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... apple tree in lovers lane while hot-dog and popcorn vender's sprang up to ply their wares among the curious. (Passion in the Parish (9 - 10) The ability of the police officers to control the crime scene was very little. People were passing around the business card, taking pieces of the tree, and over just messing up the crime scene such as squashing the underbrush. It was said that the rector was shot once in the head, but the trajectory from the entrance wound to the exit wound was on a downward slope, implying that he was shot from above, possibly while he was on his knees.
As for Mrs. Mills, she was shot three times in the head, and her neck was slit open from ear to ear. According to Gerald Tomlinson, The throat-cutting, which occurred after the shooting, was a final touch, a statement of some sort. (Fatal Tryst 18) In addition to the throat-cutting, her vocal cords were also removed. Perhaps, who ever did this knew that she was in the rectors choir because there was no reason to slit her throat after she was already dead. Another conflict that approached was the fact that the bodies were found in Franklin, which was in Somerset County, but New Brunswick police department, which is in Middlesex County, responded to the call. The problem that evolved was who had jurisdiction.
It was said by Hann that the authorities theorized that the murders could have been carried out across the line in New Brunswick. (A Dangerous Affair, (58) With duel jurisdiction, the investigations often contradicted each other. It was later found out by examining the ground beneath the dead that the murder had taken place where the bodies where found. This would set any trail to come in the jurisdiction of Somerset County. The little town of Somerville became a center of reporters, followers, and witnesses of the case of The state verses Mrs.
Frances Stevens Hall, William Stevens, and Henry Stevens. The small Somerset County Court House, which had very little action after its building in 1909, would now be holding trial for what people would call the Trial of the Century. The trail became so substantial that two of the glass panes on top of the courthouse were punched out to take pictures of the trail in session. The trail would take place on September 3, 1926. Having this case four years later than the actual murder allowed many items to be misplaced. For instance, the. 32 caliber gun that Willie owned had been given back to him already and he conveniently did not have it anymore.
In addition, the business card had made its way from the police safe to the desk of the Daily Mirror, a newspaper producer. It was on the business card in which Willies fingerprints had been found in 1926, but according to Edward Schwartz of the Newark Police Department had not been there in 1922. There was the fact that the substantial eyewitness, Jane Gibson better known as the Pig Women, seemed to change her story from 1922, now instead of four people at the crime scene there were six. Her own mother had called her a liar in the courthouse according to Sharon Seitz of the Home News. (Trial of the Century) Many new people came forth to tell what they knew, for instance, Louise Geist, the maid of Hall. She said that she was given a bribe to forget that she had seen Henry Stevens when he was supposed to be fishing at La valette beach in New Jersey according Kunstler. (First Degree 110) whit her saying this it would place Henry in New Brunswick around the time of the killing. Another substantial witness that fled the eve before the trial was Paul Hamborszky.
Before the trial he quoted Hall on the subject of his wife saying that, Mrs. Hall is a very cool woman. She has changed very much lately, and I am very much afraid that she will do me bodily harm. This quote and the fact that Mr. Hall had received a threat from a relative of Mrs. Hall to end the affair, was stated by Mary Hartman in The Journal of the Rutgers University of Libraries. (14) Had the jury known these facts, they may have changed many of their minds because then there was a reason to believe that Mrs.
Hall was aware of the affair because her relative knew. Because of the actions taken during the investigation, contaminated evidence, and the flawed credibility of the witnesses, the jury voted the defendants not guilty, and the case was closed, unsolved. So who did? Was it James Mills? The letters were sitting easily accessible in his house. He had kept his shoe cutter knife, and he was also challenged to follow Mrs.
Mills. However, was this enough of a motive? On the other hand, was it Mrs. Hall and her bothers? Did she know that the affair was going on? If she did, she had the money to bribe whoever she needed to keep them quite.
She knew that the rector was going out. Her brother, Willie, seemed very disturbed while talking to the maid saying that something terrible had happened and that he stayed up all night. Her other brother, Henry, was an expert marksman, in which he would have been able to shoot the two victims accurately. This evidence alone seems enough to incriminate Mrs. Hall and her brothers for the murder, but the jury, made up of twelve farmers, didnt think it was enough, so they walked. Could it have been someone else?
Who knows, the case was doomed form the start because the crime scene was torn apart by locals for souvenirs, not only that, the time between the murder and the trial was too long, four years, this allotted time for evidence to be misplaced, people to forget what happened, and people to disappear. There just was not enough evidence to hold this month long case together. Nevertheless, because this murder happened in such a small town with such a twisted story and corrupt witnesses, it will remain one of the most interesting and most disputed cases in America.
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Research essay sample on Analysis Of Legal Case Between Hall And Mills
