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A Little Less Mess: Blood Under the Crabapple Tree [New Jersey] · Bless This Mess: A Southern True Crime Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome to Bless This Mess and the True
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Crime Podcast.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I'm Cara, just Cara. This is A Little Less Mess.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: These are our Monday mini episodes where I go solo.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: and tell you a little story that's outside of the South.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: This is where we unpack strange, scandalous, and chilling mysteries
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: from other corners of the country. Before we get started,
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: here is a quick reminder of our weekly schedule. On Thursdays,
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: me and Stuart are back together for our regular full-length
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Southern True Crime Cases. And if you want early, ad-free
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: access to those main episodes, plus our Friday bonus show, Sittin',
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Sippin' and Bullshittin', come join our Patreon family. You can
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: also follow us on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube for
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: True Crime and Dinner Time, Cozy Mystery Movie Club, and
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: our weekly true crime documentary recommendations. And as always, the
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: best free way to help support the show is to rate, review,
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: and subscribe wherever you are listening. So grab your mason jar,
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: settle into your rocking chair, while I spin you a
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: little tale. Today, we are turning back the clock more
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: than a century to the autumn of 1922 in the
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  Speaker 2: state of New Jersey. Long before the O.J. Simpson trial
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  Speaker 2: or the Lindbergh kidnapping captivated the nation, there was a
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  Speaker 2: case that essentially invented the American tabloid media circus. It
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  Speaker 2: had everything you could possibly imagine in a jazz-age gothic mystery.
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  Speaker 2: An aristocratic Episcopal rector, a passionate choir singer, secret love
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  Speaker 2: letters torn up and scattered like confetti, an eccentric pig
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  Speaker 2: farmer riding her mule through an abandoned orchard in the
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  Speaker 2: dead of the night, and an unsolved double murder that
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: rocked high society to its core. This is the infamous
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Hall-Mills murder case. Our story takes place in the twin
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  Speaker 2: communities of New Brunswick and Franklin Township, New Jersey. In 1922,
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  Speaker 2: New Brunswick was a respectable, buttoned-up community dominated by Rutgers
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  Speaker 2: College and the wealthy elite. Standing at the center of
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  Speaker 2: this social hierarchy was was the Church of St. John
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  Speaker 2: the Evangelist. The rector of St. John's was 41-year-old Reverend
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  Speaker 2: Edward Wheeler Hall. Reverend Hall was handsome, soft-spoken, and by
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  Speaker 2: all appearances, the model of pious devotion. Seven years earlier,
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  Speaker 2: he had married Frances Noelle Stevens. Frances was seven years
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  Speaker 2: older than Edward, plain in appearance, and extraordinarily wealthy. She
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  Speaker 2: was an heiress to the Stevens family fortune, a dynasty
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  Speaker 2: of industrialists and inventors whose estate funded much of the
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  Speaker 2: church and community. But socially and romantically, the marriage was
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  Speaker 2: ice cold. They had no children, slept in separate bedrooms,
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  Speaker 2: and friends noted that Edward treated Frances more like a
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  Speaker 2: wealthy benefactor than a wife. And that is where 34-year-old
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  Speaker 2: Eleanor Mills enters the picture. Eleanor was married to James Mills,
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  Speaker 2: a quiet, unassuming man who worked as the sexton and
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  Speaker 2: janitor at Reverend Hall's church. Eleanor was completely different from
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  Speaker 2: Edward's aristocratic wife. She was vivacious, passionate, possessed a lovely
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  Speaker 2: soprano voice, and sang lead in the choir. Around 1918,
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  Speaker 2: the handsome preacher and his choir leader began a torrid,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: reckless love affair. In a small town like New Brunswick,
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  Speaker 2: A secret like that doesn't stay secret for very long. Soon,
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  Speaker 2: parishioners noticed the lingering glances during choir rehearsals. They noticed
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  Speaker 2: Reverend Hall making unusually frequent pastoral visits to the Mills
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  Speaker 2: residence when James was away working. Rumors swirled in the pews.
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  Speaker 2: Anonymous letters were whispered about, and Frances Hall began hearing
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: the gossip from her high society peers. On Thursday evening,
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  Speaker 2: September 14, 1922, Around 7.30 p.m., Reverend Hall received a
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  Speaker 2: phone call at his home. He told his wife and
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  Speaker 2: his mother-in-law that he needed to step out for a
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  Speaker 2: short while to attend to church business. He walked out
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  Speaker 2: the front door wearing his tailored dark suit and overcoat.
