Evening star., 1926-12-04
TRIAL REVIVED DUAL MYSTERY
AFTER LAPSE OF FOUR YEARS
Episcopal Rector and His Choir Singer
Shot to Death Under Crabapple Tree
Near Lovers Lane on Sept. ID, 1922.

charges was filled with sharp ex.
changes among the lawyers.
The State charged that Mrs. Hall
knew of the clandestine love affAir
between her husband and the sections
wife. and that she and her relatives
had committed the killings as much
from wounded pride as from the en-
States testimony was directed to
show that members Of the cengrega-
ton carried reports to Mrs. Hall, that
she communicated with her brother
Henry and went to the scene with him
and Willie to confront her husband
with letters written to him by Mrs.
Mills.
Pig Woman in Court on Cot.
Mrs. Gibson. who had tainted on
the opening day OF the trial and was
founc to be suffering from kidney dis
ease and cancer was brought from a
Jersey City hospital to testify in a
courtroom which for the time looked
! more like a clinic. From a cot placed
near the witness stand and with ply
sicians and nurses in attendance, she
told her story, placing Mrs. Hall and
Henry and Willie Stevens at the
scene. This was the first time she
| had accused Henry Stevens.
When attendants were covering her
face preparatory to carrying her
tn, ugh aisles Of people to the waiting
| ambulance she tore away the sheet,
and raising on one arm, pointed at
the defendants and screamed: "1've
told the truth. SO help me God, and
you know it," The jury had just been
taken from the room.
Three fingerprint experts testified
for the State that one of the marks
on a calling card, said to have been
found four years ago near the minis
ter's feet, was that OF Willie Stevens.
Other witnesses told of having seen
Henry Stevens in New Brunswick on
the day after the killings and of sus-
picious and discriminating acts by the
defendants.
All three of the defendants went to
the stand to deny the charges against
them and stuck to their stories under
cross-examination. Mrs. Hall was sub.
jected to a merciless attack by the
special prosecutor, who sought to
plumb all her emotions with his re-
peated reference to the husband who,
he said. had been untrue to her.
Insists He Was True.
She maintained that she had had
complete confidence In him. that his
devotion to her had never changed
and that, even in the face of his love
letters to Mrs. Mills, which had been
read into the record. together with
those he had received from the
chorister, she WAS not certain that he
had been guilty Of anything wrong.
The defense of Henry Stevens was
based on an alibi, while fingerprint
experts called by the defense pointed
to eight places in which the disputed
marks on the calling card did not cor.
Stevens finger.
1t was charged that the fingerprint
had been an "afterthought," placed on
the card this Summer. Witnesses
were produced to tear down and deny
the circumstantial evidence which the
State had presented, and In Its sum.
ming up the defense pointed an &C
cusing finger at the meek James
Mills.
On December 1, when all testimony
mad been submitted, Simpson made an
unsuccessful motion for a mistrial.
He charged that the jury had decided
o acquit on the second day Of the
rial, that several members had been
,sleep during the trial sessions and
hat they had been improperly
guarded.