WEBVTT - Season 02 Episode 01: Whispers in the Trees (RERUN) 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.239 Due to the recent arrival of another Minnie McLean Smith. 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:06.279 The next new episode will be with you next Friday, 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:10.600 June thirteenth. In the meantime, we're heading back into the 0:00:10.640 --> 0:00:13.920 vault for this week's episode, going all the way back 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:18.239 to the beginning of season two. England's Black Country, a 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:21.200 region just west of Birmingham, is considered one of the 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:25.959 birthplaces of the British Industrial Revolution. It's centered around a 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:30.720 thirty foot wide and unusually shallow coal seam, a product 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:35.400 of once living trees compressed and buried for millions of years, 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:41.760 returning to the surface like an irrepressible secret. There are 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:45.880 some who say the trees can talk, and if they could, 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:51.479 what secrets might they hold? In full for the first time, 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:57.640 this is unexplained. Season two episode one Whispers in the Trees. 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:14.040 At nineteen hundred hours on Wednesday, January nineteenth, two thousand six, 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:19.039 NASA's New Horizons Probe, propelled by the Majestic Atlasphe rocket, 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:24.360 is launched into space, having begun its journey at Cape 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:28.040 Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The probe, which is 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:31.039 part of the New Frontiers program, is the focal point 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:36.760 of NASA's first ever mission to Pluto. With the spacecraft 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:40.200 being hurled towards its target at over thirty six thousand 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:43.440 miles per hour, it will be another ten years before 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:46.240 it begins to uncover the secrets lying in wait at 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:50.640 the outer regions of our solar system back home, a 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:53.680 week after the launch, in a small bedsit in London, 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:58.720 a far more earthly discovery is about to be made. 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:02.840 On the afternoon Wednesday, January twenty sixth a team of 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:05.840 housing officials are making their way towards a flat in 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:09.880 wood Green, North London. The apartment is part of a 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:13.760 complex known locally as Sky City, which forms an estate 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:18.320 perched on top of a vast shopping mall. When the 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:21.280 team arrive at the front door, noises from the TV 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:25.000 can be heard emanating from inside the flat, an indication 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:30.680 perhaps that the occupier is home. The office's subsequent knocks, however, 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:34.480 go unanswered, and after a few minutes they decide to 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:38.440 break down the door. Stepping into the gloom of the 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:41.800 flat beyond, the offices, are first struck by a cloying 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:45.800 smell that hangs thickly in the air. Pushing the front 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:48.520 door wider reveals a stack of unopened mail on the 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:53.800 floor or the while the voices from the TV continue uninterrupted. 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:58.440 A moment later, the officers step into the living room 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:03.359 and make a gruesome discovery. Lying there on the sofa, 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:08.200 illuminated by the incessant flickering of the TV screen, are 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:12.120 the skeletal remains of the tenant. A pile of Christmas 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:17.919 presents lie unopened on the floor. The tenant was thirty 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:21.840 eight year old Joyce Carol Vincent, and her body at Laine, 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:28.240 undiscovered and unreported for over two years. Filmmaker Carol Morley 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:31.440 was so moved by this revelation that she began an 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:35.440 investigation to uncover who this tragically forgotten woman had been. 