Nexpo (7:21)

Of desperate looking strangers in the street.

Mr. Ballin (7:24)

Ever since the bombing raids began on the nearby city of Birmingham, many people have been displaced, which means a lot more unfamiliar faces around Hagley. When he gets back to his house, Tommy lets his parents know that he's returned safe and sound. Yet as he settles in with a cup of tea by the window, he realizes that that's not true. He feels neither safe nor sound. He keeps thinking back to it. The skull in the elm tree. It had been old at least a year, and who knows really how long it was laying in there. What are the odds of finding something so carefully hidden? Soon, overpowered by guilt and anxiety, Tommy goes to his dad. He tells him everything. About the bird eggs, the trespassing with his friends. And as he speaks, he can see his father's expression shift from disapproval to concern. When Tommy mentions the skull, his father's eyes widen. For a moment he fears that his dad won't believe him. But then Mr. Willits puts a reassuring hand on his shoulder. He assures Tommy that he did the right thing before leaving to ring up the police. Tommy goes back to staring off into the night. He isn't nearly as certain, and there's an awful feeling in his gut. Whatever happens next, it won't lead anywhere good. The next day, August 19, 1943. It's the West Mercia police's turn to navigate the thick undergrowth. They follow Tommy as the boy guides them to the skull's hiding place. In the light of day, the tree looks far less threatening than the boy had described it. It's a Wych elm, spelled Wych, which comes from An Old English word for supple plant. There's nothing inherently spooky about the tree, at least from the outside. The policemen peer into the hollow where Bob had found the skull. The first officer shouts out in ALARM. There's more than just a skull in here. It's tough to see, but it looks like there's an entire mausoleum in the hollow. However, they can't safely extract them, so they call a lumberjack to cut open the tree. The officers remove nearly a whole skeleton from the splintered wood. It's clearly been there a while. Along with the flesh, much of the clothing has rotted away. It's missing a right hand, seemingly amputated. But that part of the skeleton isn't absent for long. The police happen upon the hand bones a mere 13 paces away, scattered among the foliage. The skeleton's wearing crepe shoes on its feet and what looks like a gold ring on its finger, though closer inspection reveals that it's known as rolled gold, or a brass or copper ring that's been lightly coated in gold as a cheap alternative to an actual gold band. And last but not least, a scrap of cloth is found in the skull's mouth. There's only so much the police can tell from these remains, so they gather what they can find and before long, they take them to an expert. The following day, Professor James Webster is at work at Birmingham University when the police come knocking. He's a Home Office pathologist who recently relocated due to increased bombing rates. He's now a professor of forensic science at Birmingham University, the closest expert the West Mercia Police have at hand. They need to tell them everything he can about the bones. Professor Webster's intrigued by the case. Not only was it a strange place to find a skeleton, but the bones tell a story of their own. The victim had died at least 18 months ago. It was a woman around 35 years of age. She had probably given birth at some point in her life, judging by the state of her hip bones due to the cloth being wedged in her mouth. He suspects that she died by asphyxiation. He identifies the cloth as taffeta, likely torn from her skirt and stopped in. So this wasn't the remains of some accident victim or someone who had been long buried. This was a murder. And because the hollow in the tree was so narrow, rigor mortis would have prevented her body from fitting inside such a crowded space. Ergo, it's quite possible that she was left in the tree while still alive. Professor Webster also points out that the victim's lower jaw contains a set of irregularly spaced teeth. He suggests that investigators should look for a dentist who remembers such a distinctive bite. Once his work is complete, Professor Webster reaches out to the Birmingham University admin about taking control of the remains. After all, they have better facilities for storing and analyzing human remains, and maybe someone at the university will perhaps be able to tell the police more. Meanwhile, the West Mercia police go to work. They contact every dentist in the area, armed with a photograph of the skull, for dentists to review. However, none of the ones that they contact can recall a woman fitting the description or matching the teeth in her skull. Since the dating of the bones put the woman's death in late 1941, the police check back through their records to see if any unsolved reports match. The missing persons list is enormous, thanks to the bombings, and there's no way to narrow it down. But there were two reports from October that caught their attention. On the very same night, a schoolteacher and local business owner had made separate calls to police. Both had claimed that they heard a woman screaming late at night from the direction of Hagley Wood. Police were dispatched to investigate, but found nothing. So was it her, the woman in the elm tree who had screamed? Four days after the search begins, two German bombs strike the nearby city of Birmingham. Air raid sirens echo across the surrounding West Midlands. As May begins, the rains stop and the sirens fall silent and the investigation too goes quiet. The corpse of a woman no one seems to miss simply can't be a priority right now. Not when there are so many people missing, lost in the chaos of the war. The case of the woman in the elm tree appears to have stalled out. And to get it started again, police will need something new to work with. And surprisingly, almost a year later, they finally get in.

