Speaker 1: Due to the recent arrival of another Minnie McLean Smith.
Speaker 1: The next new episode will be with you next Friday,
Speaker 1: June thirteenth. In the meantime, we're heading back into the
Speaker 1: vault for this week's episode, going all the way back
Speaker 1: to the beginning of season two. England's Black Country, a
Speaker 1: region just west of Birmingham, is considered one of the
Speaker 1: birthplaces of the British Industrial Revolution. It's centered around a
Speaker 1: thirty foot wide and unusually shallow coal seam, a product
Speaker 1: of once living trees compressed and buried for millions of years,
Speaker 1: returning to the surface like an irrepressible secret. There are
Speaker 1: some who say the trees can talk, and if they could,
Speaker 1: what secrets might they hold? In full for the first time,
Speaker 1: this is unexplained. Season two episode one Whispers in the Trees.
Speaker 1: At nineteen hundred hours on Wednesday, January nineteenth, two thousand six,
Speaker 1: NASA's New Horizons Probe, propelled by the Majestic Atlasphe rocket,
Speaker 1: is launched into space, having begun its journey at Cape
Speaker 1: Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The probe, which is
Speaker 1: part of the New Frontiers program, is the focal point
Speaker 1: of NASA's first ever mission to Pluto. With the spacecraft
Speaker 1: being hurled towards its target at over thirty six thousand
Speaker 1: miles per hour, it will be another ten years before
Speaker 1: it begins to uncover the secrets lying in wait at
Speaker 1: the outer regions of our solar system back home, a
Speaker 1: week after the launch, in a small bedsit in London,
Speaker 1: a far more earthly discovery is about to be made.
Speaker 1: On the afternoon Wednesday, January twenty sixth a team of
Speaker 1: housing officials are making their way towards a flat in
Speaker 1: wood Green, North London. The apartment is part of a
Speaker 1: complex known locally as Sky City, which forms an estate
Speaker 1: perched on top of a vast shopping mall. When the
Speaker 1: team arrive at the front door, noises from the TV
Speaker 1: can be heard emanating from inside the flat, an indication
Speaker 1: perhaps that the occupier is home. The office's subsequent knocks, however,
Speaker 1: go unanswered, and after a few minutes they decide to
Speaker 1: break down the door. Stepping into the gloom of the
Speaker 1: flat beyond, the offices, are first struck by a cloying
Speaker 1: smell that hangs thickly in the air. Pushing the front
Speaker 1: door wider reveals a stack of unopened mail on the
Speaker 1: floor or the while the voices from the TV continue uninterrupted.
Speaker 1: A moment later, the officers step into the living room
Speaker 1: and make a gruesome discovery. Lying there on the sofa,
Speaker 1: illuminated by the incessant flickering of the TV screen, are
Speaker 1: the skeletal remains of the tenant. A pile of Christmas
Speaker 1: presents lie unopened on the floor. The tenant was thirty
Speaker 1: eight year old Joyce Carol Vincent, and her body at Laine,
Speaker 1: undiscovered and unreported for over two years. Filmmaker Carol Morley
Speaker 1: was so moved by this revelation that she began an
Speaker 1: investigation to uncover who this tragically forgotten woman had been.
Speaker 1: Morley's beautiful and hypnotic film Dreams of a Life, released
Speaker 1: in twenty eleven, pieces together the story of Joyce's life
Speaker 1: in an attempt to rescue her existence from obscurity. It
Speaker 1: is surely a fate that haunts us all the sadness
Speaker 1: of a life forgotten, an affirmation of a degree of
Speaker 1: meaninglessness too profound to comprehend. We see it in the
Speaker 1: propensity for social media to so often operate not as
Speaker 1: a tool with which to explore each other, but rather
Speaker 1: a means with which to validate ourselves, our way of
Speaker 1: saying not only that this is who we are, but
Speaker 1: in the way of old school room graffiti. Perhaps it
Speaker 1: is more fundamentally a way of merely saying that we
Speaker 1: were here, that we exist. You're listening to Unexplained and
Speaker 1: I'm Richard MacLean Smith. The British Industrial Revolution was a
Speaker 1: time of extraordinary physical and philosophical upheaval, a time, as
Speaker 1: the inimitable Humphrey Jennings once observed, that was borne from
Speaker 1: a sudden synchronicity of vision and the means of production.
Speaker 1: But its fuel was, of course the land, the raw
Speaker 1: materials that men and women ripped from the ground and
Speaker 1: smelt it in the factories Throughout the country. Colossal cauldrons
Speaker 1: of industry sprouted up around the places where such fuel
Speaker 1: was most in abundance. One such centre, perhaps the most
Speaker 1: intense of the mall, was the Black Country, a region
Speaker 1: in the west Midlands of England whose very name proudly
Speaker 1: bears the scars of its past. As the Scottish philosopher
Speaker 1: Thomas Carlyle once wrote of the place at the time,
Speaker 1: a dense cloud of pestilential smoke hangs over it forever,
Speaker 1: blackening even the grain that grows upon it, and at
Speaker 1: night the whole region burns like a volcano, spitting fire
Speaker 1: from a thousand tubes of brick. At the height of
Speaker 1: the Revolution, the region was a city of chimney stacks,
Speaker 1: of iron foundries and steel mills, but its blood was coal.
