RECTOR AND CHOIR GIRL.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 258, 30 October 1926, Page 23

RECTOR AND CHOIR GIRL.

s OLD TRAGEDY RECALLED. Intense Interest Is again roused in the case of the murder, four years ago, of the Rev. Dr. Edward W. Hall and one of his choristers, Mrs. Eleanor Mills, at New Brunswick, N.J. State Senator Alexander Simpson has "reconstructed the tragedy" on lines of bis deductions based on Investigations. Senator Simpson would elucidate the mystery as follows: — Mrs. Hall had found Mrs. Mills' love letters, written to Mrs. Hall's husband. These were the letters which, after the murders, were found torn into little scraps, and scattered over the bodies of the shot couple. Further (according to the Senator's "reconstruction," the reverend doctor's wife had overheard, on the telephone, the rector* and his choir singer making their fatal "nocturnal rendezvous" under a crab-apple tree on an abandoned farm, and she had decided to confront the couple. Arriving on the scene of assignation, she demanded an explanation of the letters;' and a quarrel ensued. Part of the theory is that the rector was killed while trying to save his paramour. Identity Card. It is suggested that Mrs. Hall, who still loved her husband, returned later to cry over him. She wanted him burled decently, and she was fearful that his body might not be recognised* so she saw that the rector's visiting card was placed at his feet. How the card was deposited there, and by whom, forms another line of investigation and theory. Production in court of a clue which has been hidden all these years—a finger-print on this visiting ca.d —has furnished on? of the most startling episodes of this tangled tragedy. Two judges were hearing the application for release on bail of Willie Stevens and Henry Carpender (respectively the brother and cousin of the accused Mrs. Hall). On being shown th- "finger-print cine" both judges agreed to refuse the application for ball. According to the trosecution, the visiting card will be adduced In the evidence against Willie Stevens. Arch-point. Senator Simpson has told the Court that some of the most celebrated fingerprint experts in America have found one print on the front of the card which will be found to be most important evidence In the prosecution of Willie Stevens. There are other marks on the card. Their origin and significance .vill be brought into evidence after further Investigation That finger print on which Senator Simpson based his demand for refusal ul ball is (he said) of the "a. -point" kind—a subdivision in finger-marks possessed by only 5 per cent of the mrnan cc. After these promises of revelations, the case now goes to a grand Jury.