by Rosemary Giles at The Vintage News
It may seem that America’s true crime obsession is new, from Ted Bundy to Charles Manson and John Wayne Gacy to Jeffrey Dahmer. There are movies, documentary series, books, and podcasts that discuss the heinous crimes, all of which are readily consumed by the public. But our obsession with true crime goes back farther than you might think.
On September 14, 1922, Eleanor Mills and Reverend Edward Hall of New Jersey were murdered. What ensued was a media frenzy that pushed the case into the public eye, with many people nationwide interested in the case. The murder and trial, with a mysterious witness and a romantic scandal, is considered by many to be what really started America’s obsession with true crime.
Eleanor Mills and Edward Hall
Hall and Mills were likely two very unsuspecting victims. Hall, 41, was a well-known Episcopal minister who married one of the heiresses to the Johnson & Johnson dynasty, Frances Hall. Mills, 34, was a working-class woman who sang in the choir at Hall’s church. She was married to James Mills, who was acting sexton at the church and a full-time janitor. Together Eleanor and James had two children.
Eleanor Mills and Reverend Edward Hall, who were both murdered in 1922. (Photo Credits: Unknown Author/ Franklin Township Public Library Historical Collections/ Wikimedia Commons/ Public Domain/ cropped, and Bettmann/ Getty Images/ cropped)
The discovery of Hall’s and Mills’ bodies was made on September 16, 1922, in a field in Somerset County, New Jersey. A local man and his girlfriend were walking along the road near a farm when they saw what looked like a man and woman lying under a crabapple tree, a common sight for this stretch of road as it was known as a “lovers lane.” Except for one aspect – it was evident that they were dead.