Dan (38:39)
Charlotte told the press, quote, I have changed my opinion about that. A woman did it, and it was a woman who is jealous of my mother and wanted revenge. She went on to describe a time when her mother, eleanor, fell ill after drinking a cup of coffee that was prepared by frances, and intimated that perhaps Frances was responsible for both an attempt at poisoning Eleanor and then later murdering her. Like, maybe her public denial of their affair Was because she didn't want people to know that she knew about it and that she wanted it to stop. But regarding other possibilities, Even though, let's be honest, it seems like this love affair was the motive, it really wasn't believed, of course, that robbery was involved. But Edward's favorite gold watch, which he wore every single day, could not be accounted for. Now, initially, when asked, Pearl said that she had seen it on his body when she and Ray found the couple. But she later changed her story, which corroded her credibility a little bit. Maybe she and Ray stole it, which, as messed up as that is, it could definitely be possible, Because I don't. I don't think that robbery is the motive. But if it was missing and her story changed about it, like, maybe they just took it, well, crazily in October of 1922. So only a couple Weeks later, one of Pearl and Ray's friends, Clifford Hayes, was briefly arrested for his involvement in the murder. And around this time, by the way, the population of New Brunswick was around 30,000 people. So this isn't. This is like a small city. This isn't a tiny little town. So the chances of their friend being arrested is kind of interesting here. Now, detectives concluded that the couple, along with Clifford, so Pearl, Ray and Clifford, and then another friend named Leon Kaufman, had ganged up on Eleanor and Edward in order to rob them after following Pearl and Ray to derussy's Lane. But they were later released and robbery was off the table once again. So it didn't seem like this happened. But, you know, really the reason that they were arrested is because investigators were looking more into Pearl and Ray. So Clifford's arrest was not completely random, but still interesting. They were able to gather a couple of their friends, the investigators were, and pin this on them for a brief time. But I also want to add that Edward had been found with money in his pocket, so it didn't seem like robbery was the motive, maybe an afterthought. Or again, maybe Pearl and Ray just took the watch because they saw it and they didn't rifle through the pockets or anything. Further now, regarding the business card left behind at the scene, it had a partial thumbprint on it, but the evidence taken from the scene was so mishandled that no one could be sure whose it was. Unfortunately, the Somerset County Sheriff's Department was seriously out of their element investigating a story of such magnitude, and they made so many mistakes that most likely cost the investigation its perpetrators. But for the time being, the investigation turned back to its only true suspect, Frances Hall. Unconvinced that she had acted alone, prosecutors alleged that she had had the help of her two brothers, Willie Stevens and Henry Stevens. And for a spell, police even thought Willie's print could have matched the one found on Edward's business card. Despite a lack of concrete evidence, prosecutors felt convinced enough to bring the case before a grand jury to see if they could secure an indictment against Frances and Willie at the least. But the jury chose not to indict them. And by the end of November 1922, only a couple months after the murders, Frances was vindicated. She conducted gushing interviews with the press about how grateful she was that her neighbors and community members supported her innocence. But only months later, in early 1923, Frances fled on a cruise to Italy with her best friend Sally for a while. But she couldn't quite get away from suspicion for the Crime. Because three years later, the case picked up again when the New York Daily Mirror, which was like a pulpy tabloid founded in 1924 so a couple years prior, grabbed hold of the story and actually revitalized public interest in the case. The case was then dubbed the trial of the century. And the Hall Mills murder is largely believed, like Heath said, to be one of the first sensationalized true crime cases with a national following here in the.
