The mysterious skull in Hagley Woods | Forensic Files

[Music] on the 18th of April 1943 four young boys discovered a skeleton buried in the
hollow of a witch on tree in Hailey woods in the Worcestershire County of England police immediately got to work
on identifying the remains and trying to determine the cause of death however the
investigation hit a wall pretty early on there were no witnesses no physical evidence no suspects no real leads at
all they couldn't even identify the remains but about eight months later the messages started to appear antennae
scrawled in white walk across walls and abandoned buildings who put Bella in a witch film
hey girly woods is part of hey legal estate which is privately owned by Lord Cobham it is located in the
Worcestershire County in England part of the West Midlands region we call estate
is about 350 acres in size and as the name suggests Hayley woods are secluded quiet wooded area the village of Hagley
lies at the foot of the Clint Hills and is bordered by Stourbridge in the Black Country the nearest major city is
Birmingham which is about 27 kilometres away or 17 miles we start this story by going back to April 18th 1943 World War
two is still raging and the nearby city of Birmingham is still suffering heavy bombing by the German air force known as
the Luftwaffe the bombing raids came to be known as the Birmingham Blitz Birmingham was an important industrial
and manufacturing area for the war lots of weapons ammunition and supplies came from Birmingham this made it a prime
target for the Nazis during the time of the Birmingham balista rovers 365 air raid alert spread out with 77 actually
Iraq bombs going ahead thousands of people were killed over 10,000 houses were destroyed and hundreds of factories
apart from there being wartime restrictions such as rations food and resource shortages and despite the fact
there were planes flying overhead they weren't getting bonked so for school friends from Stourbridge Fred Payne Bob
farmer Thomas bullets and Robert Hart were pretty much free to do what young boys do go outside and explore play and
see what mischief they could find on the 18th of April 1943 the four friends ventured into the havely or the state to
explore the Haigler woods they weren't supposed to be there it is a private property so they were technically
trespassing but boys will be boys what the boys were doing will depend on what account of the case you read but whether
they were hunting rabbits trying to pick apples hunting birds and raiding birds nests or some combination of all those
things it isn't really important what is important is that they happen to stumble
across an old Hollow which young tree just begging to be climbed Bob takes the owners and climbs up the
tree he picks the onion to the tree Hollow and he's in luck shawne's what he thinks is some kind of animal he reaches
down to grab it but he can't quite reach Bob's things yet to his mates for some help and they end up passing him a long
stick with the help of the stick bobbies over to reach in and pick up his font Bob got
the shock of his life when he found out his discovery wasn't an animal at all it
was staring back at a human skull the boys gathered around in shock at the discovery but also they were pretty
curious the skull still had some running flesh on the forehead and there was still some hair attached they then
started to chat amongst themselves about what they should do with the discovery the idea to tell their parents was
quickly shot down Donnell trespassing I didn't want to get in trouble so they make a pact they put the skull back and
forget about it they'll never speak of it again well that secret pact didn't even last the
day Thomas Willis was very uneasy and was struggling to come to terms with the discovery it didn't take long for his
parents that work out something was up and Thomas broke down in tears and spilled the beans to his father who in
turn quickly called the police sergeant Charles lien born of the Worcestershire county police arrived soon after
together with the help of Thomas and the other boys they managed to track down the tree in Hagley woods other police
arrived soon after but it was getting dark no portable lighting in those days so
there may be a decision to guard the tree overnight until the next morning when detectives and forensic experts but
arrived the police he began the trade of souls they enlisted the help of local special constables and trusted
volunteers keep in mind the police force was severely weakened due to the war a lot of officers volunteered to go and
fight there were a number of officers who were reservists and they were called up to active duty and there were the
retired military men within the police ranks who were called back to duty to combat a loss of numbers the police
force was propped up with special constables and by new recruiting so maybe the standards weren't quite as
high as what they would have been during non wartime I'm not suggesting the police who handled this case were
incompetent or inexperienced there were still experienced police who remained and they very could well have been from
the experienced side but it just gives you some idea of what was happening with policing at the time that next morning
