Jane Gibson [Hall–Mills Murder Case]

Jane Gibson (1870-1930), key but flawed witness for the prosecution in the famed Hall-Mills murder case, original, vintage press photograph, November 18, 1926.

The Hall–Mills murder case involved an Episcopal priest and a member of his choir with whom he was having an affair, who were killed on September 14, 1922, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The suspected murderers, the priest's wife and her brothers, were acquitted in a 1926 trial. The case is largely remembered in journalism history for the vast extent and sensational nature of the newspaper coverage it received in nearby New York and nationwide. It would take the Lindbergh kidnapping trial in the 1930s to eclipse the high profile of the Hall-Mills murder.

The prosecution's key witness, Jane Gibson, was unreliable and changed details of the story each time she told it. Her account varied when told to the police, the newspapers, and at her trial testimony, which was given from a hospital bed rolled into the court room. Frances Stevens Hall and her two brothers had the motive and the means for the murder, but there was not enough evidence to convict them.

This vintage, unsigned, glossy press photograph, approximately 8 x 10 inches is in good condition aside for some surface marks, dings, creases and rippling.  Its verso bears a hand written title "Jane Gibson Conveyed In Ambulance," and a hand stamped date of "Nov 18 1926."