Speaker 1: In fact, traditionalists consider the real Black Country to only
Speaker 1: include the region just west of Birmingham, where the thirty
Speaker 1: foot coal seam comes to the surface, a product of
Speaker 1: once living trees compressed and buried for millions of years,
Speaker 1: returning to the surface like an irrepressible secret. There are
Speaker 1: some who say the trees can talk, and if they could,
Speaker 1: what secrets might they hold. On the edge of the
Speaker 1: Black Country, there is an area of forest just outside
Speaker 1: of Birmingham that today is struck through by the busy
Speaker 1: A four five six road, But in years gone by
Speaker 1: it was a far more wild and darkly place. It
Speaker 1: is thought by some to be imbued with the sort
Speaker 1: of magic, a place where witches may have gathered, and
Speaker 1: perhaps or perhaps it is merely a place that echoes
Speaker 1: with the footsteps of ancient people who once walked and
Speaker 1: eventually settled on the land. Indeed, it is possible that
Speaker 1: settlers may have frequented the area as far back as
Speaker 1: Neolithic times. Certainly, the nearby Witchbury Ring Fort is evidence
Speaker 1: of a local community having existed here as far back
Speaker 1: as the second or first century b c. By nineteen
Speaker 1: forty three, although signs of the fort can still be found,
Speaker 1: they have faded well into the land. Half the world
Speaker 1: is in the grip of war, and for anyone who
Speaker 1: has found themselves mercilessly drawn into the horrors abroad, home
Speaker 1: is a distant and aching memory. For those left behind,
Speaker 1: home is a familiar but forever changed landscape, with or
Speaker 1: without the bombs. For Birmingham and the immediate surrounds, those
Speaker 1: bombs would come thick and fast, being as it was
Speaker 1: the second most populous city in the UK and a
Speaker 1: major center of industry. It is hard to imagine that
Speaker 1: in the midst of such turmoil, something hidden, a secret
Speaker 1: closer to home might somehow penetrate the sound of those bombs.
Speaker 1: But in April of nineteen forty three, it did. What
Speaker 1: happened exactly one evening, under the cover of darkness, while
Speaker 1: explosives reigned down only a few miles away, has never
Speaker 1: been fully accounted for. It is a mystery that remains
Speaker 1: to this day unexplained. Barely ten miles to the west
Speaker 1: of Birmingham, in the shadow of the Clint Hills lies
Speaker 1: the village of Hagley. On a warm spring evening, in
Speaker 1: the magic hour, as dusk begins to fall, four young
Speaker 1: boys of roaming through the Hagley Woods. The date is Sunday,
Speaker 1: April eighteenth, and the youngsters are Robert Hart, Thomas Willits,
Speaker 1: Bob Farmer and Fred Payne. With rationing starting to bite,
Speaker 1: the boys, although they wouldn't tell you, are searching for food, birds,
Speaker 1: eggs or rabbits. If they're lucky, as their father's fight
Speaker 1: in foreign fields to protect the green and pleasant lands
Speaker 1: of home. The boys might be forgiven for thinking such
Speaker 1: wide open country to be as much theirs as any
Speaker 1: other Englishman, but such is the way of things. The
Speaker 1: land has been privately owned by the Lyttleton family since
Speaker 1: fifteen fifty six, and the boys are trespassing. The area
Speaker 1: is known as Hagley Park, taking its name from Hagley Hall,
Speaker 1: which in nineteen forty three is home to Charles John
Speaker 1: Lyttleton the tenth Viscount Cobbham. The boys are about to
Speaker 1: make their way back home when if something catches their eye.
Speaker 1: A tree unlike any of the others around. The trunk
Speaker 1: appears strangely squat, having at some point been heavily coppiced.
Speaker 1: As a result, a shocking mesh of spinly branches has
Speaker 1: grown out at the top of it, forming the perfect
Speaker 1: sanctuary for nesting animals. Fifteen year old Bob Farmer volunteers
Speaker 1: to take a closer look and swiftly scrambles up through
Speaker 1: the branches. Having soon reached the top, he looks down
Speaker 1: into the gaping hollow of the tree. In the fading light,
Speaker 1: he can just make out the familiar dusty white hue
Speaker 1: of a bird's egg. Reaching down. He stretches his arm
Speaker 1: deep into the trunk, but the egg remains tantalizingly out
Speaker 1: of reach. With the aid of a stick, he manages
Speaker 1: to move it, but it's bigger than he expected and
Speaker 1: seems to be wedged inside. With great care, Bob manages
Speaker 1: to dislodge the egg. As it starts to move free,
Speaker 1: something dawns on him. Not only would this be the
Speaker 1: largest egg he had ever seen, but that familiar dusty
Speaker 1: white hue is a little darker and more yellow than
Speaker 1: it had at first appeared. It looks more like bone.
Speaker 1: When finally he lifts it from the hollow, it is
Speaker 1: clear that it is not an egg at all. It is,
Speaker 1: in fact a skull, a human skull. Bob holds it
Speaker 1: aloft as the other boys look on with a mix
Speaker 1: of fear and wonder. A quick discussion ensues. Is it
Speaker 1: really what they think it is? How old is it?