Oona Mossop (14:38)

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Sherry Papini (15:29)

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Mr. Ballin (16:07)

On Saturday, April 1, 1944, a group of boys are playing in an abandoned house in Birmingham. Like Tommy Willits and his friends the year before, they have no idea that their innocent weekend playtime is about to make international news. Their fun comes to an abrupt halt when they come across a strange message. It's scrawled across the side of a house in chalk, too cryptic to ignore. Who put Bella down the wych elm in Hagley Wood? The boys report the finding immediately. Local papers take up the news and from there the story spreads like wildfire. It's an enormous development. For the first time, the unidentified woman in the tree has a Bella. The West Mercia police are intrigued. Someone in the area must know who she was, and this person is trying to send them a message. As the days roll by, the graffiti continues to taunt police. The question starts popping up on walls across the West Midlands, always in chalk, always in similar handwriting, and one of them in Old Hill reads, who put Lubella down The witch Elm. What happened to Hagley Wood? Bella? The name varies slightly, sometimes just Bella, sometimes Lou Bella, but always a variation of the same question. The police renew their inquiries, now specifically asking for someone by the name Bella. On April 7, a Birmingham sex worker comes forward. She informs a detective that a woman named Bella who frequented the Hagley Road had been missing for about three years. However, for a woman like that, the police wouldn't know where to start. Hagley Wood, though mostly private property, is well known as a private place for people to have illicit encounters, either romantic or purely sexual. Anyone who knew this Bella from such an encounter wouldn't be keen to come forward for the sake of their own reputation. And this lient, like the others, goes nowhere. As the police investigations seem to be petering out. Ward of the story reaches a private residence in Cambridge, on the other side of England. 79 year old Margaret Murray, while finishing up a long day of sorting and cataloging ancient Egyptian artifacts, turns to a newspaper to relax. It's there that she sees the story about the dead woman in Hagley Wood. Murray is a folklorist and historian who'd lived in London before the war. When the news of the murdered woman reaches her, she comes to a different conclusion than the police. Ritual murder. Though Murray's primary trait is an Egyptologist, one of her more well known works was on what she called the witch cult theory. She studied how paganism evolved from its primeval origins to the more obscure practices of the day. And when she hears about that Hagley Wood murder, a certain detail draws her attention. It's the severed right hand of the victim. In old European folklore, if you sever the hand of a sinner and preserve it, that hand becomes a hand of glory, a magical artifact that can protect a thief against discovery. Traditionally, it had to be cut from the body while they were hanging from the gallows. But some believe that they could have been taken from a sinner as long as they were still fresh from execution. If the original Bela had been a sinner, perhaps those who killed her saw value in severing her right hand before hiding her remains. Murray suggests that this wouldn't be the most recent ritual murder in the area, pointing to a chilling story that made headlines on Valentine's Day. Charles Walton, a resident owner of Lower Quinton, had left home with his pitchfork, ready for a day of slashing hedges. He was later found lying beside a hedgerow. Someone had taken his pitchfork and driven it into his neck, pinning him to the ground. This case bears a striking resemblance to another murder from the late 19th century, when an 80 year old woman named Ann Tennant was slain in the same fashion, stabbed through the neck with a pitchfork. Her murderer was a mentally ill man who believed the nearby villages were infested with witches. Murray, as an academic and an expert in folklore, earns a lot of public attention for these theories. A ritual murder in the woods sparks the imagination of locals, but ultimately adds more mystery to this case. But who would have perpetrated this ritual murder? Murray doesn't offer any suggestions and eager theorists latch on to the question. It's clear that this Bella was not a Hagley local. Otherwise there would have been plenty of townsfolk able to identify her. That meant that she was probably either an anonymous transient or someone from far away. There were all manner of people camping in Hagley Wood during the worst of the bombing years. So called blitz campers who fled from England's more heavily populated areas to take refuge away from Nazi air raids. And then there were the Romani travelers who frequently camped in those woods as well, for years, unfounded rumors and theories swirl. Yet it's not until the early 1950s that someone tackles the case with true journalistic dedication. His name is Wilfred Byford Jones, the deputy editor of the Express and Star. Writing under the pen name Quaestor, Byford Jones publishes three features about the murders, exploring the evidence and fighting back against the conspiracy theories. He writes that he does not accept the theory of Romani travelers committing a murder among their own. He acknowledges that the area has a large population of travelers, but they're always the first people blamed in every crime. The theory is wild speculation, based on prejudice. The woman's clothing, the taffeta dress and crepe shoes are not the sort of thing a traveler would wear. She was likely from a lower economic class, but the fabrics are out of step with Romani fashion. As for the evidence of witchcraft, he deems all of that fairly circumstantial. In his articles, Byford Jones implores the person who wrote the graffiti to come forward. He figures, much like the police had 10 years ago, that whoever wrote the message knew Bella personally. The individual is the only one who can give a definitive answer to the graffiti question. In late 1953, a letter arrives at the Express and Star offices. Byford Jones opens it, expecting it to be an ordinary letter from one of his interested readers. But he's wrong. It comes from someone who claims to have inside info on the case. And so, gripping the letter tightly, he reads it over and over. It states, finish your articles regarding the Wych Elm crime by all means. They're interesting to your readers, but you'll never solve the mystery. The one person who could give the answer is is now beyond the jurisdiction of our earthly courts. The affair involves no witches, black magic or moonlit rites. The only clues I can give you are that the person responsible for the crime died insane in 1942, and the victim was Dutch and arrived in England illegally about 1941. I have no wish to recall anymore. Byford Jones stares at the mysterious letter in shock. It's signed Anna from Claverly. Though the author admits that this is nothing but a pen name. And for the first time in 10 years, someone finally has a lead. The Expressn Star alerts the West Mercia police and offers a 100 pound reward for any new information in the case. Byford Jones and his colleagues hope that additional incentives would bring new information from their anonymous source. Eventually, Anna contacts them again. She's willing to tell the entire story, but not to the Express and Star. She's taking what she knows directly to the police.