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  Speaker 2: Eleanor Mills left her house around the same time. Neither
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  Speaker 2: of them would ever be seen alive again. Two days later,
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  Speaker 2: On Saturday morning, September 16th, a young couple, 22-year-old Raymond
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  Speaker 2: Schneider and 15-year-old Pearl Balmer, were walking down Day-Roosie's Lane,
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  Speaker 2: an overgrown, rutted dirt road on the abandoned Phillips Farm
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  Speaker 2: just outside of town. The area was well known to
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  Speaker 2: locals as the Secluded Lover's Lane. As they walked past
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  Speaker 2: an old, gnarly crab apple tree, Pearl pointed down toward
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  Speaker 2: the grass. Lying side by side beneath the branches were
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  Speaker 2: two figures. At first, the teenagers thought they were seeing
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  Speaker 2: a couple sleeping off a night of heavy drinking. But
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  Speaker 2: as they walked closer, Pearl screamed. The scene beneath that
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  Speaker 2: crabapple tree was like something out of a twisted theatrical production.
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  Speaker 2: Reverend Edward Hall was lying flat on his back, his
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  Speaker 2: hands neatly folded across his lap, his legs straight. His
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  Speaker 2: eyeglasses were still perched on his nose, and his Panama
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  Speaker 2: hat had been gently placed over his face to conceal
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  Speaker 2: his fatal wounds. He had been shot once in the
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  Speaker 2: head with a. 32 caliber bullet. Lying beside him was
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  Speaker 2: Eleanor Mills, but the violence inflicted upon Eleanor was vicious
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  Speaker 2: and deeply personal. She had been shot three times in
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  Speaker 2: the head, and her throat had been cut from ear
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  Speaker 2: to ear with such savage force that she was nearly decapitated.
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  Speaker 2: Post-mortem examinations would later reveal that the killer had also
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  Speaker 2: carved out her tongue and vocal cords, a grotesque, symbolic
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  Speaker 2: punishment clearly meant to silence the songbird of St. John's Choir.
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  Speaker 2: Between their two bodies, the killer had placed the reverend's
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  Speaker 2: calling card and strewn across their chests, fluttering in the
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  Speaker 2: autumn breeze and carpeting the grass beneath the tree, were
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  Speaker 2: dozens of torn scraps of paper. When police pieced those
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  Speaker 2: scraps together, they were revealed to be Eleanor's passionate, intimate
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  Speaker 2: love letters to Edward. In them, she poured out her heart,
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  Speaker 2: addressing him as her baby boy and dreaming of a
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  Speaker 2: life where they could run away together. The killer hadn't
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  Speaker 2: just executed them, they had staged a public monument to
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  Speaker 2: their shame. Word of the gruesome discovery spread like wildfire.
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  Speaker 2: Because the Phillips farm sat right on the boundary between
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  Speaker 2: Middlesex and Somerset counties, local police jurisdictions immediately began arguing
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  Speaker 2: over who was in charge. Meanwhile, hundreds of curious townsfolk
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  Speaker 2: and rubberneckers descended upon DeRussie's Lane before investigators even roped
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  Speaker 2: off the scene. Souvenir hunters trampled the grass, kicked away
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  Speaker 2: shell casings, plucked bark and twigs off the crabapple tree,
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  Speaker 2: and even took scraps of the victim's clothing and love letters.
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  Speaker 2: It was a forensic catastrophe. Naturally, suspicion pointed squarely at
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  Speaker 2: the betrayed spouses, James Mills, Eleanor's mild-mannered Sexton husband, and
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  Speaker 2: Francis Hall, the wealthy rector's widow. Police questioned James Mills first.
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  Speaker 2: He had an airtight alibi, and detectives quickly realized he
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  Speaker 2: was oblivious and heartbroken. He had no idea of the
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  Speaker 2: depths of his wife's betrayal. That left Frances Hall and
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  Speaker 2: her wealthy brothers, Willie and Henry Stevens. Willie Stevens was
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  Speaker 2: known around town as an eccentric, odd man with intellectual
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  Speaker 2: disabilities who spent his days hanging out at the local
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  Speaker 2: volunteer firehouse. Henry was a renowned marksman. Frances maintained total composure.
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  Speaker 2: She told police that she had stayed home reading all
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  Speaker 2: night on September 14th, waiting for Edward, but rumors swirled
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  Speaker 2: that Frances had hired private detectives to trail her husband
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  Speaker 2: and that a Stevens family car had been spotted driving
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  Speaker 2: down DeRusse Lane that night. Yet with no physical evidence
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  Speaker 2: and no murder weapon, the initial 1922 grand jury declined
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  Speaker 2: to issue any indictments. The case went stone cold. Four
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: years passed, and then, in 1926, the case exploded back
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  Speaker 2: into national headlines thanks to a sensational tabloid newspaper, the
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  Speaker 2: New York Daily Mirror. The paper's publisher, Philip Payne, was
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  Speaker 2: locked in a brutal circulation war. He assigned investigative reporters
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  Speaker 2: to dig up dirt on the cold Hall-Mills case. eventually
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: finding a witness whose bizarre account would turn the courtroom
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  Speaker 2: into a three-ring circus. Jane Gibson, forever immortalized by the
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  Speaker 2: press as the Pig Woman. Jane Gibson was a gruff,
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  Speaker 2: eccentric widow who raised hogs on an old farmstead just
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  Speaker 2: down the lane from the Crabapple Tree. In 1926, she
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  Speaker 2: came forward, claiming that on the night of September 14, 1922,
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  Speaker 2: she suspected someone was stealing corn from her field. She
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  Speaker 2: hitched up on her mule, Jenny, and rode down DeRussi's
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  Speaker 2: Lane in the pitch darkness to catch the thieves. According
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: to Jane, she heard angry voices shouting beneath the crabapple tree.
