UK UK - Worcestershire, Fem Skeletal 'Bella in the Wych Elm', Hagley Hall, Apr'43

[wfgodot]

I believe that's the same Donald McCormick - mentioned in the Independent article linked above as the author of "Murder by Witchcraft" - who also wrote what's considered to be one of the worst Jack the Ripper books ("The Identity of Jack the Ripper," 1959), which was filled with spurious, falsified information. Not sure then if his 1968 book about this case should be taken with a similar grain of salt: "He claimed to have gained access to Abwehr records...." - but did he?

 

[Veidt]

This has case has often intrigued me. Today I was reminded of it so I decided to check if WS had any threads about it.

I do think she was murdered and that it wasn't acidental. If she was just parachuting, it would be a bit of a stretch to actually end up inside the tree.

The blank wedding band is intriguing to me. On one hand it makes me think it could be some kind of prop used by a spy or someone doing undercover work in order to blend in. At the same time, it makes me wonder. Were engravings very expensive back then? Would a working class person have engraved wedding rings? Maybe she was in a relationship that was forbidden for some reason, and the other person or someone who was angry about it killed her. That could explain why nobody seemed to know her and why her wedding band wasn't engraved, if she had just eloped with someone. But that's just my imagination.

Not likely, I wouldn't think. WWII era parachutes were usually made of silk cloth (see the recent articles on D.B.Cooper and the silk parachute that was originally thought to have been his). She would not have suffocated under a silk parachute held up by the branches of the Wych-Elm or Wych-Hazel, whichever it was.

And where was the parachute and it's rigging when the boys discovered her remains just 18 months later? The rigging would most certainly have been inside the tree trunk along with the bones.

The piece of cloth inside her mouth was taffeta, I believe. Would a parachute be made of tafeta? I think that in the parachute scenario, maybe other poachers might have taken it away as some kind of souvenir and not have seen her or not really said anything like the boys did because they were trespassing private property. But then, if she was wearing a skirt or dress that doesn't sound very practical.

Is there any way of finding out if there ever was a Clarabella Dronkers born in the Netherlands?

Maybe census records? I know there's an ancestry site (not ancestry.com) that has records for lots of countries, maybe try that?

 

[wintermute]

The fact that one of her hands was severed and buried in the ground next to the tree rules out a parachuting accident IMO. The placement of her body in the tree and the burial of one hand sounds like some bizarre ritual.

 

[Ozoner]

The fact that one of her hands was severed and buried in the ground next to the tree rules out a parachuting accident IMO. The placement of her body in the tree and the burial of one hand sounds like some bizarre ritual.

The parachuting theory is silly, but I don't think it was a ritualistic murder, either; I think an animal probably buried the hand.
*
The fact that she was wearing a wedding ring makes me lean towards domestic abuse, but the report of a missing prostitute named Bella can't be ignored. Prostitutes are often victimized by sexual psychopaths.

 

[Laughing]

In the 1940's. the taffeta fabric was likely made of silk. Most synthetic fabrics we know today weren't available to the public then.

I haven't found any description of that fabric other than taffeta. Silk taffeta, rayon taffeta, even wool taffeta are possibilities. Color might help as well.....

 

[MelmothTheLost]

I wonder what DNA would tell us...if "Bella's" location is even known today?

Reports suggest that her skeleton was lost by the University of Birmingham where it was stored. However, in view of the recent discovery of bones and teeth from the Isdal Woman in Norway, it's not impossible that Bella's bones are still in an unmarked box somewhere in the science stack at the university. If only .....

 

[MelmothTheLost]

It appears that someone would have had to have known that this tree was hollow in the center. <snip> Therefore someone locally would have had to have known that this particular tree was hollow in order to have disposed of the body there.

Wychbury is a very popular place for local people in the Black Country to go walking at weekends. It always has been. The fact that there were hollow trees up there would therefore have been common knowledge.

The top of the hill is a prehistoric ring fort with (from memory) two sets of ramparts and ditches around it. The fort is filled in with a variety of trees, including a number of old yews and of course yews are one of the trees that tend to hollow out with age.

Per one of the earlier theories, that "Bella" might have gone up there to escape the bombing, well that is entirely plausible. The towns of the Black Country (Dudley, Stourbridge, Wednesbury etc) were all centres of metal working, engineering and manufacturing so very much targets for bombing by the Luftwaffe.

 

[pleasestandby]

The fact that one of her hands was severed and buried in the ground next to the tree rules out a parachuting accident IMO. The placement of her body in the tree and the burial of one hand sounds like some bizarre ritual.

Deuteronomy 25

11 “If two men, a man and his countryman, are struggling together, and the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is striking him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, 12 then you shall cut off her hand; you shall not show pity.

Maybe a little argument was going on between two men and the woman interfered. Apparently her husband lost the fight?