the 19th of April 1943 detective Superintendent evening-night arrives and takes charge of the investigation he's
assisted by Deputy Inspector Thomas Williams and professor James Webster who is from the forensic science laboratory
at Birmingham University along with the skull they quickly find that there is in
fact an entire skeleton stuck inside the hollow of the tree but they're unable to
conduct a proper examination of the remains as they gap in the tree is too small so they find an axe and cut the
treat while they are better examination they ended up having to cut the whole tree down in order to get their remains
here at the scene they find a green bottle but it's later determined that it was unrelated to the case they also find
an identity card belonging to a woman now first of all they thought they had just identified the remains but they
later found the woman alive and well although somewhat shocked as to how her identity card got to Haley woods a place
she's never been before apart from those items police also had the clothing that
was worn by whoever's remains were found inside the tree the clothing included a
mustard colored cloth skirt a page silk under skirt a dark blue and yellow striped cardigan with a light blue belt
and a pair of blue crepes old shoes the clothing was running away and was in poor condition but there was enough to
tell what was there along with the clothing they also found the cheap wedding ring the skeleton was found to
be almost complete but there was one obvious part missing the right hand a surface of the surrounding area fee on
the air nearby and they've got ten meters away from the tree again depending on what a can / story you want
to go with some say the hand was buried but other can't say it wasn't a post-mortem was conducted soon after
and professor Webster finds that the remains belong to a woman aged between 35 and 40 years old she was only short
about five feet tall she had big brown colored hair there were signs she may have had a baby
although it was inconclusive what was significant he's actually had noticeable irregularities in the front teeth of the
lower jaw she was also missing a tooth from the lower right side of a jaw and it was
thought that these tooth had been extracted within one year of her death but determined the wedding ring had been
worn for about four years prior to death and the actual time of death itself was
estimated to be eighteen months to two years prior to her being found which would put it between April and October
1941 the remains show no indications of disease and the bones themselves showed no physical signs of violence there were
no breaks no fractures but the factory was stuffed into a tree Hollow and a right hand had been cut off was enough
to suggest you and met a violent end but there was something else a piece of taffeta was found stuffed into the mouth
of the scalp taffeta is a piece of silk or synthetic fabric this would later lead the coroner to conclude that the
woman had been murdered by way of asphyxiation he also concluded the body would have been put inside the tree
while it was still warm neither while still alive or just after death as the gap would have been too
narrow to get the body in if it was affected by rigor mortis there are two alternate theories as to how the piece
of taffy that came to be stuffed inside the mouth the first suggests that when police were conducting near examination
the skull fell out of the tree along with a piece of taffeta the police assumed the taffeta was stuck inside the
mouth but they didn't actually see if it was regardless they put it back in the second theory suggests that the boys had
made the initial discovery actually booked the piece of taffeta inside lumiose and apparently they later
admitted this union abuse however nothing has been officially released and the police file is still closed so
there's no way of telling for sure the case is surrendered with he say folklore and Chinese whispers that have
been passed on over the years so various faster the case each have several different versions given the police file
has remained closed is difficult to determine what information is fact and what information has been twisted over
the years but regardless if the taffeta was or wasn't stuck inside the me up I think it's pretty clear the unknown
woman met a violent unnatural death the police immediately got to work on searching through missing person reports
they searched through over three thousand across the entire country it was clear the woman wasn't from the
local area as somebody would have mr. Bonilla despite an exhaustive search through the records they found no match
the place was certain I would be able to identify the woman through dental records so she had to through
regularities and the extracted tooth they conducted checks with every dentist any one but again they got no match
police got to work on the items found at the scene the green model was a dead end
but they did track the woman's shoes to a Northampton manufacturer the manufacturer reported 6,000 pairs of the
shoes were made most being sold at retail outlets but some solvent markets the fuser a dead end there's no way
they're going to be able to trace him to an owner it was also discovered that all