Margaret Murray (25:09)

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Nexpo (25:46)

As many of you know, Mr. Ballin and Ballin Studios have been a huge help in bringing this podcast to life. And if you like to believe you are something of a storytelling connoisseur, then you have to check out Mr. Ballin's podcast Strange, Dark and Mysterious. Every week Mr. Bolan weaves gripping tales of the strange, dark and mysterious, diving into true crime, unsolved mysteries and paranormal events that keep you on the edge of your seat. Mr. Bolan's podcast Strange, Dark and Mysterious is available on all podcast platforms and it's free just like ours. There are hundreds of episodes available to binge right now, with new episodes twice.

Mr. Ballin (26:27)

A week, so don't wait.

Nexpo (26:29)

Go listen to the Mr. Ballin podcast today.

Mr. Ballin (26:34)

A woman enters the West Mercia police station, eyes nervously darting around her. The officers guide her to a private room where she can give her statement. This woman is the so called Anna who wrote to the Express in Star about the witch Elm murder. She identifies herself as Oona Mossop and the story as she relays it comes from her now deceased husband, Jack. Jack was a British army officer during the war, handsome and well liked, a little eccentric, he'd purchased the uniform from an RAF officer even though he himself was not a member of the Royal Air Force. Jack was a man of secrets and when the Germans started bombing England, his behavior became more more and more kg. Birmingham, as everyone knew, was a frequent bombing target for the Nazis as it housed many manufacturers of airplane parts. Information on this area was valued highly by German spies and Jack may have been involved in selling information to the Nazis, although his actual role was unclear. Oena claims that one night in 1941 Jack had been traveling threw Hagley in a car. Also in the car with them was a Dutch trapeze artist named Van Ralt and a woman by the name of Clarabella Drunkers. They had all been out at a pub and Clarabella was three Sheets to the wind. As they drove through Hagley, she passed out. Jack and Vanralt decided, for some reason, to get rid of the woman. They took her into the woods and stuffed her in the inside a tree. Jack said that this was done in order to make her feel foolish when she woke up and realized that she shouldn't drink so much. But perhaps it wasn't such an innocent prank after all. This experience would haunt the British officer for the rest of his life. Jack would tell his wife that he was having nightmares of a woman staring at him from inside a tree. He had a mental breakdown later that year and was confined to a mental institution, where he died in 1942. Why the woman had to die, he never said. Though Oona suspects that this is because she'd overheard something sensitive. The police and MI5 attempt to verify this woman's story as best they can. Some elements can be verified, including the identity of Jack Mossup, who was institutionalized and died, just as Oona claims. However, facts like this only raise questions. How could you prove that this was a true story he told before his nervous breakdown and not some delusion from a deceased mental patient? Oona Mossop's story is compelling, no doubt, but it's not backed up by much evidence. The police can't prove that this is the one definitive answer. It's more plausible than the occult theories. But that's all it is, a theory. Bella's remains are the only evidence they have, although, as they're about to discover, they may not even have those anymore. The West Mercia police keep working on this case for years, and no new evidence comes to light. However, the science of the police work continues to evolve. As the decades roll on, more and more cold cases are solved, thanks to advancements in DNA testing. And police believe that Bella's case might be solved the very same way. There's just one small problem, though. No one knows where the bones went. In the chaos of the Second World War, the bombings of Birmingham and the surrounding area, and the media frenzy around the Wychalp case, the actual bones appear to have been lost. Professor Webster, who retains some of Bella's clothes and shoes for study, claims to have passed the remains to Birmingham University for further tests. The university's records are dense, but unfortunately lack any mention of Bella's remains. Frustrated, but with no further recourse, the Westmercia police end the official investigation. They publish the case file. If there's any lingering interest to be found, the press can have a field day with it. And they do. In 1999, the Independent revisits the story in their article. They interrogate the various theories about Bella's identity and origin, including the