 

[MelmothTheLost]

In the 1940's. the taffeta fabric was likely made of silk. Most synthetic fabrics we know today weren't available to the public then.

I haven't found any description of that fabric other than taffeta. Silk taffeta, rayon taffeta, even wool taffeta are possibilities. Color might help as well.....

Parachutes were made of silk. Many a British war bride was married in a silk wedding dress made from a German parachute.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

The fact that one of her hands was severed and buried in the ground next to the tree rules out a parachuting accident IMO. The placement of her body in the tree and the burial of one hand sounds like some bizarre ritual.

My understanding is that her hand was not severed and buried (a misunderstanding) but that it more likely detached due to decomposition and was removed by animal activity.

The witchcraft/ritual thing is a load of nonsense propagated by Margaret Murray who was desperate to link any "evidence", no matter how idiotic, to her witch cult ideas.

 

[leilarose68]

A renowned professor of craniofacial identification at Dundee University used old photos of Bella's skull to create the first amazing facial recreation of her: https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/revealed-after-75-years-face-14329271

 

[MelmothTheLost]

A renowned professor of craniofacial identification at Dundee University used old photos of Bella's skull to create the first amazing facial recreation of her: https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/revealed-after-75-years-face-14329271

Thanks for the link - I'm pleased to see the case still receives some interest but I'm really disappointed that the witchcraft/satanism/ritual killing rubbish is being dragged up yet again. I've never heard of Peter Simmell but he clearly knows bugger all about witchcraft and folklore and is just dredging up the crap started by Margaret Murray.

Murray was an Egyptologist who decided to dabble in British history and folklore during WWI when travel to Egypt became too difficult and dangerous. Her theories were never taken seriously by academic historians but proved popular (no doubt because they were sensationalist) with some folklorists and the general public.

Both this case and that of Charles Walton are pretty local to me.

 

[Trent Hellacious]

Always been fascinated by this case. Recently saw a new documentary about it...er...but I can't find it. I'm not very good at this so far . Pretty sure it was on Amazon Prime, though. Charles Walton also rings a bell ^^. My family lives around there. Anyway...guess I have nothing to offer at this point, sorry. Still getting acclimatized to the site!

 

[madfrank]

This will extend and attempt to better organize an earlier thread fallen into disuse, some links dead. The case is by now quite famous and below the text I have quoted, Wikipedia has much more, including theories abdout the case and "Bella"'s possible identity, as well as the mysterious writings about the case on village landmarks which soon began to appear.

Who out Bella in the Wych Elm (Wikipedia)
Some portions are paraphrased, with names omitted.

On 18 April, 1943, four boys from Stourbridge were poaching in Hagley Wood-- part of the Hagley Hall estate belonging to Lord Cobham -- on the nearby Wychbury Hill when they came across a large wych elm [....]

Believing this a good place to hunt birds' nests, [one boy] 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, he put the skull back and all four boys returned home without mentioning their discovery to anybody.

On returning home the youngest of the boys 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 [which] quickly established that the skeleton was female and had been dead for at least 18 months, placing her time of death around October 1941. [....] From the measurement of the trunk it was 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 many people being reported missing from the war [and the population in flux] the records were too vast for a proper identification to take place.
....
much more at link
​

The original WS thread (top) has links which may be posted here. In addition, since it was posted, the case has been discussed on several podcasts, and there may be additional sources now online.

When the body was found the English county (as above) was Worcestershire. As county boundaries have evolved, the county incorporating the market town of Stourbridge is now called West Midlands. In Wikipedia, at least, Hagley Hall itself is still listed as Worcestershire. I have maintained the original WS thread's identification in the title.

 

[madfrank]

If you've made it this far, you have found, above, my attempt to make this thread relevant. Thanks for doing so. This is a great case. Tell others what you have found: a 77-year-old unsolved case with fascinating details. A pity that, so far, only a handful of WS readers have seen it. It is great, my favorite.

 

[madfrank]

While I have your attention (cough), has anyone heard any of the podcasts, the more recent ones? I caught one some time ago and now can't remember which. Pretty basic, but it was good. Hard to go wrong with this interesting of case.

 

[mrz]

Supernatural with Ashley Flowers: CONSPIRACY: Who Put ...
podcasts.apple.com › podcast › conspiracy-who-put-bel...
CONSPIRACY: Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm? Supernatural with Ashley Flowers. Society & Culture. Listen on Apple Podcasts. This World War II era mystery ...

 

[madfrank]

My title for #34 above was
UK - "Bella in the Wych Elm," Worcestershire, Wychbury Hill, Hagley Hall; skeletal fem. 18 April 1943.
I think it was. It put the lede in the front of the header. Also as this is an English case the "Apr'43" doesn't conform to anything.

BUMP.

 

[madfrank]

Hope this thread gets up and going. Did what I could. Great case.

 

[madfrank]

Dead as Bella. Dead as ever.
Bump. Bump. Bump.