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:41.200 Morley's beautiful and hypnotic film Dreams of a Life, released 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:45.160 in twenty eleven, pieces together the story of Joyce's life 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:50.400 in an attempt to rescue her existence from obscurity. It 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:54.240 is surely a fate that haunts us all the sadness 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:57.360 of a life forgotten, an affirmation of a degree of 0:03:57.400 --> 0:04:01.800 meaninglessness too profound to comprehend. We see it in the 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:05.480 propensity for social media to so often operate not as 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.119 a tool with which to explore each other, but rather 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:12.360 a means with which to validate ourselves, our way of 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:15.320 saying not only that this is who we are, but 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:18.520 in the way of old school room graffiti. Perhaps it 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:21.839 is more fundamentally a way of merely saying that we 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:29.200 were here, that we exist. You're listening to Unexplained and 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:42.080 I'm Richard MacLean Smith. The British Industrial Revolution was a 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:47.400 time of extraordinary physical and philosophical upheaval, a time, as 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:51.440 the inimitable Humphrey Jennings once observed, that was borne from 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:55.800 a sudden synchronicity of vision and the means of production. 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:01.480 But its fuel was, of course the land, the raw 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:05.159 materials that men and women ripped from the ground and 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:10.640 smelt it in the factories Throughout the country. Colossal cauldrons 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:14.360 of industry sprouted up around the places where such fuel 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:19.560 was most in abundance. One such centre, perhaps the most 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:23.839 intense of the mall, was the Black Country, a region 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:27.520 in the west Midlands of England whose very name proudly 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:31.800 bears the scars of its past. As the Scottish philosopher 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:34.800 Thomas Carlyle once wrote of the place at the time, 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:39.799 a dense cloud of pestilential smoke hangs over it forever, 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:44.480 blackening even the grain that grows upon it, and at 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:49.560 night the whole region burns like a volcano, spitting fire 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:54.080 from a thousand tubes of brick. At the height of 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:57.719 the Revolution, the region was a city of chimney stacks, 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:03.800 of iron foundries and steel mills, but its blood was coal. 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:09.920 In fact, traditionalists consider the real Black Country to only 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:13.279 include the region just west of Birmingham, where the thirty 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:17.359 foot coal seam comes to the surface, a product of 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:21.280 once living trees compressed and buried for millions of years, 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:27.960 returning to the surface like an irrepressible secret. There are 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:32.560 some who say the trees can talk, and if they could, 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:38.520 what secrets might they hold. On the edge of the 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:42.040 Black Country, there is an area of forest just outside 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:45.520 of Birmingham that today is struck through by the busy 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:48.840 A four five six road, But in years gone by 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:52.880 it was a far more wild and darkly place. It 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:55.039 is thought by some to be imbued with the sort 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:58.960 of magic, a place where witches may have gathered, and 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:05.000 perhaps or perhaps it is merely a place that echoes 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.080 with the footsteps of ancient people who once walked and 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:12.360 eventually settled on the land. Indeed, it is possible that 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:15.160 settlers may have frequented the area as far back as 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:20.760 Neolithic times. Certainly, the nearby Witchbury Ring Fort is evidence 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:24.240 of a local community having existed here as far back 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:29.880 as the second or first century b c. By nineteen 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.040 forty three, although signs of the fort can still be found, 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:37.640 they have faded well into the land. Half the world 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:40.160 is in the grip of war, and for anyone who 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:44.480 has found themselves mercilessly drawn into the horrors abroad, home 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:48.960 is a distant and aching memory. For those left behind, 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:53.520 home is a familiar but forever changed landscape, with or 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:59.600 without the bombs. For Birmingham and the immediate surrounds, those 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.760 bombs would come thick and fast, being as it was 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:06.080 the second most populous city in the UK and a 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:10.240 major center of industry. It is hard to imagine that 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:14.120 in the midst of such turmoil, something hidden, a secret 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:18.120 closer to home might somehow penetrate the sound of those bombs. 