Speaker 1: Should they tell someone? Fred is keen to show it
Speaker 1: to his older brother Donald, But in the end they
Speaker 1: decide to keep it between them, better that than risk
Speaker 1: punishment for poaching on private land. With night fast approaching,
Speaker 1: one of the boys notices some material protruding from the farmer,
Speaker 1: pushes it into the skull, and taking the stick, climbs
Speaker 1: back up the trunk and carefully lowers the mistaken treasure
Speaker 1: back into the hollow, and there it might possibly have
Speaker 1: remained if it wasn't for the fact that unsurprisingly, something
Speaker 1: of the event had followed the boy's home. The youngest,
Speaker 1: Tommy Willits, was finding it particularly difficult to erase the
Speaker 1: ghoulish image from his mind, an image that had found
Speaker 1: its way into his dreams. The next morning, unable to
Speaker 1: ignore it any longer, Tommy told his parents, who in
Speaker 1: turn wasted little time in telling the police. The next day,
Speaker 1: Sergeant Charles Lamborne is dispatched to investigate. En route to
Speaker 1: the forest, Lamborne calls in on Robert Hart, the oldest
Speaker 1: of the boys, to help lead him to the strange
Speaker 1: and tree. A short time later, having pointed out the location,
Speaker 1: the young heart watches on as Lamborne, along with Sergeants
Speaker 1: Richard Skerratt and Jack Wheeler, and Constable Jack Pound take
Speaker 1: it in turns to peer into the cavernous trunk. The
Speaker 1: boys had indeed found a human skull, but what they
Speaker 1: didn't know was that the peculiar tree was also hiding
Speaker 1: the rest of the body. One of the men remarks
Speaker 1: that the tree is an old and rotted witch hazel,
Speaker 1: also known as which elm, a tree long associated with
Speaker 1: the underworld, the name which derives from the Old English
Speaker 1: word meaning pliant and durable. This feature of which elm
Speaker 1: wood is one of the reasons it was traditionally used
Speaker 1: to build coffins. The policemen request a forensic team to
Speaker 1: come and inspect the body, but they are unable to
Speaker 1: attend until the following morning. As a result, a volunteer
Speaker 1: is sought to guard the skeleton through the night. The
Speaker 1: task falls to Squadron Leader William Douglas Osborne, a former
Speaker 1: Special Constable home on leave for a few days. That night, Monday,
Speaker 1: April the nineteenth, Osborne kept watch over the remains of
Speaker 1: the unknown, encased like a missive from the underworld itself
Speaker 1: inside the natural coffin of the old witch Elm. The
Speaker 1: following morning, on Tuesday, April the twentieth, Douglas Osborne was
Speaker 1: relieved of his duty by Superintendent Sidney Knight, Deputy Inspector
Speaker 1: Thomas Williams, and Constable Jack Pound. Later that evening, at
Speaker 1: approximately six forty the police were joined by Professor James Webster,
Speaker 1: head of the newly established Home Office Forensic Science Laboratory
Speaker 1: at nearby Birmingham University. Webster was a foreboding figure described
Speaker 1: by writer John Mervyn Pew in his book Execution as
Speaker 1: a large, balding Scot with a glass eye and a
Speaker 1: monocle to enhance the vision of the other. He would
Speaker 1: often arrive on the scene scruffly dressed in baggy trousers
Speaker 1: and an old brown Harris tweed jacket with his tie
Speaker 1: hanging loose half way around his neck. With the ladder
Speaker 1: safely secured by the tree, the imposing Webster clambered up
Speaker 1: to take a look inside. It was clear immediately the
Speaker 1: great access would be needed. An axe was called for
Speaker 1: and handed over to Constable Pound as the other men
Speaker 1: stood back and watched, Pound swung the axe and cut
Speaker 1: into the bowl of the tree. One blow was followed
Speaker 1: by another until a clear break had been made large
Speaker 1: enough to pull the skeleton out. With great care, the
Speaker 1: men worked together to free the bones before laying them
Speaker 1: out gently on the forest floor. On the ground, the
Speaker 1: skeleton appears at first to be fairly intact, but Webster
Speaker 1: is quick to notice a number of missing fragments. After
Speaker 1: a quick search of the immediate vicinity, Webster stumbles upon
Speaker 1: the slightly chewed tibia of the left leg. One small
Speaker 1: midnight blue shoe with a crep's sole is also pulled
Speaker 1: from the splintered trunk. With the pieces now laid out
Speaker 1: from the size and frame, as well as the few
Speaker 1: bits of material that remained, Webster could see instantly that
Speaker 1: the boys had stumbled upon the skeleton of a young woman.
Speaker 1: Later that evening, the first of the bones are delivered
Speaker 1: to the West Midlands Forensic Science Laboratory to be formally
Speaker 1: assessed by Webster and his assistant, doctor John Lund. Over
Speaker 1: the course of the next few days. The various sections
Speaker 1: are deftly laid out by the two pathologists. Any external
Speaker 1: fabric is delicate removed, and slowly a body begins to
Speaker 1: take shape. Professor Webster proceeds while doctor Lund records its findings.
Speaker 1: He begins at the skull, noting that it is undoubtedly
Speaker 1: that of a female and there are no obvious marks
Speaker 1: of a fatal injury. On the side of the skull,
Speaker 1: it's a small clump of mousey brown hair. An examination
Speaker 1: of the jaw reveals a clean and healthy set of teeth,
Speaker 1: with one peculiarity, a noticeable irregularity of the front two
Speaker 1: in sizes which overlap slightly. A piece of material, part
Speaker 1: of a khaki or mustard coloured dress that the deceased
Speaker 1: would have worn, is found lodged into the cavity of
Speaker 1: the mouth, suggesting a possible cause of death, perhaps placed
Speaker 1: in the victim's mouth to hasten asphyxiation. Moving down the skeleton,
Speaker 1: Professor Webster notes no signs of disease or ill health,
Speaker 1: with the fine condition of both the h hyoid bone
Speaker 1: and the sternum suggesting that the victim was a woman
Speaker 1: below the age of forty. The pelvis reaffirms the victim
Speaker 1: as being indisputably female, with a particular feature in two
Speaker 1: of the hip bones suggesting a childbirth at some point,
Speaker 1: though this is deemed inconclusive. All in all, Webster finds
Speaker 1: little unusual, with the major exception of one thing. The
Speaker 1: entirety of her right hand was missing. Professor Webster concludes
Speaker 1: the victim to have been a female of approximately thirty
Speaker 1: five years of age, of lower than average height, placing
Speaker 1: her at roughly five feet tall. The time of death
Speaker 1: is given as approximately eighteen months previously, due to the
Speaker 1: state of decomposition and the age of the tree roots
Speaker 1: which had weaved their way through what remained of the clothes.
