April 18th 1943: Who Put Bella in The Wych Elm


On this day 1943, World War II was tearing through the world and starvation was a prospect that many had to deal with on a daily basis. This was the case for four young boys, Robert Hart, Thomas Willetts. Bob Farmer and Fred Payne who grew up on the border of The West Midlands and Worcestershire in England. They were egg poaching in The Hagley Woods area when Bob Farmer decided to climb a wych elm as he thought there may have been a nest on top. When he looked down, he could see through the twisted vines and branches of the tree and something that looked polished and shiny caught his eye. Upon further investigation and the use of a branch to fish the object out, the boys recognised the item to be a human skull. Panicked and not knowing what to do, they placed the skull back in the tree and decided to never mention it again. They were afraid that they may get into trouble for trespassing. Thomas Willetts was the youngest of the boys and feeling unnerved and spooked about the discovery they had made, he decided to tell his parents and police were contacted. 



Police investigated the scene and found almost a complete human skeleton in the wych elm as well as some scattered bones of a hand in the surrounding area. The skeleton was determined to be that of a female, about 5ft tall, aged between 25 and 40 and who had been deceased about 18 months. The skull was deemed important as a clear dental pattern can be seen from it, as well as missing teeth which looked to have been professionally removed by a dentist and tufts of hair were still attached. A single blue shoe was found within the tree while the other was found a short distance away and a gold wedding band was also found with the body. A piece of cloth was found in the back of the woman's throat, leading investigators to believe that she died of asphyxiation. 



The width of the tree also led police to believe that the woman would not have crawled into the space on her own as it would have caused her to tear her flesh on the vines. They drew they conclusion that the woman was killed and then quickly after her death, before rigor mortis began to set in, was stuffed into the base of the tree. Animals had probably taken some of the bones and scattered them around the area over the 18 months since she had been placed there.  



Attempts to identify the woman were futile. The deaths, casualties and disappearances during the war were rising every day and police never had a clear chance of making an ID on the woman. About a year later in 1944 strange graffiti started to appear in the area surround where the body was found. 

"WHO PUT BELLA DOWN THE WYCH ELM - HAGLEY WOOD"

With the name Bella, police now had a new line of enquiry. They dug through missing person cases hoping to find the a person that would match the woman they had found but no leads ever came up and the case went cold. They contacted dentists up and down the country, realising that her teeth were quite distinctive but no match ever became known to them. 

Similar pieces of graffiti have appeared in and around the area where the body was found, even 30 years after. 

 


The later pieces of the graffiti, such as the one pictured above on the Hagley Obelisk were thought be to the work of a copy cat with the spelling of wych elm incorrect. 

Some believe that "Bella" may have been a Nazi spy who parachuted from a plane under the cover of a nearby air strike during the war and was greeted by local men who killed her and placed her in the tree, vowing never to speak the truth of what they had done. 

Others say that her death was the result of human sacrifice, during a "Hand Of Glory". Her hand had been deliberately cut off during the ceremony and scattered about 13 steps from where the rest of her remains were and her body had been placed in a wych elm as it played an important role in the dark arts. 


A facial reconstruction of Bella was made using photographs of the skull but no true identity of Bella was ever made and police still do not know who put Bella down the wych elm. 








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

April 13th 1973: David McGreavy, The Real Friday 13th Killer.

Image
On Friday 13th of April 1973 Clive Ralph left his home in Gillam Street in Worcester to collect his wife Elsie from work at a bar. Elsie worked the closing shift that night and Clive would often go and collect her and even lend a hand in the closing duties, in exchange for a late night pint before the pair would head home together. They had three small children, Paul (4), Dawn (2) and Samantha (9 months). Clive worked as a truck driver and would often have to spend long periods of time away from home on long distance trips for work. A friend of Clive's David McGreavy moved in with the couple as a lodger in 1972.  David McGreavy was a down on his luck 20 year old. He was the second of 6 children and who had wanted to follow in his father's footsteps in serving his country. As a child he would move around with his family frequently to where his father was posted in The British Army. They were thought to be a tight knit family and always done everything together, go biking, walkin...
Read more

March 31st 1978: The Disappearance of Paul Rudolph Alwardt

Image
Paul Alwardt was a 17 year old boy originally from Martha's Vineyard but living in Falmouth where he worked for Melvin Reine at his waste haulage company. His mother had gone missing when Paul was a baby. With a believed drug problem, she was not able to cope with being a mother to Paul. His father, also named Paul, settled with his son in Martha's Vineyard where he grew up. Paul Senior was not without his problems either, these problems seemed to centre around alcohol and Paul Junior was left to fend for himself a lot. Paul was bullied as a child due to a deformity which caused him to have an extra row of top teeth. The constant bulling and harassment Paul received in his early years caused him to become rebellious and act out as he developed into his teens. As Paul Senior was often busy with his own life and problems, Paul spent a lot of his time hanging out on the streets and this is how he began working for Melvin Reine at his business, Five Star Enterprises. Reine had a re...
Read more

May 10th 1994: The Execution of John Wayne Gacy

Image
Born in Chicago on March 17th 1942 John Wayne Gacy was the middle child to John Stanley Gacy and Marion Elaine Robinson. His father was a mechanic, while his mother looked after the children and kept the family home. John was close to his mother and two sisters but had a difficult relationship with his father. His father had served in The First World War and was prone to drinking a lot. He was physically abusive towards his wife and children but John got a much harder time than the others. As a child he would be called dumb and stupid by his father and be called a sissy when his mother would try to shield him from the harsh beatings. From a young age, his father instilled the beatings with the fact that John was a Mamma's boy and probably grow up to be a queer. The negative connotation to the idea of being gay is something that is believed to have shaped the life that John Wayne Gacy would go on to lead.  In 1949 John and another boy were caught fondling a young girl and when John ...
Read more