of the laborers have been cut out from the unknown woman's clothing but as the clothing was rotten it was difficult to
tell if they were deliberately cut out to avoid identification or if the clothing had been bought secondhand and
so the labels Riccardi added someone to greet their memory so not only did the police have no witnesses no suspects and
no evidence they also had no idea who the unknown woman was so basically they had nothing they've hit a brick wall in
a dead-end street as the months went on people started to lose interest in the unknown woman case the case had gone
cold and world war two was still in full swing but about eight months after the unknown woman was found the case would
take a twist in December of 1943 the first of many messages appeared this first message was sprawled across in a
being a building on Aberdeen Street in Birmingham the message was written with chalk and capital letters about three
inches in height and bread who put Lu bellow down the beach ill suddenly the police and the public
were very interested again who wrote this message was a local tan is playing a cruel trick was that the killer
taunting the police was that the killer throwing the police have false lead by writing the incorrect name was that
somebody who knew something they shouldn't too scared to come forward instead deciding to leave a clue it's
anyone's guess who wrote the message but it wasn't the only one reading it was the first of many
soon after another message appeared Haley would Bella also really in chalk in the same writing as the first message
and not long after that another message who put Bella in the which arm again in the same writing the messages were
appearing all around the local area Birmingham old country or sister haylie the writings have continued all base
piratical e to this day although it since changed from chalk to paint and has believed the later messages are
definitely copycats or locals trying to keep the tradition of life but those first messages were allowed for police
neither the police or anyone from the media or the public had ever referred to the unnamed woman this rubella or Bella
police got back to work on the missing person reports trying to find a match for loo Bella Bella or any name
containing variants of Bella such as Isabella but again they came up short place the field for the writer of the
messages to come forward but I don't think any always surprised when they didn't police were never able to
identify who was responsible for writing the messages they certainly had a great
deal of mystery to the case but what they also did was give down their woman to name she would now be known as Bella
police went back through their previous incident reports from around the time I thought that Bella was killed and they
found something interesting in July 1941 they responded to a report of a woman heard screaming in Haley woods police
conducted a patrol but they were unable to locate anything or anyone of interest
July 1941 fits with Bella's estimated time of death so these reports could very well be linked they immediately
ready interviewed the person who made the report but they learnt thing you all the witness fit offer was
that they heard screams and they saw nothing were these the screams of Bella there were all sorts of theories
speculation and tip-offs that had come in there was worried plant the son of a local publican who reported a woman gave
a name is Bella turned up to his parents pub to play piano in her term Warwick's mother gave
her a pair of blue Krait soul shoes there was the theory that Bella was fleeing nearby Birmingham to estate with
bombing and cross paths with the rapist or serial killer on her journey there was the local clergy members who came up
with the theory that Bella was a gypsy who has killed his some sort of punishment by a fellow gypsies
even though gypsies mountain- commit murders as punishment and Bella's clothing and did not match with her
gypsy would wear then there was the spy theory or because there are several different versions going around spite
theories the first thing that Bella was a German spy who parachuted into the country and somehow managed to land in a
tree hollow some hulls were that theory but the clothing she was wearing doesn't
lead when the pink sheer just parachuted and the other obvious heart where was the parachute analyst for
theory was raised in 1968 when Ryder Donald McCormick claimed in his book murder by witchcraft that Bella was a
Nazi spy her code name Clara her real name being Clara Bella he claims to have been given access to German military
intelligence papers detailing how Clara Bella was parachuted into the West Midlands area in 1941 but she never made
radio contact and she was never heard from again an ex Nazi spy friends rough gab who was operating in the West
Midlands area at the time verified that he was aware of a fellow Nazi spy by the name of Clara Bella
drunkards and she just so happen to have two three varieties now aspects of Donald's story could be verified and his
book and research and the evidence that he used the base Adhan has been described as somewhat loose and uneven
in 2013 the UK independent newspaper in a story I mentioned a Declassified follower had a Czech national spy named