Speaker 1: Since the victim had to have been placed in the
Speaker 1: hollow before riga mortis, if, as Webster suspected, she had
Speaker 1: been murdered, it is likely that she would have been
Speaker 1: placed in the tree while she was still warm, possibly
Speaker 1: even alive. As such, she would likely have been murdered nearby,
Speaker 1: or at least driven to the spot in a significant hurry.
Speaker 1: An assessment of the rotted fragments of clothing reveal the
Speaker 1: remains of a mustard colored cloth skirt, as well as
Speaker 1: a dark blue and yellow striped knitted cardigan. An inexpensive
Speaker 1: wedding ring is also found, which may have been worn
Speaker 1: for as long as four years. Back in the forest,
Speaker 1: members of the Home Guard, with the assistance of a
Speaker 1: local scout group, continue to comb the area. A second
Speaker 1: shoe is found not far from the tree, as well
Speaker 1: as a green glass bottle. A short time later, one
Speaker 1: of the volunteers notices something protruding from the soil. As
Speaker 1: he digs into the earth, coils in horror as there,
Speaker 1: buried just below the surface is the missing right hand.
Speaker 1: Taking Webster's bone and material analysis, the Worcestershire Constabulary put
Speaker 1: together a poster campaign in the hope of encouraging any
Speaker 1: witnesses to come forward, but as the days turn to
Speaker 1: weeks and then to months, despite evidence that the victim
Speaker 1: had possibly been married at the time of death and
Speaker 1: may also have borne a child, remarkably nobody comes forward.
Speaker 1: Then an identity card is found in the woods, but
Speaker 1: when the police visit the owner's address, they are somewhat
Speaker 1: disappointed to find her alive and well, if a little
Speaker 1: bemused as to how her ID card was found so
Speaker 1: close to a possible murder scene. All in awe, the
Speaker 1: police trawl through over three thousand open reports of missing
Speaker 1: women but are unable to find a significant match. The
Speaker 1: irregularity of the teeth offered a glimmer of hope, but
Speaker 1: a subsequent check of all UK dental records again yields nothing.
Speaker 1: The green glass bottle is also analyzed but reveals little
Speaker 1: of interest, but the police enjoys some luck when the
Speaker 1: crep sold shoes are traced to one specific manufacturer by
Speaker 1: the name of Silsby's, located in nearby Northampton. Almost six
Speaker 1: thousand pairs of the shoes have been made, but remarkably
Speaker 1: all of the owners are traced, except for those of
Speaker 1: six pairs that are eventually tracked to a market store
Speaker 1: in nearby Dudley, where the trail goes cold. A similar
Speaker 1: process is attempted with the clothes, but curiously, all of
Speaker 1: the labels have been cut or removed entirely. A strange
Speaker 1: state of affairs, perhaps, but also one that was in
Speaker 1: keeping with the notion that the shoes might have been
Speaker 1: market bought, since store owners would often remove the labels
Speaker 1: of the clothes they sold. In spite of the distraction
Speaker 1: and devastation of war, the mystery of the skeleton found
Speaker 1: in Hagley Wood, now being referred to in the press
Speaker 1: as the tree murder riddle, had continued to hold a
Speaker 1: firm grip on the local community, But as the months
Speaker 1: wore on, the tale of yet one more wartime death
Speaker 1: had begun to fizzle from the public consciousness. After six months,
Speaker 1: the police had drawn a complete blank, with no leads
Speaker 1: and not even as much as a name for the
Speaker 1: tragic forgotten victim. But all that was about to change.
Speaker 1: It was on one morning, some time towards Christmas of
Speaker 1: nineteen forty three, that the rising sun revealed a cryptic
Speaker 1: message hastily scrawled across a wall in the nearby village
Speaker 1: of Old Hill in chalk in three inch high capital
Speaker 1: letters were the words who put Lubella down the witch elm.
Speaker 1: Not long after, another message appeared scrawled on a wall
Speaker 1: in Birmingham, declaring hagley Wood bella Again and again. The
Speaker 1: messages continued to appear, evolving each time, until eventually settling
Speaker 1: on what has perhaps become the most well known phrase,
Speaker 1: who put Bella in the witch elm? But who had
Speaker 1: authored these teasing questions? Do they really know who the
Speaker 1: dead woman was or what may have happened to her?
Speaker 1: And why are they not talking to the police? As
Speaker 1: if from nowhere, it would seem the authorities now had
Speaker 1: a name to work with, but the mystery was only
Speaker 1: just beginning. As Christmas approached, at last, the authorities had
Speaker 1: something to work with, a name, or at least the
Speaker 1: derivation of a name. Now, the police began to focus
Speaker 1: their efforts on women with versions of the name Bella
Speaker 1: who may have gone missing. Around the autumn of nineteen
Speaker 1: forty one. One woman was of particular interest, whose name,
Speaker 1: Bella Lua, bore a striking similarity to the name Leua Bella,
Speaker 1: as depicted in the earliest of the graffiti linked to
Speaker 1: the case. Bella. Leua's friends had become concerned when they
Speaker 1: lost all contact with her after she moved to Birmingham
Speaker 1: from Stamford Hill in London. Although Lewa's whereabouts were never
Speaker 1: officially established, she was eventually deemed irrelevant to the case.
Speaker 1: As for all the other missing bellas that the police
Speaker 1: looked into, they were found alive and well before long.
Speaker 1: The investigation it wall in defense of the Worcestershire Constabulary.
