New-York tribune., 1922-10-21
Officials Have Affidavit
From Woman Said to
Solve Mystery and Are
Preparing for Arrests
Beeknaan Witness
Before Grand Jury
Hidden Trio Declared to
Have Viewed Widow in
CoatW orn ON Fatal Night
BY Boydcn Sparkes

NEW BRUNSWICK, N. j., Oct. 90
In fresh crop OF run,ors, deniaIs
and assertions about the Hall-MiIis
murder Investigation to-day there
bloomed one fact iii substantiation Of
statement by Prosecutor Joseph 4,
Stricker that the case against the muir
derers was complete. This was the ap-
pearance of Prosecutor Azariah Beck
man for an hour and half before
the grand Jury of Somerset County In
SomerviIle.
From an official source in MiddIesex
County it was learned that Mr.. Beck
man has in his possession an affidavit
signed by a woman who is said to have
been an innocent witness OF the kill
ing of the Rev. Edward Hall end his
sweetheart, Mrs. Eleanor Mills, choir
singer and wife Of Che sexton of DR..
Halls church. Since the first week Of
the investigation there have been
rumcrs that two members Of Dr. Halls
congregation were spooning in the Sc
clusion offered by the fallow fields Of
the unlnhabited farm ON the night se-
lected by the assassins to put an end
sections wife.
Faced Widow at Inquiry
Efforts OF unofficial Investigators to
trace these rumors to their source were
unsuccessful. Until to-day there has
keen reason to believe the authorities
We're equally unsuccessful. The man
who revealed the existence Of a
woman witness's affidavit said that
she was the person Cor whose benefit
Mrs. Hall, the clergyman's widow, was
asked to don gray coat at the court
house last Tuesday
Professor Stricken said on Wednes-
day that the woman who confronted
Mrs. Hall the day before was the wife
ct Matthew Sulitz, the wide-m -mustached
Hungarian who grazes his COW ON the
weed-gTown acres. Sulitz has sworn
his wife did not go near the court
house that day and knows nothing
vShatever about the mystery. ME-.
Stricken must have had some good par
pose In trying to inisiead the news
paper reporters. He said that the Hun
gariaii woman was Of no as :istance TO
him.
Yet Mrs. Hall emerged from the.
courthouse that day more shaken than
she had been at any time In public
since the death Of her husband, not
when she walked from the church door
TO the limousine assigned to her m
that cortege, stared at by hundreds of
her townspeople and exposed to the
lenses Of a. score OF cameras. Henry
Stevens, her brother, was perspiring,
and Timothy Newell Pfeiffer, her law
yer, was visibIy agitated.
From Mr.. Pfeiffer it was learned
efterward that Mrs. Hall had been
asked to remove her hat and put on the
gray coat belonging to her maid
garment she says she wore to the
church when she went there at $3.50
o'clock In the morning looking for her
husband. So far ss Pfeiffer was able
to learn the woman who looked at Mrs.
Hall that day gave No sign of fecog-
milton. She was a woman accustomed
to hard work, heavy featured and
stol,d. She looked at Mrs. Hall with
an expressionless gaze until one Of the
officials motioned for her to leave the
room. This she did without back
ward glance and without Ettering a
word. pfeiffer said Mrs. Hall was posi-
tive she had never seen the woman be-
fore that encounter.
Two hidden at inquiry
From the man who disclosed the ex-
iSGGuCG O1 Ill GluudV4G OI q WICuGSS OIL
the murders 1t was learned that the
Hungarian woman WIS not the only
person to whose scrutiny Mrs. Hall was
subjected. Two others, man and a
woman, IL is said, were concealed in an
adjoining room and observed Mrs. Hall
through crack in the connecting door.
Miss Sally Peters, spinster and SUI
frage worker of New York, who has
been Mrs, Halls constant companion
since the first narrowing hours after
the rector's wife Was told that her hus-
bands body had been found with Mrs.
Mills lying on stiffened arm, ex-
planned why. Mrs. Hall happened to be
wearing Louise Geist's coat that night.
ssIn her haste and worry over the alb
sence Of DR.. Hall she took the first
coat she found" said Miss Peters.
The man who is reported to have
scrutinized Mrs. Hall as she stood In
CONTINUED On ReSe eJx)