espionage angle, as well as the witchcraft and occultism. And the Independent points out that there's a missing piece of evidence that neither Byford Jones nor Margaret Murray would have had access to. Declassified MI5 files revealed that there was more going on in the West Midlands than even journalists knew at the time. And they reveal that there really was a German spy who parachuted into the West Midlands in 1941. He broke his ankle when he landed and was immediately arrested. And during his interrogation, he told a story that MI5 found captivating. It begins in a cafe in Hamburg, Germany, before the war. The spy, Joseph Jacobs, is entranced by a woman singing there. Her name was Clara Burrell. She had been born in 1906, and by the time she was an adult, she already had many close relationships among the Nazi Party. She became a spy as the war began and infiltrated the West Midlands as a cabaret performer in 1939. According to Jacobs, her English was so good that she even spoke with a Birmingham accent. Jacobs claims that she intended to rendezvous with him in spring of 1941, but he had never heard from her. And as rumors of this captured Nazi agent spread, the name Clara Burrell transformed into Clarabella, which was then shortened to become the Bella we all know. It's a very different spy story than the one told by Oona Mossop, and the two do not fit comfortably together. One seems to imply that Clarabella was a bystander, murdered, seemingly by accident. The other suggests that she was somehow discovered as a spy and killed in secret. The identity of the Bella woman continues to be a fixation of the British public. Rumors spread among the Home Guard civilian volunteers who helped maintain order during the war years. One claims that he was tasked with holding onto a woman's body overnight before MI5 came back and spirited her away. Another says that he saw a man parked to the side of the road by Hagley Wood. And when the officer peered in, he saw that the man's coat was draped roughly over someone in the passenger seat. Someone who wasn't moving. Where once there were vanishing few to identify Bella, now everyone seems to have had a father or an uncle who had some connection to her death. The fog of war only grows thicker the more years roll by and no new proof ever comes up. So who put Bella in the Wych Elm? We've heard many compelling theories over the years. While far fetched, the stories of witchcraft and occultism are not without their strong points. In fact, at the outset of the Second World War, self proclaimed witches of Britain banded together to try and curb Nazi power with magic. A famous coven had cast spells aiming to prevent German invasion of the uk. However, the Hand of Glory was not something that was practiced by these particular witches. And the location of Bela's hand bones, while strange, is not inexplicable. It's possible that animals could have carried the bones away from the rest of the body. And then there are the spy stories. Was Bella a foreign national feeding information to the Nazis? Was she an innocent young girl caught in the crossfire of MI5 in Germany? If Joseph Jacobs knew the truth, he took it to his grave. On August 15, 1941, he was executed by a firing squad, becoming the last man put to death in the Tower of London. Part of his story was verifiable. There was a cabaret singer named Clara Burrell, but she never left Germany, dying in December of 1942. So either Jacobs was lying to his interrogators, or the real Clarabella was someone else entirely. Someone whose true name has never been revealed. The most plausible story is likely hidden among the chaos of the war. As the Luftwaffe rained bombs on Birmingham, all sorts of people took refuge away from the cities, away from factories and population centers. Any one of these people could have died. Anonymous deaths among the trees. Though someone had to have known at least enough to stuff her inside the elm tree. That tantalizing graffiti written in chalk could have been a hoax after all. The earliest recorded sighting of it was on April Fool's Day. So some might say that we can't even trust that her name was Bella at all. But someone knew of Bella who had gone missing. That much we know. The woman who spoke to the police the week after the graffiti of the disappeared, telling them about the missing prostitute named Bella. This perhaps gives us a window into the true story. A quiet tragedy that's been completely obscured by fanciful theories. A sex worker who was killed in secret by a John Doe, leaving behind no family or friends to tell us who she really was. And now that even her bones are lost, all that's left is that enduring and haunting question. Who put Bella down? The witch. Oh. Late Nights with Nexpo is created and hosted by me Nexpo.