Speaker 1: Nineteen forty one was a difficult time to be keeping
Speaker 1: track of British citizens, and with resources stretched to the limit,
Speaker 1: it is much to the credit of the force that
Speaker 1: such an extensive investigation was conducted at all. As the
Speaker 1: months passed and war eventually came to an end, the
Speaker 1: public interest in the case soon diminished by the summer
Speaker 1: of nineteen forty five, with the nation celebrating an end
Speaker 1: to hostilities while mourning their countless other dead. The Tree
Speaker 1: murder riddle was fated to remain unsolved and forgotten, but
Speaker 1: someone was about to make a startling claim concerning a
Speaker 1: vital piece of the evidence that they believed had been
Speaker 1: criminally overlooked, the severed right hand back In eighteen ninety eight,
Speaker 1: at the age of thirty five, doctor Margaret Murray was
Speaker 1: making a name for herself in the field of egyptology.
Speaker 1: She had just become the first female lecturer in archaeology
Speaker 1: in the United Kingdom, having accepted a post at University
Speaker 1: College London. She would continue to work and teach at
Speaker 1: the university until her retirement in nineteen thirty five at
Speaker 1: the age of seventy two. Although formerly an anthropologist and historian,
Speaker 1: Murray was perhaps best known for her highly controversial views
Speaker 1: regarding the history of witches. Her primary theory became known
Speaker 1: as the witch cult hypothesis. The theory suggests that, rather
Speaker 1: than being the hapless victims of vile and arbitrary witch hunts,
Speaker 1: witches persecuted throughout European history, where in fact followers of
Speaker 1: a definite religion, with beliefs, rituals, and organization as highly
Speaker 1: developed as that of any cult. What drew her attention
Speaker 1: to the Hagleywood case was the curious revelation that the
Speaker 1: right hand had been found separated from the rest of
Speaker 1: the skeleton and buried in the ground. The police merely
Speaker 1: assumed it to be the work of an industrious forest animal.
Speaker 1: To doctor Murray, however, it suggested something far more sinister.
Speaker 1: She believed that, instead of being a gruesome but incidental
Speaker 1: off cut, the hand had in fact been removed and
Speaker 1: placed in the ground deliberately as part of an elaborate
Speaker 1: occult ritual. Doctor Murray suggested that the severed hand may
Speaker 1: have been used to create a magic artifact known as
Speaker 1: a hand of glory. Traditionally, such totems were made by
Speaker 1: removing the right hand of a convicted criminal, followed by
Speaker 1: the casting of a spell to invest the separated extremity
Speaker 1: with magical power. A bizarre suggestion, you might think, but
Speaker 1: not so, she believed if the victim had been considered
Speaker 1: to be a witch. The theory was given more weight by
Speaker 1: the location of the body, As outlined in James George
Speaker 1: Fraser's groundbreaking book The Golden Bough. There is a rich
Speaker 1: tradition in Celtic and Pagan beliefs of investing trees with
Speaker 1: spirits and sometimes souls of their own. In addition, there
Speaker 1: are some who believe that certain trees have the power
Speaker 1: to bind magic. There are some who believe Hagley Wood
Speaker 1: to have long been a traditional meeting place for covens
Speaker 1: of witches, and it certainly wouldn't have been the first
Speaker 1: time that an occult ritual had been conducted in England.
Speaker 1: During the Second World War. In August nineteen forty, Gerald Gardner,
Speaker 1: a well known follower of pagan witchcraft, along with the
Speaker 1: number of other members of the New Forest coven performed
Speaker 1: a magic ritual that became known as Operation Cone of Power.
Speaker 1: It was hoped that the operation with Oltimate dissuade the
Speaker 1: High Command of Nazi Germany from invading the United Kingdom.
Speaker 1: It is also important to note that doctor Murray's theory
Speaker 1: wasn't based on any personal belief in the magic of witchcraft,
Speaker 1: but rather the notion that such practices did occur. Whether
Speaker 1: or not a hand of glory had any discernible power,
Speaker 1: it remains that somebody willing to believe in such things
Speaker 1: may have enacted some form of ritual in the murder
Speaker 1: of the unknown woman. In any case, despite influencing a
Speaker 1: number of well known authors such as Aldus Huxley and
Speaker 1: Robert Graves, Murray's Hagleywood theory and her witch cult hypothesis
Speaker 1: have been roundly discredited, and in reality, there is little
Speaker 1: to support her claim that the victim had been subject
Speaker 1: to a ritualistic killing. What Murray's theory did do, however,
Speaker 1: was to enact a sort of magic of its own.
Speaker 1: Such spells tend to be most post during times of uncertainty,
Speaker 1: when a scapegoat is required to make sense of the
Speaker 1: ills of the world. Perhaps it was only ever going
Speaker 1: to be a matter of time, but soon a bogey
Speaker 1: man would be brought forth from the fog of truth.
Speaker 1: With all the talk of ritual murder and black magic,
Speaker 1: fueled by a press ever ready to fan the flames
Speaker 1: of a salacious story, many became convinced that local travelers
Speaker 1: were to blame. The rumour would persist for ten years,
Speaker 1: but all that was about to change. In nineteen fifty three,
Speaker 1: a journalist at the Wolverhampton Express and Star, writing under
Speaker 1: the name Questa, decided to reassess the evidence. His real
Speaker 1: name was Wilfrid Bifford Jones. Bifford Jones, who had never
Speaker 1: been convinced by the reductive traveler theory, revisited the case
Speaker 1: in a series of articles appearing in late November of
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three. Concluding the series, in a third and
Speaker 1: final article published on Friday, November twentieth, Bifford Jones notes,
Speaker 1: whether the young woman is supposed to have been a
Speaker 1: gipsy who was ritualistically murdered with witchcraft or after a
Speaker 1: trial by her tribe, well, I do not accept it.