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:24.320 But in April of nineteen forty three, it did. What 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:28.320 happened exactly one evening, under the cover of darkness, while 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:32.040 explosives reigned down only a few miles away, has never 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:36.200 been fully accounted for. It is a mystery that remains 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:47.000 to this day unexplained. Barely ten miles to the west 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:50.040 of Birmingham, in the shadow of the Clint Hills lies 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:53.880 the village of Hagley. On a warm spring evening, in 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:57.440 the magic hour, as dusk begins to fall, four young 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:02.080 boys of roaming through the Hagley Woods. The date is Sunday, 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:07.520 April eighteenth, and the youngsters are Robert Hart, Thomas Willits, 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:12.960 Bob Farmer and Fred Payne. With rationing starting to bite, 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:18.000 the boys, although they wouldn't tell you, are searching for food, birds, 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:22.559 eggs or rabbits. If they're lucky, as their father's fight 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:25.760 in foreign fields to protect the green and pleasant lands 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:29.320 of home. The boys might be forgiven for thinking such 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.320 wide open country to be as much theirs as any 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:36.240 other Englishman, but such is the way of things. The 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.440 land has been privately owned by the Lyttleton family since 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:45.959 fifteen fifty six, and the boys are trespassing. The area 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:49.360 is known as Hagley Park, taking its name from Hagley Hall, 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:52.640 which in nineteen forty three is home to Charles John 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:58.280 Lyttleton the tenth Viscount Cobbham. The boys are about to 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:01.800 make their way back home when if something catches their eye. 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:06.640 A tree unlike any of the others around. The trunk 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:10.760 appears strangely squat, having at some point been heavily coppiced. 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:14.920 As a result, a shocking mesh of spinly branches has 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:17.320 grown out at the top of it, forming the perfect 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:23.520 sanctuary for nesting animals. Fifteen year old Bob Farmer volunteers 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:26.680 to take a closer look and swiftly scrambles up through 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:31.160 the branches. Having soon reached the top, he looks down 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:35.320 into the gaping hollow of the tree. In the fading light, 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:38.640 he can just make out the familiar dusty white hue 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:43.040 of a bird's egg. Reaching down. He stretches his arm 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:47.080 deep into the trunk, but the egg remains tantalizingly out 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:50.720 of reach. With the aid of a stick, he manages 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.320 to move it, but it's bigger than he expected and 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:58.319 seems to be wedged inside. With great care, Bob manages 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:01.400 to dislodge the egg. As it starts to move free, 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:04.960 something dawns on him. Not only would this be the 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:08.640 largest egg he had ever seen, but that familiar dusty 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:12.319 white hue is a little darker and more yellow than 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:17.559 it had at first appeared. It looks more like bone. 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:21.240 When finally he lifts it from the hollow, it is 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:24.640 clear that it is not an egg at all. It is, 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:30.280 in fact a skull, a human skull. Bob holds it 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:33.160 aloft as the other boys look on with a mix 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:38.679 of fear and wonder. A quick discussion ensues. Is it 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:41.200 really what they think it is? How old is it? 