Joseph Jacobs it was caught up to parachuting into England in 1941 when caught who was discovered he had a photo
of a woman he gave her name is Clara Galilee the back of the photo was inscribed my dear love you forever
your Clara dated July 1940 it turns out Clara was a cabaret singer in German movie actress born in Stuttgart 29th of
June 1906 her real name was Clara Sophie barely in October 1930 she tore through
England for two years performing at various musicals throughout the country she left England to return to Germany in
June 1932 Clara spoke fluent English with the proper accent she was referred to by English audiences as Clara Bella
upon returning to Germany she became well connected within the Nazi Party when it rose to power and she later met
Jacobs in Hamburg where they became romantically connected there were plans to parachute her into England as well
however Jacob stated these would have been aborted when he failed to make radio contact due to his capture not
long after his interview Jacobs was executed it is thought that Clara may have parachuted in anyway and Clara was
Bella but there were problems Clara was tall Bella was not and with the Germans really send in a spy who was a known
cabaret performer an actress but previously toured through England they didn't really make a lot of sense what
the independent report and other people who supporting this theory were relying on is that it was said to be no trace of
Clara Peller lay back in Germany from 1941 onwards they're singing an acting career coming to a sudden unannounced
end this combined with Jacobs story was enough to convince people Clara was Bella from the wood shop now over the
information isn't quite correct record show Clara did continue her career through 1941 all the way through until
the 16th of December 1942 where she was killed in Berlin proof that there is no way Clara could
have been Bela inside the which'll so the first few spy theories aren't very credible yet though still often
mentioned whenever the case is brought up but there is one that has slightly more credit in 1953 the Wolverhampton
Express and Star newspaper ran a series of article on the Bela case to commemorate the ten year anniversary the
articles were written under a pen name Cousteau a woman who identified herself only as Anna wrote a letter into the
newspaper in response to the articles the letter read finish your articles regarding the witch on crime by Cousteau
they are interesting to your readers but you will never solve them history one person who could give the answer is now
beyond the jurisdiction of earthly courts mutters I having to use a nom de plume which is a pen name I think he
would appreciate it if he knew me the only clues I can give you either the person responsible for the chronodyne
insane in 1942 and the victim was Dutch and arrived illegally in England about 1941 I have no wish to recall anymore
signed Anna from Claver Lee Anna from clover Lee was later identified as una massa from Warwickshire she was
identified by police and interviewed Oona's story is as follows she was married to a man named Jack Massa and
who was employed in a munitions factory in Birmingham during the war he wasn't in the military and he actually had that
job to avoid being called up there was a low-paying menial job but suddenly in 1940 Jack started to flash from serious
Katrina he didn't try and hire dad either he was buying expensive clothes to show
off and they were well above his pay grade he also managed to purchase himself an Air Force officer's uniform
that he liked to wear around to pretend you as in the military even though he wasn't the really farm that Jack had
become friends with the Dutchman by the name of enrolled his real identity was never discovered but unisys the suspect
of enrolled piece working for the Nazis in Jackie's giving away secrets from the
munitions factory in exchange for cash which would explain his sudden moving out what
not long after Japanese separate duck was gone for a short period of time before returning to owner in 1941 he was
in pretty bad shape mentally when he returned it was making no sense rambling about eyes in a tree staring back at him
and her hand reaching out from the tree trying to grab him even though manages to eventually coming
down and then jack tells her the following story one night not long before he was drinking with his buddy
Vendrell and a Dutch woman they were drinking at a little Ananse pub in Clint which isn't too far from hatefully woods
been robbed and his dust woman friends started to get into an argument and so Jack agreed to take him for a drive the
cantina the drive didn't have the desired effect of a rotten the Dutch woman continued to argue the unnamed US
woman was threatening to expose the operation of enroll and Jack were doing in selling secrets than auntie's some
point during the argument of emerald killed the Dutch woman Jeff pulled over on the side of the road near Hagley
woods and they dragged the body out and put it into the tree well that's one version of the story anyway the other
versions suggest they weren't arguing about that at all and that while I'm in the car the Dutch woman just passed out
the in roarton Jack thought it would be funny to teach her a lesson so they dragged her out of the car put
