The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1922-10-11
THREE NOW HELD
BEHIND BARS IN
JERSEY Staying
Girl of 13 Is Latest to Go to
Jail in Connection With
Death of Minister and
Woman


New Brunswick, N. j., October 10.
Prison bars closed tonight on q third
important figure in the Hall-Mills
murder mystery, but the incarcera-
ton instead of helping clear the
tangle of clews served only to empha-
size the difficulties authorities are
encountering in efforts to check up
the evidence on which 19-year-old
Clifford Hayes stands accused of the
double Staying.
The third to go to jail was Pearl
BANNER, aged Is. who Raymond
Schneider says thought he was slay-
ing. with her stepfather when. ac-
oordlng to Schneider's story. Hayes
fired four bullets into the bodies of
Rev. Edward Wheeler Hall and Mrs.
Eleanor Reinhardt Mills on the night
OF September "A, on the deserted
Phillips farm. Schneider is held as
material witness.
Pearl was not officially Jailed in
connection with the Iialls-Mlls case.
The charge-whieh she admitted
was incorrigibility Prosecutor
Stricken Of Middlesex county. APP
peared personally against her. After
her hearing in which she had testi-
fled to intimacy with Schneider and
her stepfather, she was officially
committN for a week, pending de-
cision on the charge. Unofficially, 1t
was said that she was being given
chance to think ever" conflicting
sttrios she has told Nicholas BANNER
later was arrested as a result of tho
charges preferred by his daughter
and held in $4,000 ball.
Pearl, who was with Schneider
when the bodies of Mr.. Hall and Mrs.
Mills were found has given news
pGper men reason TO believe she knew
more than she was telling. Incl
dentally she has turned against
Schneider once admittedly her sweet
heart, and has sought to convey the
impression that he knew more about
the murders than Hayes, whom he
accused Of the crime. Schneider II
was disclosed, told four stories about
his knowledge of the slayings be-
fore he reached the story of Hayes
commission Of the crime. After he
had been trapped in organizations in
the first four, said state trooper,
who was present throughout the
long grllllng. Schneider would say:
"we ell. let's go back and start all
over again. I'll tell the truth this
time
Discrepancies Seen
His final story still fails to jibe
with facts about the murder. brought
out from other sourees-notably his
insistence that neither Hayes nor he
mad cut Mrs. Mills throat after the
shooting
There are almost as broad dis
crepancies in his story of his where
abouts on the night of the murders,
and that told by Pearl BANNER.
several hours that night before he
saw Pearl going out with her step
father and started trailing the pair
with Hayes.
Pearl first said he was with her
until about O'Clock. Then she said
he was not with her at all. Detectives
say they are trying to check up on
his movements between eight and IL
o'clock, the period in which the
murders were committed.
Schneider says il was about one
o'clock when Hayes shot the minister
and the choir singer "by mistake.
All other witnesses have agreed that
screams and shots were heard at
about 1890.
Pleads Innocence
Despite these and many other APP
parent conflicts in his story Prosecu-
tor Beekman of Somerset, insisted he
had evidence enough against Hayes
to Justify the charge against him.
Hayes, In the meantime, was in the
county Jail at Somerville, awaiting
action by the grand jury and pro-
testing his innocence. He adhered
to his story that he and Schneider
had come upon the bodies while
hunting for Pearl and her father,
that Schneider had stolen the minis
ter's watch, and that they had both
decided to say nothing about their
find.
Disbelief in schneider's story ap-
parently has gripped hundreds OF
citizens of New Brunswick, many OF
whom have expressed conviction that
the authorities were on false scent