Nexpo (37:23)

Executive produced by me, Mr. Ballin, Nick Witters and Zach L. Lovett.

Mr. Ballin (37:28)

Our head of writing is Evan Allen. This episode was written by Robert Diemstra. Copy editing by Luke Baratz Audio editing and sound design by Alistair Sherman Mixed and Mastered by Schultz Media Research by Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, Evan Beamer and Stacy Wood Fact checking by Abigail Shumway Production supervision by Jeremy Bone and Colt Locasio Production coordination by Samantha Collins and Avery Siegel Artwork by Jessica Claugston Kiner and Robin Vane Theme song by Ross Bugden thank you all so much for listening to Late Nights with Nexpo. I love you all and good night.

Nexpo (38:22)

You can listen to new episodes of Late Nights with Nexpo early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can also watch episodes of Late Nights with nexpo on my YouTube channel, YouTube.comnexpo before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondery.com survey.

Lamont Jones (38:45)

Lamont Jones World is shattered when his cousin dies in custody just weeks after entering prison. The official report says natural causes, but bruises and missing teeth tell a different story. From Wondery comes Death County, Pennsylvania. A chilling true story of corruption and cover ups that begins as one man search for answers but soon reveals a disturbing pattern. Lamont's cousin's death is just one of many and powerful forces are working together Keep the truth buried. With never before heard interviews and shocking revelations, Death County, Pa. Pulls back the curtain on one of America's darkest institutional secrets. This isn't just another true crime story. It's happening right now. Follow Death County Pa on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Death County Pa early and ad free right now by joining Wondery.