On Sept. 14, 1922 — 97 years ago today — the loving and lusty affair between a well-connected minister and a star choir singer in New Brunswick ended in one of the most infamous killings in the state’s history.

Rev. Edward Hall and Eleanor Mills were found slaughtered two days later, side-by-side as though napping on a “lovers lane” just over the line in Franklin Township, Somerset County. Their love letters, which had been left there in an envelope, were scattered over their bodies by the dozens of reporters and residents who flooded the crime scene to catch a glimpse or grab a souvenir just minutes after police arrived, according to numerous accounts.

The story grabbed the attention of the entire country, making headlines day after day. It was a story of love, sex, jealousy and the filthy rich — including Hall’s wealthy widow, Frances Hall, who was charged with the killings along with her brothers.

Detectives re-create the positions of Rev. Edward Hall and Eleanor Mills, the victims in the infamous Hall-Mills murders of 1922.

They were acquitted after the 1926 trial that was regarded as the first ever media circus — surpassed only by the Lindbergh kidnapping and trial a decade later, according to historian Richard Walling, of North Brunswick.

“They were star-crossed lovers,” Walling said with real empathy while strolling up George Street in New Brunswick.

A century ago, it’s exactly where Hall would have walked to get from his mansion to church or his paramour’s home. On Tuesday afternoon, it was a different scene: Rutgers University students hustled down the sidewalk, earbuds in, and cars crawled by in rush hour traffic.

Starting this week, Walling is hoping to share his passion for the case — as well as never before reported details — through walking tours of 12 important sites in what became known as the Hall-Mills murders.

For $10 a pop, he hopes to take participants back in time, so people can see the sites and learn what Walling’s uncovered in his research into the killings, from evidence of huge bribes to the ever-changing story told by the prosecution’s star witness, a hog farmer the press nicknamed Pig Woman.

Walling said there have been several books on the topic, but none since hundreds of pages of lost grand jury transcripts and the original investigative notes from 1922 became public. George Wilson of New Brunswick donated them to the city’s library earlier this year, and Walling said they contain “a lot of surprises.”

Historian Rich Walling stands in front of the mansion on Nichol Avenue where Rev. Edward Hall and Francis Hall lived when he was killed with his paramour, Eleanor Mills, in 1922. It is now the dean's residence on Rutgers' Douglass Campus.

Walling’s tour begins at the heart of Rutgers’ Douglass Campus, which a century ago was dominated by the mansions of New Brunswick’s most prominent family, the Carpenders. Rev. Hall married Frances Stevens, whose mother was a Carpender, for “wealth and status,” but not love, Walling said.

Down the hill is Hall’s Episcopal church, St. John the Evangelist. That’s where he and Mills, a married woman who sang in the choir, started their love affair in 1917, Walling said. Hall and Mills were 41 and 33 respectively when they died, Walling said.

“They were madly, deeply in love,” he said. Mills was a bright woman who felt trapped in her marriage, the product of a shotgun wedding years before, Walling said.

He said their families spent lots of time together, but the lovers snuck off whenever they could — and people noticed. They exchanged love letters frequently, ranging from very romantic to “bordering on ‘50 Shades of Gray,’” Walling said.

Hall eventually gathered $40,000 and the pair confided in friends that they planned to run away together, he said.

“They could never have realistically got away with what they tried to do. The ruling class would never let that happen," he said. While most of the poorer people in town believed Frances Hall was to blame, Walling said her wealthy peers rallied around her.

“It was the patrician ruling class of New Brunswick" versus the poor folks, Walling said while standing outside of the former Hall mansion that is now the dean’s residence on the Douglass Campus. The well-to-do in town thought Hall “was schtupping a low life” and essentially got what he deserved, Walling said.

The front page of the Daily Mirror shows Francis Hall and her co-defendants at top, and below, hog farmer Jane Gibson in court in her hospital bed.

The investigation was messy and a grand jury in 1922 failed to indict Frances Hall and her two brothers that year. The case finally came to trial in 1926 when the husband of one of Hall’s maids swore that his wife had made an admission while drinking: that she had been paid $5,000 to not reveal that Frances Hall and her brother were guilty of the crime, Walling said.

The trial was covered by every major newspaper in the country, he said. The climax was the moment the eccentric hog farmer who lived near the lovers lane was wheeled into the courtroom in a hospital bed to testify.

Walling said Jane Gibson’s account of what happened became more elaborate every time she told it. While her diary said only that she “heard a farmer fire four shots” on the night of Sept. 14, 1922, she later testified that she rode her mule, Jenny, toward the lovers lane and was able to see the faces of the executioners.

Jurors didn’t buy it.

The Sunday edition of The Express-Times featured an interview with Frances Hall on Sept. 24, 1922.

While many have their suspicions, the case remains an unsolved cold case. Other theories floated by authors and locals include that it was a case of mistaken identity or that the Ku Klux Klan was responsible.

Walling, who has authored several historical books, said that with every generation, fewer people remember the case that transfixed the nation when it happened. But the story of the star-crossed lovers remains a big piece of the area’s history. The Middlesex County Bar Association even put on a play of the murder trial in June.

“It evokes a lot of passion in people,” Walling said.

The walking tours take place rain or shine every Friday at 8 p.m. between Sept. 13 and Nov. 29, starting at the Douglass College Student Center at 100 George St. The cost is $10 per person.

Further information is available on Walling’s Facebook page or by emailing richwalling@hotmail.com.

Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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