iconoclast
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
- Joined
- Jun 14, 2006
- Messages
- 184
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- 43
An intriguing and probably unsolvable case...my specialty!
Once you take away the "supernatural" elements emphasized on so many websites, what we have here could be a case involving illegal immigration, espionage, or organized crime. "Bella" seems never to have officially existed in the UK, but during wartime that wasn't so unusual.
The most complete treatment (albeit a little bit occultish) is at http://www.mysteriouspeople.com/Bella_in_the_wychelm.htm. I wonder what DNA would tell us...if "Bella's" location is even known today?
On 18 April, 1943, four boys (Robert Hart, Thomas Willetts, Bob Farmer and Fred Payne) from Stourbridge were poaching in Hagley Woods on the nearby Wychbury Hill when they came across a large Wych Hazel, a tree often confused by local residents with a Wych Elm. Hagley Wood is part of the Hagley Hall estate belonging to Lord Cobham.
Believing this a good place to hunt birds' nests, Farmer attempted to climb the tree to investigate. As he was climbing, he glanced down into the hollow trunk and discovered a skull, believing it to be animal. However, he quickly realised, after seeing human hair and teeth, that he was holding a human skull. As they were on the land illegally, Farmer put the skull back and all four boys returned home without mentioning their discovery to anybody.
On returning home the youngest of the boys, Tommy Willetts, felt uneasy about what he had witnessed and decided to report the find to his parents. When police checked the trunk of the tree they found an almost complete human skeleton, a shoe, a gold wedding ring, and some fragments of clothing. After further investigation, a severed hand was found buried in the ground near to the tree.
The body was sent for forensic examination by Prof. James Webster. He quickly established that the skeleton was female and had been dead for at least 18 months, placing her time of death around October 1941. He found taffeta in her mouth, suggesting that she had died from asphyxiation. From the measurement of the trunk he also deduced that she must have been placed there "still warm" after the killing as she could not have fitted in once rigor mortis had taken hold.
Since the woman's killing was so soon after the start of World War II, identification was seriously hampered. Police could tell from items found with the body what the woman had looked like but with so many people being reported missing from the war, and people regularly moving house, the records were too vast for a proper identification to take place.
Source: Wikipedia
Once you take away the "supernatural" elements emphasized on so many websites, what we have here could be a case involving illegal immigration, espionage, or organized crime. "Bella" seems never to have officially existed in the UK, but during wartime that wasn't so unusual.
The most complete treatment (albeit a little bit occultish) is at http://www.mysteriouspeople.com/Bella_in_the_wychelm.htm. I wonder what DNA would tell us...if "Bella's" location is even known today?