Speaker 1: It is true that there had been gypsies for years
Speaker 1: in the area, but every crime is laid at the
Speaker 1: door of Romany's. For Bifford Jones, the suggestions of witchcraft
Speaker 1: had been a gross and fanciful obscuring of the facts.
Speaker 1: It was a gallant and single minded campaign that fought
Speaker 1: to wrestle the case back from acceptable fiction to more
Speaker 1: unsettling fact. But nobody could have anticipated what came next
Speaker 1: when a few days later a Strange's letter landed on
Speaker 1: Bifford Jones's desk. It was postmarked Claverly, Wolverhampton and dated
Speaker 1: eighteenth of November nineteen fifty three. It read, my dear quest,
Speaker 1: finish your articles regarding the witch Elm crime. By all means,
Speaker 1: they are interesting to your readers, but you will never
Speaker 1: solve the mystery. The one person who could give the
Speaker 1: answer is now beyond the jurisdiction of earthly courts. The
Speaker 1: affair is closed and evolves no witches, black magic or
Speaker 1: moonlight rites. Much as I hate having to use a
Speaker 1: nom de plume, I think you would appreciate it if
Speaker 1: you knew me. The only clues I can give you
Speaker 1: are that the person responsible for the crime died insane
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty two, and the victim was Dutch and
Speaker 1: arrived in England illegally about nineteen forty one. I have
Speaker 1: no wish to recall any more, yours, sincerely, Anna. It
Speaker 1: is not uncommon for people to claim knowledge of crimes
Speaker 1: they have no connection to, but something of Anna's letter
Speaker 1: rang true to Bifford Jones. After a series of pleas
Speaker 1: for Anna to come forward and reveal herself, a few
Speaker 1: days later, against all expectation, she did. And so it
Speaker 1: was on one cold morning at the local police station
Speaker 1: that Anna proceeded to reveal everything that she knew. Her
Speaker 1: name was Una Hainsworth, and this was her story. Sometime
Speaker 1: in the early thirties, Una had met and fallen in
Speaker 1: love with a dashing young man called Jack moss Up.
Speaker 1: Not long after, the young lovers would be married and
Speaker 1: expecting their first child. Sure enough, in nineteen thirty two,
Speaker 1: with the couple still in their teens, a son, Julian,
Speaker 1: was born. As the country slowly clawed its way back
Speaker 1: from a decade of economic stagnation. Here encapsulated in the
Speaker 1: face of their new born baby was a renewed sense
Speaker 1: of hope for the future. But that hope would be
Speaker 1: short lived, for there as a shadow looming over the
Speaker 1: young family, a shadow that was soon to fall across
Speaker 1: most of the world. On Sunday, September third, nineteen thirty nine,
Speaker 1: at eleven fifteen, a m families up and down the
Speaker 1: land huddled around the wireless as Nevill Chamberlain announced that
Speaker 1: the country was at war. Less than a year later,
Speaker 1: on Friday, August ninth, nineteen forty, the first of many
Speaker 1: bombs dropped on the Midlands. What followed was just under
Speaker 1: two years of sustained bombing of the heavily industrialized region.
Speaker 1: For Jack, perhaps to his relief and shame, as a
Speaker 1: skilled factory worker, he was exempt from the draft and
Speaker 1: was instead assigned to work in coventry building munitions. But
Speaker 1: as the months wore on, UNA's relief that Jack had
Speaker 1: avoided the draft was tempered somewhat by a sudden change
Speaker 1: in his character. He started to drink more and stay
Speaker 1: out later, often at a new favorite haunt, a lively
Speaker 1: place on the edge of the Clent Hills called the
Speaker 1: Littleton Arms. He started buying new clothes, including an RAF
Speaker 1: officer's jacket to which he was not entitled. He had
Speaker 1: also started to accrue money from an unknown source. Una
Speaker 1: was particularly suspicious of the new crowd he seemed to
Speaker 1: be hanging out with, a suspicion that was further aroused
Speaker 1: when one of the crowd turned up one night at
Speaker 1: their home. The enigmatic man, who gave his name as
Speaker 1: Van Rolt, was well dressed and claimed to be from Holland,
Speaker 1: with a seat seemingly endless disposable income, despite no discernible
Speaker 1: occupation to speak of. One evening in the spring of
Speaker 1: nineteen forty one, after yet another late night, Jack returned
Speaker 1: home drunk and agitated. He'd been at the Littleton Arms
Speaker 1: again with Van Rolt, where they were joined by what
Speaker 1: he described as the Dutch piece. Jack claimed that the
Speaker 1: woman had become awkward and later passed out, at which
Speaker 1: point Van Rolt decided to play a trick on her.
Speaker 1: After carrying the woman to Van Ralt's car, the pair
Speaker 1: drove to a nearby wood and dropped her unconscious body
Speaker 1: into the hollow of a tree. They had only meant
Speaker 1: it as a joke, he said, believing in the morning
Speaker 1: that she would come to her senses. In the weeks
Speaker 1: that followed, it was clear to Una that something was
Speaker 1: playing on Jack's mind. As he retreated further into himself,
Speaker 1: and his behaviour became increasingly erratic. Una eventually had enough,
Speaker 1: so she left, taking their son with her. For Jack,
Speaker 1: now without his wife and child to keep him company,
Speaker 1: things began to unravel drastically. It wasn't their leaving that
Speaker 1: tortured him every night, but rather what had crept in
Speaker 1: in their absence. Later, after Una and Jack had divorced,
Speaker 1: Jack confided in Una. He told her that he was
Speaker 1: being driven mad by the recurring image of a woman's
Speaker 1: face leering at him from inside a tree. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't until Una heard that a skeleton had been found
Speaker 1: in Hagley Wood that she put the two events together.