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:45.240 Should they tell someone? Fred is keen to show it 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:48.480 to his older brother Donald, But in the end they 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:51.600 decide to keep it between them, better that than risk 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:56.520 punishment for poaching on private land. With night fast approaching, 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:01.960 one of the boys notices some material protruding from the farmer, 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:05.240 pushes it into the skull, and taking the stick, climbs 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:08.760 back up the trunk and carefully lowers the mistaken treasure 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:13.000 back into the hollow, and there it might possibly have 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:17.320 remained if it wasn't for the fact that unsurprisingly, something 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:21.920 of the event had followed the boy's home. The youngest, 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:25.760 Tommy Willits, was finding it particularly difficult to erase the 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:29.280 ghoulish image from his mind, an image that had found 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:34.160 its way into his dreams. The next morning, unable to 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:37.640 ignore it any longer, Tommy told his parents, who in 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:48.240 turn wasted little time in telling the police. The next day, 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:53.520 Sergeant Charles Lamborne is dispatched to investigate. En route to 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:57.480 the forest, Lamborne calls in on Robert Hart, the oldest 0:12:57.520 --> 0:12:59.760 of the boys, to help lead him to the strange 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:04.680 and tree. A short time later, having pointed out the location, 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:09.080 the young heart watches on as Lamborne, along with Sergeants 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:13.439 Richard Skerratt and Jack Wheeler, and Constable Jack Pound take 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:17.520 it in turns to peer into the cavernous trunk. The 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:20.880 boys had indeed found a human skull, but what they 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:24.280 didn't know was that the peculiar tree was also hiding 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:28.960 the rest of the body. One of the men remarks 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:32.520 that the tree is an old and rotted witch hazel, 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:36.920 also known as which elm, a tree long associated with 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:41.040 the underworld, the name which derives from the Old English 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:45.680 word meaning pliant and durable. This feature of which elm 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:48.800 wood is one of the reasons it was traditionally used 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:53.800 to build coffins. The policemen request a forensic team to 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:56.200 come and inspect the body, but they are unable to 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:59.920 attend until the following morning. As a result, a volunteer 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:04.000 is sought to guard the skeleton through the night. The 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:08.040 task falls to Squadron Leader William Douglas Osborne, a former 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:13.319 Special Constable home on leave for a few days. That night, Monday, 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:17.319 April the nineteenth, Osborne kept watch over the remains of 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:21.240 the unknown, encased like a missive from the underworld itself 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:26.160 inside the natural coffin of the old witch Elm. The 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:30.480 following morning, on Tuesday, April the twentieth, Douglas Osborne was 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:34.680 relieved of his duty by Superintendent Sidney Knight, Deputy Inspector 0:14:34.680 --> 0:14:40.440 Thomas Williams, and Constable Jack Pound. Later that evening, at 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:45.000 approximately six forty the police were joined by Professor James Webster, 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:49.360 head of the newly established Home Office Forensic Science Laboratory 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:55.920 at nearby Birmingham University. Webster was a foreboding figure described 0:14:55.960 --> 0:15:00.160 by writer John Mervyn Pew in his book Execution as 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:03.080 a large, balding Scot with a glass eye and a 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:06.400 monocle to enhance the vision of the other. He would 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:09.960 often arrive on the scene scruffly dressed in baggy trousers 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:13.400 and an old brown Harris tweed jacket with his tie 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:18.160 hanging loose half way around his neck. With the ladder 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:22.120 safely secured by the tree, the imposing Webster clambered up 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:25.840 to take a look inside. It was clear immediately the 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:30.360 great access would be needed. An axe was called for 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:35.040 and handed over to Constable Pound as the other men 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:38.520 stood back and watched, Pound swung the axe and cut 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:41.880 into the bowl of the tree. One blow was followed 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:45.480 