The Hall-Mills Murder Case and The Great Gatsby

[Gary]

In the Wikipedia article for The Great Gatsby there's a paragraph:

While the Fitzgeralds were living in New York, the Hall-Mills murder case was sensationalized in the daily newspapers over the course of many months, and the highly publicized case likely influenced the plot of Fitzgerald's novel.[61][62] The case involved the double-murder of a man and his lover which occurred on September 14, 1922, mere weeks before Fitzgerald and his wife arrived in Great Neck. Scholars have speculated that Fitzgerald based certain aspects of the ending of The Great Gatsby as well as various characterizations on this factual incident.[63]

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gre...

Of course, speculating on the influences for TGG is one of the "greatest" aspects of Gatsby scholarship, but I find this one to be particularly unusual in that it seems to have relatively little to do with the novel other than superficially, and doesn't seem to merit the reference at all. Here's the Wikipedia article on the murder, which has a few good sources/references for more information about it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall%E2...

There are some very general similarities. The motive for the murder seems to be an affair, and there's a shooting involved. Though largely forgotten these days, the real world murder became a media sensation, and there are a few bits about the press getting involved in both the death of Myrtle, and Gastby's murder. The real life murder also remains "unsolved" though the investigation appears to have been so bungled that no "beyond reasonable doubt" conclusion could be made. Mrs. Hall does have some relation to a few of the Society (upper case S) members in New York, though they are fairly tenuous.

However, aside from some very broad aspects of the murder, it doesn't seem much like the situation in Gatsby to me.

Apparently, the assertion mostly comes from Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby by Sarah Churchwell. I have not read that book, but I'm curious how she got to here from there, if you will. Anyone have any insights?