hall was a local Reverand at The Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he and his wife Frances Noel Stevens shared a home. Elenor Reinhardt Mills was a soprano singer in the church choir and was often referred to as “the glamour girl of the choir” by news sources. She was married to James Mills, the acting sexton at the same church, and the pair had two children together. Fun fact, a sexton is basically like a groundskeeper who also manages the property he takes care of. This seems like a cool job, but it’s definitely not what I thought it was. It was no secret that the two couples weren’t exactly reveling in marital bliss. In fact, by all accounts, Edward and Eleanor were involved in a pretty public affair. Though when questioned later, both Edward’s wife and Eleanor’s husband would deny any prior knowledge of the tryst. Sadly, we’ll never know whether or not they were telling the truth, because on September 14 1922 the lovers were murdered.
A young couple was taking a stroll when they discovered the two bodies. What they stumbled upon that day was a truly unsettling crime scene. The killer (or killers) took the time after committing the murders to carefully pose the bodies. When the bodies of Elenor and Edward were discovered they were laying sweetly side by side, Eleanor’s hand gently resting on Edwards’s knee, her head on his arm, and her scarf wrapped loosely around her neck. A Panama hat shaded Edwards’s eyes and face from the sun, and from far away you could have sworn the couple was just taking an afternoon nap under the crab apple tree located at a popular lovers’ lane in Somerset, New Jersey. Are lovers’ lanes still a thing? I’ve never heard of nor seen one in real life. I definitely don’t remember a make-out spot in my town, but maybe I just didn’t know the right people.
While both had been murdered, Eleanor seems to have met a far more brutal end, suffering three gunshots to the face, her throat had been deeply slashed, and her tongue cut out. I couldn’t find out if they ever found her tongue and truth be told it’s a question that will haunt me forever. Some sources also stated that her larynx was removed, but I was unable to find definitive proof of that part. Edward suffered only a single gunshot to the head at point-blank range with a .32 caliber pistol. His body was left unmutilated. Placed near his feet was his business card, and scattered around the couple were torn up pieces of love letters they had presumably sent each other. The authorities were actually able to reconstruct some of the letters and boy were they were steamy… I think. In one letter Edwards writes “Darling wonder heart, I just want to crush you for two hours”, and I’m just going to assume that’s some kind of old-timey dirty talk.
What happened later on at the crime scene was truly bizarre. After the bodies were removed curious townspeople trampled all over the crime scene, touching the evidence and even taking strips of bark and bags of dirt from where the pastor and his lover had been killed. If that’s how crime-solving was handled back then it’s a wonder any crimes ever got solved. I guess it was pretty normal though because it wasn’t just a few people, it was a whole state-wide event with popcorn and families traveling miles to view the crime scene like some sideshow event. There were even people selling the dirt they had taken from the area. Wild. People are so not cool.
So clearly things weren’t going so well evidence-wise, and as far as suspects went it wasn’t looking much better. The police didn’t even question Eleanor’s husband initially, because for some reason they just automatically discounted James as a suspect. In all fairness, he did have an alibi that checked out. His neighbors confirmed that they had both seen and heard him working at home during the time of the murders. Francis, Edwards’s wife also had a pretty solid alibi. Her story that she was at home when the crime took place was backed up by her maid. So the police were pretty much back to square one with no other suspects in sight.
Jane Gibson was the only real witness the night of the murders, though by most accounts not a very credible one. Even her mother claimed she was a liar, yelling loudly at her during her testimony in court. Jane’s farm was located right next to the lovers’ lane. According to her, that night she saw someone rustling around in her cornfield, and unlike me a sane ish person she saddled her horse right up and rode after the could-be robber. Why she didn’t run in the opposite direction ill never know, but she claimed to have come across a parked car and overheard people arguing loudly up ahead. According to her testimony, the voices she heard belonged to two women and two men. She additionally told police that she heard one of the women yell “Explain these letters!” right before gunshots rang out and a voice screamed, “Henry!”. Jane became frightened (as any normal person would) and turned around and headed home.
To the outside observer, it would seem as though the media was trying to frame her as crazy and unreliable, I didn’t totally understand why. But they and the courts brought up her past and just dug up anything they could about her to make her look bad. They also refused to call her by her name, instead referring to her as “the pig woman” for the duration of the case. I guess because she was a hog farmer, but I think it may have just been another way to make her seem crazy and less credible. When she first presented her story the grand jury decided not to indict anyone based on the testimony and without any other leads, the case went cold. Until a few years later when a man named Arthur Riehl came forward with some pretty juicy information. He claimed that his soon-to-be ex-wife Luise Geist, was the former maid for the Halls family, and according to her, Mrs. Hall was very aware of her husbands' indiscretions and even knew he was planning to run away with his young lover. She said that soon after this discovery Mrs. Hall and her brothers, William and Henry Stevens along with their cousin Henry De La Bruyere Carpender, went looking for Edward. Luise had been bribed with $5,000 to keep quiet, which was why she didn’t initially come forward, but it was because of this new evidence the four were finally arrested and charged with the murder of Eleanor and Edward in 1926. This time around Mrs. Gibson was allowed to testify in court about what she saw and heard the night of September 14, even though she was undergoing treatment for cancer at the time. They actually had Mrs. Gibson in the courtroom testifying from her hospital bed. I didn't even know that was a thing but it was a pretty dramatic sight. And also bad for the patient maybe? I don't know, but it feels very much like a daytime drama rather than a real-life murder trial. No wonder it's been referred to as “the trial of the century”.
Mrs. Hall and her brothers’ trial began on November 3, 1926, but soon after on December 4, the charges were dismissed and to this day the case remains unsolved. We may never really know what happened to Edward and Eleanor but if you ask me, it was one of their spouses. Judging by what was done to Eleanor’s body someone was very angry at her. Another fun fact: there was, and still is a rumor that this story was actually the inspiration for The Great Gatsby, by F Scott Fitzgerald. Great Gatsby inspo or not this case is a wild one and I hope someday we get some answers, though I very much doubt it.
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