by another until a clear break had been made large 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:49.720 enough to pull the skeleton out. With great care, the 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:53.000 men worked together to free the bones before laying them 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:57.320 out gently on the forest floor. On the ground, the 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:00.760 skeleton appears at first to be fairly intact, but Webster 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:04.680 is quick to notice a number of missing fragments. After 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:08.960 a quick search of the immediate vicinity, Webster stumbles upon 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:13.320 the slightly chewed tibia of the left leg. One small 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:17.120 midnight blue shoe with a crep's sole is also pulled 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:21.080 from the splintered trunk. With the pieces now laid out 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:23.720 from the size and frame, as well as the few 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:27.840 bits of material that remained, Webster could see instantly that 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:31.000 the boys had stumbled upon the skeleton of a young woman. 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:44.440 Later that evening, the first of the bones are delivered 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:47.720 to the West Midlands Forensic Science Laboratory to be formally 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:52.280 assessed by Webster and his assistant, doctor John Lund. Over 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:55.120 the course of the next few days. The various sections 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:59.080 are deftly laid out by the two pathologists. Any external 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:03.200 fabric is delicate removed, and slowly a body begins to 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:09.000 take shape. Professor Webster proceeds while doctor Lund records its findings. 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:13.720 He begins at the skull, noting that it is undoubtedly 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:16.639 that of a female and there are no obvious marks 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:20.080 of a fatal injury. On the side of the skull, 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:24.560 it's a small clump of mousey brown hair. An examination 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:27.679 of the jaw reveals a clean and healthy set of teeth, 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:32.640 with one peculiarity, a noticeable irregularity of the front two 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:37.680 in sizes which overlap slightly. A piece of material, part 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:40.320 of a khaki or mustard coloured dress that the deceased 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:43.240 would have worn, is found lodged into the cavity of 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:47.399 the mouth, suggesting a possible cause of death, perhaps placed 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:53.480 in the victim's mouth to hasten asphyxiation. Moving down the skeleton, 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:57.840 Professor Webster notes no signs of disease or ill health, 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:00.960 with the fine condition of both the h hyoid bone 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:04.440 and the sternum suggesting that the victim was a woman 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:09.479 below the age of forty. The pelvis reaffirms the victim 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:13.280 as being indisputably female, with a particular feature in two 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:16.440 of the hip bones suggesting a childbirth at some point, 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:21.760 though this is deemed inconclusive. All in all, Webster finds 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:25.640 little unusual, with the major exception of one thing. The 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:32.520 entirety of her right hand was missing. Professor Webster concludes 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:35.399 the victim to have been a female of approximately thirty 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:38.680 five years of age, of lower than average height, placing 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:42.960 her at roughly five feet tall. The time of death 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:46.960 is given as approximately eighteen months previously, due to the 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:49.960 state of decomposition and the age of the tree roots 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:53.440 which had weaved their way through what remained of the clothes. 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:57.720 Since the victim had to have been placed in the 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:02.360 hollow before riga mortis, if, as Webster suspected, she had 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:05.480 been murdered, it is likely that she would have been 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:09.040 placed in the tree while she was still warm, possibly 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:14.240 even alive. As such, she would likely have been murdered nearby, 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:19.879 or at least driven to the spot in a significant hurry. 