Speaker 1: Back in the police station or those years later, the
Speaker 1: interviewing officers are dumbfounded by UNA's statement and immediately demand
Speaker 1: a contact address for her ex husband, but she couldn't
Speaker 1: give them one. Jack had been committed to a psychiatric
Speaker 1: hospital in Stafford in nineteen forty two. A few months later,
Speaker 1: at the age of twenty nine, he was dead, apparently
Speaker 1: driven insane by his recurring nightmare. But what really shook
Speaker 1: things up was UNA's parting thought on the matter. Van Rolt,
Speaker 1: she believed was the spy there is no firm evidence
Speaker 1: to suggest that Jack Mossup had found himself embroiled in
Speaker 1: a spy ring. So what to make of UNA's story. Certainly,
Speaker 1: much of it is true. She did indeed have an
Speaker 1: ex husband called Jack Mossup, who had been a regular
Speaker 1: visitor to the Littleton Arms. It is also true that
Speaker 1: he would later die in a psychiatric hospital in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty two. Police also had some luck in tracing the
Speaker 1: mysterious Van Rohlt figure, but nothing untoward could be found.
Speaker 1: It could be said that much of UNA's story begins
Speaker 1: to make more sense if her spy theory is applied. Certainly,
Speaker 1: in his capacity as a munition's worker in Birmingham, Jack
Speaker 1: would have been uniquely placed to pass off useful information
Speaker 1: to the German Air Force. Although UNA's spy theory was
Speaker 1: never officially confirmed, it was a theme keenly picked up
Speaker 1: fifteen years later by writer Donald McCormick. In nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: McCormick is alleged to have conducted a series of interviews
Speaker 1: with a former Nazi called Franz Rathgeb. It turned out
Speaker 1: that a number of spies had been active around the
Speaker 1: Midlands after all, at precisely the time that the unknown
Speaker 1: woman would have gone missing. One of those spies was Rathgeb.
Speaker 1: Although he claimed not to know anything of the murdered woman,
Speaker 1: he did recall a fellow spy by the name of
Speaker 1: Leara who had a Dutch girlfriend called Drunkers Clara Bella Drunkers,
Speaker 1: who was herself a spy living in the Birmingham region. Intriguingly,
Speaker 1: she would have been around thirty years old at the
Speaker 1: time of the murder and had a regular front teeth
Speaker 1: similar to those noted on the skeleton. Could it be
Speaker 1: that the fruitless search of dental records all those years
Speaker 1: ago hadn't failed because of an administrative error, but merely
Speaker 1: because the woman had not actually been from the UK.
Speaker 1: McCormack further alleged that he later came across some interesting
Speaker 1: information in declassified papers from German military intelligence. The papers
Speaker 1: suggested that a spy had been parachuted into the Midlands
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty one, but had then failed to make
Speaker 1: contact with their handlers. The name listed for the spy
Speaker 1: was Clara Bella. Needless to say, this theory two remains unconfirmed. However,
Speaker 1: on the eighteenth of May nineteen forty two, the British
Speaker 1: Navy intercepted an unregistered boat just off the coast of
Speaker 1: the UK. In it were three Dutch nationals who were
Speaker 1: promptly interrogated. After routine questioning, two of the men were
Speaker 1: deemed rational and of little threat. The third, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, became hysterical at the first sight of the
Speaker 1: British officers. He was immediately arrested and later convicted under
Speaker 1: the nineteen forty Treachery Act on suspicion of being a spy.
Speaker 1: His name was Johannes Marinus Drunkers. Was this the man
Speaker 1: Franz rathgeb knew as lera come in search of his
Speaker 1: missing wife? Sadly we will never know. On New Year's
Speaker 1: Eve of nineteen forty two, Johann's Drunkers was executed in
Speaker 1: Wandsworth Prison in London. Towards the end of the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: a number of British wartime files were declassified, with one
Speaker 1: proving of particular interest to our case. On the evening
Speaker 1: of January thirty one, nineteen forty one, just above the
Speaker 1: town of Ramsey in Cambridgeshire, high up in the night sky,
Speaker 1: a man was silently drifting down to earth. No one
Speaker 1: saw the black spot as it fell hard and fast,
Speaker 1: landing with a bump in a field next to Dove
Speaker 1: House Farm. Two men, Charles Bulldock and Harry Caulson, had
Speaker 1: been walking by the area shortly after when they heard
Speaker 1: the sound of a revolver being fired into the air.
Speaker 1: Locating the source of the gunshots, Bulldock and Coulson were
Speaker 1: astonished to find a man lying on his back in
Speaker 1: a field surrounded by the silken canopy of a parachute.
Speaker 1: The man, who was in some distress, had clearly broken
Speaker 1: his leg. Coulson ran immediately to fetch James Godfrey, a
Speaker 1: member of the Home Guard, who in turn telephoned Ramsey
Speaker 1: Police Station before accompanying Coulson to take a look at
Speaker 1: the prostrate man. Godfrey later noted that the man had
Speaker 1: been wearing civilian clothes underneath his flying suit. They also
Speaker 1: found in his possession an attache case four to five
Speaker 1: hundred pounds in one pound notes and a wallet. Together,
Speaker 1: the three men bound the parachutist's leg and waited for
Speaker 1: further instructions. A short time later, Captain William Henry Newton
Speaker 1: arrived on the scene, and began to question the mystery man.