her inside the hwigyeong tree without going to leave her overnight but when they returned the next morning I
realized that she was dead regardless of what version it actually was there was the same outcome general
and Jack were responsible for Bella's death surely after disclosing the story Jack had a complete breakdown and he was
admitted into a mental health where he died soon after aged only 29 he died in 1942 the year before Bella
was even discovered so he was never able to be interviewed there is a piece of information that gives some weight to
this theory a witness for the name of Aaron Oliver came forward to report that her father was in the home guard at the
time of Bella's death and Hannah colleague regularly patrolled the Hagley woods area one even in area 1941 they
saw something suspicious they saw a car pulled over on the side of the road near
a tree woods it got their attention as it was a remote area and fuel was in seriously short supply heavily rationed
at the time so people were in the habit of going to random draws for no reason they approached the vehicle and saw who
they thought was an Air Force officer in the driver's seat there was a female lying in the backseat who they thought
was naked covered with the coat Erin's father assumed it was some sort of meeting between two lovers and he didn't
think too much more of it but thinking back now it's quite possible that Air Force officer was actually Jack must be
remembering that he liked to dress up in uniform and pretend he was in the military
unfortunately on his father did don't record details of the vehicle or the driver so it's impossible to know now
it's easy to say well the spa theory is such a popular one with this case as it's so close to Birmingham an important
industrial city for the war effort with weapons and ammunition and supplies and because it was so important it was
heavily defended with any aircraft guns so there was a lot of useful information
there to be gathered which makes it a prime target for spies but whether or not Bella was a spy or in some way
connected with a spy we may never know but there is another theory going around and it has nothing
to do with sports this theory involves the dark arts and witchcraft the case got the attention of professor Margaret
Murray she was an anthropologist archaeologist an Egyptologist who had an interest in
the occult and witchcraft there were even rumours circulating that she may be a doubler in the dark arts or
so she wrote a couple of books on witchcraft which were widely slammed by her fellow academics
the case got her attention for three reasons the first thing that Bella was found inside a tree when somebody's
thought to be a witch legend has it that by burying their body inside a tree it's
a way to trap the spirits open not roam and cause further harm the second reason she was interested in
the case was because Bella's right hand had been cut off severing her hand is a sign of black magic and it's a ritual
known as the hand of glory the problem with the end of glory ritual is though its original involving cutting the hand
off from a node arrow has just been inked and the healing had to be cut off Hollow still hanging from the gallows
the cane was then preserved and turned into a candle currently had the power to protect Liana from evil spirits unlock
doors and even find buried treasure was an interesting theory but there was no indication that Bella had been hanging
door that she was a murderer and her name is beyond nearby so it wasn't taken to be used in black magic ceremonies the
other thing nikka professor mary's attention was the name Bella and his close resemblance to the name belladonna
which is significant in the world of witchcraft belladonna is a plant used by witches sorcerers and shamans to induce
trance fire states it's actually lethal in high doses so naturally when the name
Bella started to appear in the writings around town professor Murray's thought that this could be a link to belladonna
not only that it was a pub nearby named the gypsies tent and had long been rumored is being haunted and of course
conveniently there was also rumors of witches Cobbins operating in the Hadley which areas over the years but it was
nothing more than rumor in innuendo professor Murray's theories are a bit of a stretch and there's a serious lack of
any hard evidence in 1945 there was another murder that got her attention and she urged police to treat both cases
as related she was convinced satanic forces were at work on the 14th of February 1945 74 year-old Charles Walton
of the lower Quentin area was found dead had been beaten had his throat slashed with a book and then pinned to the
ground with a pitchfork some reports suggest he had a cross carved into his chest but this is inconclusive there
were rumors flying around there Charles was somehow killed by a witches ritual but these are largely unsubstantiated
it's much more likely Charles was killed by a named person in the area Alfred Potter and it had nothing to do it all
with the Bela case and if you're one who likes to sit around and ponder different
theories and try and work out exactly what happened well you're in luck because there's yet another theory a