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:23.679 An assessment of the rotted fragments of clothing reveal the 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.600 remains of a mustard colored cloth skirt, as well as 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:31.040 a dark blue and yellow striped knitted cardigan. An inexpensive 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:33.960 wedding ring is also found, which may have been worn 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:38.600 for as long as four years. Back in the forest, 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:41.399 members of the Home Guard, with the assistance of a 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:46.240 local scout group, continue to comb the area. A second 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:49.120 shoe is found not far from the tree, as well 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:53.720 as a green glass bottle. A short time later, one 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:58.280 of the volunteers notices something protruding from the soil. As 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:02.119 he digs into the earth, coils in horror as there, 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:12.960 buried just below the surface is the missing right hand. 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:17.920 Taking Webster's bone and material analysis, the Worcestershire Constabulary put 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:20.640 together a poster campaign in the hope of encouraging any 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:24.399 witnesses to come forward, but as the days turn to 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:28.200 weeks and then to months, despite evidence that the victim 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:31.199 had possibly been married at the time of death and 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:35.960 may also have borne a child, remarkably nobody comes forward. 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:40.720 Then an identity card is found in the woods, but 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:43.719 when the police visit the owner's address, they are somewhat 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:46.960 disappointed to find her alive and well, if a little 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:49.800 bemused as to how her ID card was found so 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:55.080 close to a possible murder scene. All in awe, the 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:58.719 police trawl through over three thousand open reports of missing 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:03.000 women but are unable to find a significant match. The 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:06.080 irregularity of the teeth offered a glimmer of hope, but 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:10.520 a subsequent check of all UK dental records again yields nothing. 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:15.359 The green glass bottle is also analyzed but reveals little 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:18.800 of interest, but the police enjoys some luck when the 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:23.000 crep sold shoes are traced to one specific manufacturer by 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:28.920 the name of Silsby's, located in nearby Northampton. Almost six 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:32.040 thousand pairs of the shoes have been made, but remarkably 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:35.080 all of the owners are traced, except for those of 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:38.320 six pairs that are eventually tracked to a market store 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:43.640 in nearby Dudley, where the trail goes cold. A similar 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:47.560 process is attempted with the clothes, but curiously, all of 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:51.960 the labels have been cut or removed entirely. A strange 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:55.760 state of affairs, perhaps, but also one that was in 0:21:55.840 --> 0:21:58.200 keeping with the notion that the shoes might have been 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:02.200 market bought, since store owners would often remove the labels 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:06.440 of the clothes they sold. In spite of the distraction 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:09.840 and devastation of war, the mystery of the skeleton found 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:12.479 in Hagley Wood, now being referred to in the press 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:15.359 as the tree murder riddle, had continued to hold a 0:22:15.359 --> 0:22:18.840 firm grip on the local community, But as the months 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:22.359 wore on, the tale of yet one more wartime death 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:28.479 had begun to fizzle from the public consciousness. After six months, 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:31.760 the police had drawn a complete blank, with no leads 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:34.199 and not even as much as a name for the 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:46.119 tragic forgotten victim. But all that was about to change. 