262: The Hall-Mills Murders w/ Joe Pompeo - A True Crime History Podcast

Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast

Erik Rivenes

True Crime, History, Education

4.7 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 13 September 2022

⏱️ 102 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On September 16, 1922, the bodies of Reverend Edward Hall and Eleanor Mills were found beneath a crabapple tree on an abandoned farm outside of New Brunswick, New Jersey. The killer had arranged the bodies in a pose conveying intimacy.

The murder of Hall, a prominent clergyman whose wife, Frances Hall, was a proud heiress with illustrious ancestors and ties to the Johnson & Johnson dynasty, would have made headlines on its own. But when authorities identified Eleanor Mills as a choir singer from his church married to the church sexton, the story shocked locals and sent the scandal ricocheting around the country, fueling the nascent tabloid industry. This provincial double murder on a lonely lover’s lane would soon become one of the most famous killings in American history—a veritable crime of the century.

My guest is Joe Pompeo, author of "Blood & Ink: The Scandalous Jazz Age Double Murder That Hooked America on True Crime". He walks us through this titillating murder case, including a clumsy police investigation that produced a number of suspects but ultimately no convictions.

Buy the book through the publisher's website here: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/blood-ink-joe-pompeo?variant=40161327480866
The author's website: https://bloodand.ink

The author's Twitter account: https://twitter.com/joepompeo

Get bonus content and updates from the author by subscribing here: https://joepompeo.substack.com/

Become a Most Notorious patron: https://www.patreon.com/mostnotorious
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Transcript

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0:00.0	Much like you, I've got a lot to complain about, like open toe sandals.
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0:57.8	Travel restrictions and season C's apply.
1:26.4	Welcome all to another episode of the most notorious podcast. I'm Eric Rivenes.
1:32.2	Thank you for joining me. Always great to have you.
1:36.0	I'm very excited to have Joe Pompeo with me. He is a correspondent at Vanity Fair
1:43.1	where he covers the media industry. He has worked at Politico and the New York Observer and has
1:50.8	written for the New York Times, Bloomberg Business Week, and the Columbia Journalism Review.
1:58.3	His book on sale on September 13th is called Blood and Ink, the scandalous jazz age double
2:05.6	murder that hooked America on true crime. Thanks so much for coming on. Great to have you.
2:13.6	Thanks for having me. Yes. This is a mostly forgotten murder mystery as you state in your book.
2:24.8	How did you learn about it? When I had the idea to do a book like this, which is to say some sort of
2:33.6	dark historical murder mystery, I really didn't know where to find a story
	...

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