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  Speaker 2: She testified that she heard a woman's voice scream, Don't!
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  Speaker 1: Don't!
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  Speaker 2: Followed by the sound of gunshots. She claimed that in
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  Speaker 2: the light of a flashlight, she saw a large, stocky
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  Speaker 2: woman wearing a dark coat whom she identified as Frances Hull,
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  Speaker 2: along with Frances' brothers, Willie and Henry Stevens. She claimed
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  Speaker 2: she saw Francis kneeling over the bodies while Willie argued nearby.
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  Speaker 2: Before Jane panicked, turned her mule around and raced back
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  Speaker 2: to her farmhouse. Armed with the pig woman's testimony, prosecutors
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  Speaker 2: arrested Francis Hall, Willie Stevens, and Henry Stevens, indicting them
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  Speaker 2: for first-degree murder. The 1926 trial held in Somerville, New Jersey,
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  Speaker 2: was a media spectacle. unlike anything the world had ever seen.
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  Speaker 2: Over 300 reporters swarmed the small courthouse, including legendary writers
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  Speaker 2: like Damon Runyon. Western Union had to install 60 extra
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  Speaker 2: telegraph wires in the courthouse basement to transmit half a
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  Speaker 2: million words a day across the globe. The trial reached
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  Speaker 2: peak melodrama when Jane Gibson, who had fallen gravely ill
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  Speaker 2: with terminal stomach cancer, insisted on testifying. Court officials wheeled
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  Speaker 2: a full-size hospital bed into the middle of the courtroom.
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  Speaker 2: The pig woman gave her dramatic, rasping testimony, lying propped
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  Speaker 2: up on pillows, dressed in a floral bathrobe, staring directly
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  Speaker 2: at Francis Hall while clutching a bed sheet. Her own
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  Speaker 2: mother sat in the courtroom gallery, loudly muttering to reporters
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  Speaker 2: that her daughter was a chronic, pathological liar. the prosecutor's
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  Speaker 2: case quickly fell apart. Under cross-examination, Willie Stevens, whom prosecutors
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  Speaker 2: expected to break down, turned out to be the defense's
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  Speaker 2: star witness. He answered every question with polite, calm, matter-of-fact precision,
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  Speaker 2: completely charming the jury and establishing an unshakable timeline. Furthermore,
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: the defense proved that Jane Gibson's changing statements, dark lighting,
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  Speaker 2: and wild contradictions made her testimony entirely unreliable. On December 3, 1926,
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  Speaker 2: after deliberating for just five hours, the jury returned a verdict,
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  Speaker 2: not guilty on all counts. Frances Hall and her brothers
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  Speaker 2: walked out of the courtroom free people. Frances later filed
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: a massive multi-million dollar defamation lawsuit against the New York
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  Speaker 2: Daily Mirror and settled out of court. She lived the
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  Speaker 2: rest of her life in quiet seclusion, passing away in 1942.
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  Speaker 2: Jane Gibson succumbed to cancer shortly after the trial, sticking
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  Speaker 2: to her wild story until her dying breath. To this day,
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  Speaker 2: over a hundred years later, the Crabapple Tree murders remain
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  Speaker 2: officially unsolved. Did Frances Hall hire hitmen to execute her
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  Speaker 2: philandering husband and his choir-singing lover? staging the scene with
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: their love letters to forever brand them as adulterers? Did
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: a secret vigilante committee inside St. John's Church carry out
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  Speaker 2: a puritanical execution? Or did someone else slip into DeRussi's
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  Speaker 2: Lane on that warm September night? The old Phillips Farm
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  Speaker 2: is now covered by suburban developments, and the crab apple
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  Speaker 2: tree has long since withered away. But the legend of
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  Speaker 2: the preacher, the choir singer, and the pig woman remain
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  Speaker 2: etched in American true crime history. Thank you all so
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: much for pulling up a rocking chair and listening to
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  Speaker 2: this week's A Little Less Mess. Stu and I will
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  Speaker 2: see you back here on Thursday, right here on the
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  Speaker 2: main porch for our Southern case. Until then, stay safe,
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: lock your doors, and keep that porch light on. Bye, everyone!
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Don't you know it's bad luck to be superstitious?
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  Speaker 2: But nothing else is working and.
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  Speaker 1: My head is really hurting. And I'm sick of all
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: this worrying about things I can't control.