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:49.800 It was on one morning, some time towards Christmas of 0:22:49.920 --> 0:22:53.800 nineteen forty three, that the rising sun revealed a cryptic 0:22:53.880 --> 0:22:57.359 message hastily scrawled across a wall in the nearby village 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:02.439 of Old Hill in chalk in three inch high capital 0:23:02.560 --> 0:23:07.520 letters were the words who put Lubella down the witch elm. 0:23:09.600 --> 0:23:12.720 Not long after, another message appeared scrawled on a wall 0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:19.159 in Birmingham, declaring hagley Wood bella Again and again. The 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:24.280 messages continued to appear, evolving each time, until eventually settling 0:23:24.280 --> 0:23:26.959 on what has perhaps become the most well known phrase, 0:23:27.680 --> 0:23:33.040 who put Bella in the witch elm? But who had 0:23:33.080 --> 0:23:36.760 authored these teasing questions? Do they really know who the 0:23:36.800 --> 0:23:40.320 dead woman was or what may have happened to her? 0:23:41.400 --> 0:23:46.360 And why are they not talking to the police? As 0:23:46.359 --> 0:23:50.200 if from nowhere, it would seem the authorities now had 0:23:50.240 --> 0:23:54.440 a name to work with, but the mystery was only 0:23:54.640 --> 0:24:06.080 just beginning. As Christmas approached, at last, the authorities had 0:24:06.080 --> 0:24:09.520 something to work with, a name, or at least the 0:24:09.560 --> 0:24:13.800 derivation of a name. Now, the police began to focus 0:24:13.840 --> 0:24:16.840 their efforts on women with versions of the name Bella 0:24:17.440 --> 0:24:20.200 who may have gone missing. Around the autumn of nineteen 0:24:20.280 --> 0:24:25.160 forty one. One woman was of particular interest, whose name, 0:24:25.320 --> 0:24:29.560 Bella Lua, bore a striking similarity to the name Leua Bella, 0:24:30.000 --> 0:24:33.080 as depicted in the earliest of the graffiti linked to 0:24:33.160 --> 0:24:38.040 the case. Bella. Leua's friends had become concerned when they 0:24:38.040 --> 0:24:41.080 lost all contact with her after she moved to Birmingham 0:24:41.240 --> 0:24:46.120 from Stamford Hill in London. Although Lewa's whereabouts were never 0:24:46.200 --> 0:24:50.320 officially established, she was eventually deemed irrelevant to the case. 0:24:51.520 --> 0:24:53.960 As for all the other missing bellas that the police 0:24:54.000 --> 0:24:58.080 looked into, they were found alive and well before long. 0:24:58.560 --> 0:25:04.640 The investigation it wall in defense of the Worcestershire Constabulary. 0:25:05.119 --> 0:25:08.320 Nineteen forty one was a difficult time to be keeping 0:25:08.359 --> 0:25:12.399 track of British citizens, and with resources stretched to the limit, 0:25:12.840 --> 0:25:15.000 it is much to the credit of the force that 0:25:15.000 --> 0:25:19.600 such an extensive investigation was conducted at all. As the 0:25:19.640 --> 0:25:22.879 months passed and war eventually came to an end, the 0:25:22.920 --> 0:25:27.320 public interest in the case soon diminished by the summer 0:25:27.359 --> 0:25:30.560 of nineteen forty five, with the nation celebrating an end 0:25:30.600 --> 0:25:34.600 to hostilities while mourning their countless other dead. The Tree 0:25:34.680 --> 0:25:40.439 murder riddle was fated to remain unsolved and forgotten, but 0:25:40.600 --> 0:25:44.240 someone was about to make a startling claim concerning a 0:25:44.320 --> 0:25:47.120 vital piece of the evidence that they believed had been 0:25:47.160 --> 0:25:59.920 criminally overlooked, the severed right hand back In eighteen ninety eight, 0:26:00.320 --> 0:26:03.720 at the age of thirty five, doctor Margaret Murray was 0:26:03.760 --> 0:26:06.520 making a name for herself in the field of egyptology. 0:26:07.840 --> 0:26:11.159 She had just become the first female lecturer in archaeology 0:26:11.400 --> 0:26:15.080 in the United Kingdom, having accepted a post at University 0:26:15.119 --> 0:26:19.119 College London. She would continue to work and teach at 0:26:19.119 --> 0:26:23.160 the university until her retirement in nineteen thirty five at 0:26:23.160 --> 0:26:28.840 the age of seventy two. Although formerly an anthropologist and historian, 0:26:29.280 --> 0:26:32.879 Murray was perhaps best known for her highly controversial views 0:26:33.119 --> 0:26:38.560 regarding the history of witches. Her primary theory became known 0:26:38.880 --> 0:26:43.920 as the witch cult hypothesis. The theory suggests that, rather 0:26:43.960 --> 0:26:48.000 than being the hapless victims of vile and arbitrary witch hunts, 0:26:48.000 --> 0:26:53.000 witches persecuted throughout European history, where in fact followers of 0:26:53.040 --> 0:26:57.879 a definite religion, with beliefs, rituals, and organization as highly 0:26:57.880 --> 0:27:01.560 developed as that of any cult. What drew her attention 0:27:01.760 --> 0:27:05.399 to the Hagleywood case was the curious revelation that the 0:27:05.520 --> 0:27:08.399 right hand had been found separated from the rest of 0:27:08.400 --> 0:27:13.560 the skeleton and buried in the ground. The police merely 0:27:13.600 --> 0:27:16.600 assumed it to be the work of an industrious forest animal. 0:27:17.440 --> 0:27:21.360 To doctor Murray, however, it suggested something far more sinister. 0:27:22.800 --> 0:27:26.400 She believed that, instead of being a gruesome but incidental 0:27:26.440 --> 0:27:30.080 off cut, the hand had in fact been removed and 0:27:30.119 --> 0:27:33.280 placed in the ground deliberately as part of an elaborate 0:27:33.320 --> 0:27:38.160 occult ritual. Doctor Murray suggested that the severed hand may 0:27:38.200 --> 0:27:41.119 have been used to create a magic artifact known as 0:27:41.160 --> 0:27:45.600 a hand of glory. Traditionally, such totems were made by 0:27:45.640 --> 0:27:49.159 removing the right hand of a convicted criminal, followed by 0:27:49.200 --> 0:27:52.680 the casting of a spell to invest the separated extremity 0:27:53.040 --> 0:27:57.720 with magical power. A bizarre suggestion, you might think, but 0:27:57.840 --> 0:28:01.480 not so, she believed if the victim had been considered 0:28:01.640 --> 0:28:05.600 to be a witch. The theory was given more weight by 0:28:05.640 --> 0:28:09.679 the location of the body, As outlined in James George 0:28:09.720 --> 0:28:13.680 Fraser's groundbreaking book The Golden Bough. There is a rich 0:28:13.720 --> 0:28:17.480 tradition in Celtic and Pagan beliefs of investing trees with 0:28:17.560 --> 0:28:22.560 spirits and sometimes souls of their own. In addition, there 0:28:22.600 --> 0:28:25.520 are some who believe that certain trees have the power 0:28:25.680 --> 0:28:30.280 to bind magic. There are some who believe Hagley Wood 0:28:30.440 --> 0:28:33.160 to have long been a traditional meeting place for covens 0:28:33.160 --> 0:28:36.080 of witches, and it certainly wouldn't have been the first 0:28:36.119 --> 0:28:39.480 time that an occult ritual had been conducted in England. 0:28:39.640 --> 0:28:45.480