report made by a police officer in 1944 states that he was speaking to a local prostitute in Birmingham the prostitute
mentioned that there was a co-worker by the name of Bella who used to take clients to the Hayley Woods area and she
hadn't been seen for about three years it seemed to be more believable than the witchcraft theory but again there were
problems what come forward with this information now why wasn't Bella reported missing this is a true story
wouldn't even mention something when the rioting started will appear on the walls
around town it seemed to be a pretty convenient story and it was never confirmed if there ever was a prostitute
by the name of Bella working in the area and there would be all sorts of reasons
and benefits and favors to be gained as to why someone would want to feed false information to police in 2014 a group of
engineers got together and tried to make sense of all these different theories and information surrounding their case
Norman Fenton and Martin Neal of the risk information management research group from the school of electronic
engineering and computer science at the Queen Mary University of London study the case and came up with a statistical
analysis of all the known facts and information it's an interesting study but even they will be the first to admit
that the results could be pretty rough and they would vary widely depending on what assumptions you rely on when you're
putting all the data into the case so for example these results are highly dependent on the assumption that police
really did exhaust all 11 years of inquiry in relation to the missing person record searches but I mean how do
we really know that for sure so if you change that assumption to police big names or Sullivan use of inquiry then
their results change dramatically so whilst interesting these results probably prove 9 it's just another thing
to ponder but what they came up with was the following there was a 99% chance the
cause of death was criminal a 97% chance Bella was not British and 93% chance Bella was still alive
when put into the tree a 33% chance that Jack Massa was involved in her death a 25% chance Bella was a spire and a 16%
chance that she was a prostitute so I guess who can make it out what you will so who was Bella and where did he
come from who killed her and how did they kill her who wrote the messages around 10 so many questions have so much
mystery yet there is another twist for this story the Bella is missing no one knows where she is you say she wasn't
buried him steady remains were taken by Professor Webster for further examination once he completed his
examination he handed the bones over to a colleague in Birmingham University Medical School for further tests and
research and somehow over the years Bella disappeared from there without a trace not only that all the lab records
and forensic files that were with their remains disappeared too just vanished dropped off the face of the earth
unfortunately it isn't unusual for important pieces of evidence to go missing over the years in cold cases as
we've already heard in previous episodes of this podcast but this was significantly different they somehow
managed to lose an entire skeleton somebody's whole remains was Bella deliberately taken maybe further
evidence of some sort of spy involvement and a some sort of conspiracy but which
she deliberately lost as part of an elaborate cover-up involving a well-connected killer if you just
accidentally lost or maybe thrown away we will probably never know it and of course this eliminates I hope of ever
being I would use DNA testing in this case in the meantime I guess all we can do is keep asking the question who put
Bella in a which are [Music]

Case 04: Who Put Bella In The ‘Witch’ Elm

On the 18th of April 1943, four boys discovered a skeleton buried in the hollow of a wych-elm tree in Hagley Woods, England.

Police immediately got to work on identifying the remains and trying to determine the cause of death, however, the investigation hit a wall…

CREDITS

Narration – Anonymous Host Research and writing – Anonymous Host Production, scoring – Mike Migas

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Brief Summary

The episode investigates the mystery of Bella, a woman found dead in a tree, and the theories surrounding her identity and death.

Key points

The Discovery of Bella. In April 1943, four boys stumbled upon a human skull in a tree, leading to a chilling investigation.
The Messages Begin. Eight months after the discovery, mysterious chalk messages appear, reigniting interest in the case.
Theories About Bella. Various theories arise about Bella's identity and fate, including ties to espionage.
The Witchcraft Theory. Professor Murray linked Bella's case to witchcraft and dark arts, citing eerie similarities.
Statistical Analysis of Bella's Case. Engineers analyzed the case, revealing shocking probabilities about Bella's death.
The Mysterious Death of Bella. Bella's body was found in a tree, leading to various theories about her death.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

They'll never speak of it again.

The boys' pact after discovering the skull.

4:11WatchNov 19, 2018

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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