Speaker 1: He gave his name as Joseph Jacobs and claimed to
Speaker 1: have flown over solo from Luxembourg before bailing out of
Speaker 1: his plane. Jacobs was then loaded onto a horse and
Speaker 1: car and delivered to Ramsey Police station. Once detained, Jacobs
Speaker 1: was asked to open the attache case. Inside they found
Speaker 1: a wireless set, as well as a pair of headphones
Speaker 1: and batteries. They also found a map, on which was
Speaker 1: marked the location of two RF satellite stations nearby. But
Speaker 1: Jacobs is also carrying something else, something found tucked away
Speaker 1: deep inside his pocket a picture photograph of a glamorous
Speaker 1: looking woman, on the back of which was a message
Speaker 1: written in English. It read my dear, I Love you forever,
Speaker 1: Your Clara Landau, July nineteen forty. The woman is Clara
Speaker 1: Sophie Bowler born in Ulm, Germany, on the twenty ninth
Speaker 1: of June nineteen o six. In nineteen forty one, she
Speaker 1: would have been thirty five years old. She is a
Speaker 1: cabaret singer and sometime actress who not only worked for
Speaker 1: a number of years performing in music halls across the
Speaker 1: West Midlands, but speaks fluent English with a Birmingham accent
Speaker 1: and was known locally as Clara Bella. Not only that,
Speaker 1: but according to Jacobs, she is extremely well connected to
Speaker 1: the Nazi Party and had been recruited as a spy
Speaker 1: with plans to drop her into the Midlands region. Finally,
Speaker 1: it seemed that the pieces were coming together. Is it
Speaker 1: possible that Clara Bowler is our unknown woman? Not so,
Speaker 1: according to Jacob's granddaughter Gizelle, whose own website on the
Speaker 1: subject provides an exhaustive account of the life of Joseph Jacobs.
Speaker 1: As Giselle's research details, the skeleton found in the witch
Speaker 1: Elm Tree suggested a woman of around five foot in height.
Speaker 1: Clara Bowler, as has been well documented, was substantially taller
Speaker 1: at almost six feet in height. In a final blow
Speaker 1: to the theory, it was also discovered that Clara had
Speaker 1: in fact died in Berlin on the sixteenth of December
Speaker 1: nineteen forty two. Joseph Jacobs was eventually tried and convicted
Speaker 1: of being a spy and sentenced to death by firing squad.
Speaker 1: Jacobs protested his innocence to the end, declaring that he
Speaker 1: was a friend of England and had arrived to help
Speaker 1: in her fight against the Nazis, but it was to
Speaker 1: no avail. On the thirteenth of August nineteen forty one,
Speaker 1: Joseph Jacobs became the last man ever to be executed
Speaker 1: at the Tower of London. Thinking about the mystery in
Speaker 1: its entirety, it is quite striking when you consider that
Speaker 1: perhaps the least strange element of the whole thing is
Speaker 1: that a woman had been murdered, and most likely by
Speaker 1: a man, And not only had she been disposed of
Speaker 1: with such apparent ease, but there seemed nobody willing to
Speaker 1: come forward on her behalf. According to writer and broadcaster
Speaker 1: Steve Punt, who investigated the witch l murder as part
Speaker 1: of his Punt PI series broadcast by the BBC, there
Speaker 1: was one report at the bottom of a police file
Speaker 1: that is so often overshadowed by the louder, more colorful
Speaker 1: components of this compelling mystery. It notes a missing persons
Speaker 1: report logged some time around October of nineteen forty one,
Speaker 1: a sex worker by the name of Bella had gone missing.
Speaker 1: Could it be that that same Bella, a woman whose
Speaker 1: initial disappearance had perhaps been deemed unworthy of investigation, was
Speaker 1: the woman they had been searching for all along. There
Speaker 1: was one other report recorded shortly after the skeleton had
Speaker 1: been discovered, an eyewitness account by two Home guards who
Speaker 1: had been wrapping up their nightly patrol near Hagley Wood
Speaker 1: one evening in the autumn of nineteen forty one, when
Speaker 1: the sound of an approaching engine stop them in their tracks.
Speaker 1: As the guards looked down to a turn at the
Speaker 1: bottom of the road, a scattering of light is followed
Speaker 1: shortly by a vehicle appearing from around the bend, before
Speaker 1: swiftly pulling in to the side of the road. The
Speaker 1: guards approach with caution, surprised to see a private vehicle
Speaker 1: driving round these parts at this time of night. As
Speaker 1: they neared the vehicle, one of the guards holds a
Speaker 1: light up to the driver's window and knocks on the glass.
Speaker 1: The driver blinks into the light and rolls down his window.
Speaker 1: He smiles awkwardly as he hands over his ID. The
Speaker 1: guards are surprised to discover, judging by the jacket he
Speaker 1: is wearing, that the man is an RAF officer. Shining
Speaker 1: a light into the vehicle, the patrolman noticed there is
Speaker 1: someone else in the car, huddled under an overcoat, lying
Speaker 1: very still in the passenger seat. At the look on
Speaker 1: the faces of the guards, the officer gives an embarrassed shrug.
Speaker 1: The guards return the ID, which is gratefully received by
Speaker 1: the driver, who proceeds to roll up the window before
Speaker 1: driving away back into the night. Unexplained as an Avy
Speaker 1: Club Productions podcast created by Richard McClain Smith. All other
Speaker 1: elements of the podcast, including the music, were also produced
Speaker 1: by me Richard McClain smith. Unexplained. The book and audiobook
Speaker 1: is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon,
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Speaker 1: and rate the show wherever you get your podcasts, and
Speaker 1: feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or
Speaker 1: ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps
Speaker 1: you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.
Speaker 1: You can find out more at Unexplained podcast dot com
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