Now a milestone of unsolved true crime, the Hall-Mills case began in New
Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1922 and lasted for over a decade. The killer
has never been found, and the case continues to fascinate true-crime
aficionados.
A bon vivant Episcopal minister, a not-so-virginal soprano in his
choir. The wealthy wife. Her oddball brother. Their furtive maid. The
snooping congregants. The bumbling detectives. And in the denouement, a
trial, one of the more notable of America's Jazz Age, covered by the
likes of Damon Runyon, Dorothy Dix, and James Thurber. All of it hanging
on the dramatic testimony of a single, strange witness of questionable
veracity, a farmer the tabloids came to call "The Pig Woman." Almost
everyone in this labyrinthine mystery had at least one secret, sometimes
more, and the biggest one remains almost a hundred years later.
At Audible's request, business and true crime journalist Bryan Burrough
reopened the case, digging deep into records of the time. His narration
in a warm Texas accent lends immediacy and intimacy to a classic New
Jersey true crime, as listeners follow his reconstruction of the fateful
double-murder...and the botched prosecution that became a national media
circus in its day.
