Blood & Ink
The Scandalous Jazz Age Double Murder That Hooked America on True Crime
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3.6 • 24 Ratings
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
New York Times Editor's Pick & Best True Crime of 2022
“Blood & Ink is among 2022’s best works of true crime.” —Washington Post
Vanity Fair’s Joe Pompeo investigates the notorious 1922 double murder of a high-society minister and his secret mistress, a Jazz Age mega-crime that propelled tabloid news in the 20th century.
On September 16, 1922, the bodies of Reverend Edward Hall and Eleanor Mills were found beneath a crabapple tree on an abandoned farm outside of New Brunswick, New Jersey. The killer had arranged the bodies in a pose conveying intimacy.
The murder of Hall, a prominent clergyman whose wife, Frances Hall, was a proud heiress with illustrious ancestors and ties to the Johnson & Johnson dynasty, would have made headlines on its own. But when authorities identified Eleanor Mills as a choir singer from his church married to the church sexton, the story shocked locals and sent the scandal ricocheting around the country, fueling the nascent tabloid industry. This provincial double murder on a lonely lover’s lane would soon become one of the most famous killings in American history—a veritable crime of the century.
The bumbling local authorities failed to secure any indictments, however, and it took a swashbuckling crusade by the editor of a circulation-hungry Hearst tabloid to revive the case and bring it to trial at last.
Blood & Ink freshly chronicles what remains one of the most electrifying but forgotten murder mysteries in U.S. history. It also traces the birth of American tabloid journalism, pandering to the masses with sordid tales of love, sex, money, and murder.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Vanity Fair correspondent Pompeo debuts with a compulsively readable account of a sensational unsolved double murder a century ago. On Sept. 16, 1922, at an abandoned farm outside New Brunswick, N.J., the bodies of the Rev. Edward Hall and Eleanor Mills, who sang in the choir of his church, were found beneath a crabapple tree, posed in a manner to suggest intimacy. Hall was shot in the head, and Mills had been shot three times and her throat slit ear to ear. Both of their spouses were initially suspects, and Hall's wife and her two brothers went on trial in 1926. The evidence wasn't enough to convince the jury, however, and all three were found not guilty. Pompeo does a thorough job highlighting the questionable tactics of the scandal sheets of the period, such as a staged séance to elicit a confession. The Hall-Mills murders sold newspapers and brought thousands of curiosity seekers to the murder site before almost vanishing from memory as other scandals claimed the spotlight. Drawing on extensive documents related to the case that were lost until 2019, Pompeo provides the definitive account of the murders. This is essential reading for true crime buffs.
