Church Bells Rang Out

In September, 1922, two people were found murdered on a secluded lover's lane in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Dead were Reverend Edward W. Hall, the pastor of the Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist in New Brunswick, and one of his choir singers and devoted church members, Eleanor Reinhardt Mills.

The Reverend and the lady

The bodies were found by a 23-year-old man and the 15-year-old female he had been dating. In fact, they spotted the bodies lying supine as they went into the woods along DeRussey's Lane, but figured they were just resting in post-coital bliss. (And you had no idea people were getting so busy 102 years ago!) But when the couple had finished their own unsanctified congress and found the preacher and the lady still where they had been, they figured something was up, and alerted the police. Today, this would be the lead story on every nightly newscast, and there would be a Made For TV Movie about it, starring William H. Macy as the reverend, Natalie Portman as Eleanor,  Tilda Swinton as Francis, the pastor's betrayed wife, and Steve Buscemi as Jim Mills, husband of Eleanor.

The Rev was married to an older woman known for her stern appearance and harsh personality, and there were rumors that he and Mrs Mills had been carrying on for quite some time, more or less right out in front of everyone. That older woman, his wife, Francis Stevens Hall, was wealthy, a doyenne of local society, while her husband, from all appearances a sobersided man of the cloth, was able to inspire his side girl to write this grace note, which was found at the scene:

"There isn't a man who could make me smile as you did today. I know there are girls with more shapely bodies, but I do not care what they have. I have the greatest of all blessings, a noble man, deep, true, and eternal love. My heart is his, my life is his, all I have is his, poor as my body is, scrawny as they say my skin may be, but I am his forever."

Well. As the song says, "Speak to me of love, And say what I'm longing to hear..."

Mills's husband, Jim, was a quiet man not given to sharing emotions. (Perhaps in another lifetime, he and the staid Mrs Hall could have gotten together, and the Rev and old Eleanor could have painted the town red.)

They (The "State of New Jersey" they) tried Mrs Hall and her two brothers for the murder, but there was no evidence to connect them. Which doesn't mean they didn't do it, nor does it mean that they did. Crime forensics not being a thing in 1922, the local cops allowed souvenir hunters to descend on the scene even before the bodies were removed. After all these years, surely all the people who argued about whodunit in local diners, parlors, and courtrooms have gone to their rewards and we still don't know.

But here is what I found most interesting about the whole case. Mrs Hall, being rich, lived in luxury, which allowed her to have her brother live in the mansion where she and the Rev got together on the rare evenings he didn't have "choir practice."

Her brother's name was Willie Stevens. He lived on an allowance his sister gave him and spent most of his time hanging around the local firehouse, where the crew gave him his own uniform and encouraged him to attend parades wearing it. They would even allow him to ride around on the engine from time to time. He was considered a step or two off base, not harmful but not very bright. That seemed to be the reason he was charged in the murders: he owned a pistol, and the prosecutor felt he might have been angry at the shame visited upon his family by his brother-in-law's canoodling with the songbird. But again, that was pure guessing; nothing came of it.

Except that for Willie Stevens, the trial marked the first time he had even been told that he was, in the words used by the prosecutor, a "half-wit" and not even capable of doing more in life than hanging around a fire house. And even though in his plain manner he was able to make the prosecutor who examined him on the stand look a little foolish (when asked how he could prove he was in his room the night of the murder, he said, "If someone sees me go upstairs, is that not proof that I was in my room?") he forever after regarded himself as less than, and spent his days at home, usually only going out after dark, making it less likely that he would be recognized as the man with bright red hair and a bushy mustache.

Only 102 years ago, and people were talking about each other in such an unkind fashion that it caused Willie to withdraw forever.

But he was always welcome at the firehouse.