WEBVTT - S02 Episode 1: Whispers in the Trees pt.2 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:14.560 Welcome to part two of Whispers in the Trees, where 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:17.520 we return to the midlands of England in the winter 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:23.960 of nineteen forty three. You're listening to Unexplained and I'm 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:38.360 Richard McClain Smith. As Christmas approached, at last, the authorities 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:41.720 had something to work with. A name, or at least 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:45.879 the derivation of a name. Now the police began to 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:48.919 focus their efforts on women with versions of the name 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:52.159 Bella who may have gone missing around the autumn of 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:57.640 nineteen forty one. One woman was of particular interest, whose name, 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:01.240 Bella Lua, bore a striking syl malarity to the name 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:04.800 Lua Bella, as depicted in the earliest of the graffiti 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:09.839 linked to the case. Bella Lua's friends had become concerned 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:12.800 when they lost all contact with her after she moved 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:18.040 to Birmingham from Stamford Hill in London. Although Luis whereabouts 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:22.280 were never officially established, she was eventually deemed irrelevant to 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:25.840 the case. As for all the other missing Bellers that 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:28.959 the police looked into, they were found alive and well 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:35.520 before long. The investigation hit a brick wall in defense 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:39.720 of the Worcestershire Constabulary nineteen forty one was a difficult 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:43.160 time to be keeping track of British citizens, and with 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:46.000 resources stretched to the limit. It is much to the 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:49.480 credit of the force that such an extensive investigation was 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:54.040 conducted at all. As the months passed and war eventually 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:56.760 came to an end, the public interest in the case 0:01:57.080 --> 0:02:01.440 soon diminished by the summer of nineteen forty five, with 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:04.960 the nation celebrating an end to hostilities while mourning their 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.680 countless other dead. The Tree murder riddle was fated to 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:14.600 remain unsolved and forgotten, but someone was about to make 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:18.119 a startling claim concerning a vital piece of the evidence 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:23.119 that they believed had been criminally overlooked, the severed right 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:33.840 hand back. In eighteen ninety eight, at the age of 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:37.440 thirty five, doctor Margaret Murray was making a name for 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:41.720 herself in the field of egyptology. She had just become 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:45.760 the first female lecturer in archeology in the United Kingdom, 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:50.519 having accepted a post at University College London. She would 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:53.799 continue to work and teach at the university until her 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:57.360 retirement in nineteen thirty five at the age of seventy two. 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:03.640 Although formally an anthropologist and historian, Murray was perhaps best 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:08.119 known for her highly controversial views regarding the history of witches. 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:13.680 Her primary theory became known as the witch cult hypothesis. 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:18.440 The theory suggests that, rather than being the hapless victims 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:24.160 of vile and arbitrary witch hunts, witches persecuted throughout European history, 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:28.880 where in fact followers of a definite religion with beliefs, rituals, 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:32.519 and organization as highly developed as that of any cult. 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:36.720 What drew her attention to the Haglewood case was the 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:40.720 curious revelation that the right hand had been found separated 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:43.760 from the rest of the skeleton and buried in the ground. 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:47.840 The police merely assumed it to be the work of 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:52.760 an industrious forest animal. To doctor Murray, however, it suggested 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:57.760 something far more sinister. She believed that, instead of being 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:01.600 a gruesome but incidental off cut, the hand had in 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:05.200 fact been removed and placed in the ground deliberately as 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:09.920 part of an elaborate occult ritual. Doctor Murray suggested that 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:12.440 the severed hand may have been used to create a 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:17.279 magic artifact known as a hand of glory. Traditionally, such 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:20.039 totems were made by removing the right hand of a 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:23.760 convicted criminal, followed by the casting of a spell to 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:29.279 invest the separated extremity with magical power. A bizarre suggestion, 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:32.960 you might think, but not so, she believed if the 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:37.080 victim had been considered to be a witch. The theory 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:39.960 was given more weight by the location of the body. 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:44.560 As outlined in James George Fraser's ground breaking book The 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:48.039 Golden Bough, there is a rich tradition in Celtic and 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:52.480 Pagan beliefs of investing trees with spirits and sometimes souls 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:56.640 of their own. In addition, there are some who believe 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:01.520 that certain trees have the power to bind magic. There 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:04.120 are some who believe Hagley Wood to have long been 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:07.440 a traditional meeting place for coverns of witches, and it 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:10.159 certainly wouldn't have been the first time that an occult 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.880 ritual had been conducted in England. During the Second World War, 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:19.760 in August nineteen forty, Gerald Gardner, a well known follower 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:22.839 of pagan witchcraft, along with the number of other members 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:26.640 of the New Forest Covern, performed a magic ritual that 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:31.479 became known as Operation Cone of Power. It was hoped 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:34.520 that the operation would ultimately dissuade the High Command of 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:40.200 Nazi Germany from invading the United Kingdom. It is also 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:43.880 important to note that doctor Murray's theory wasn't based on 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:47.320 any personal belief in the magic of witchcraft, but rather 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:51.960 the notion that such practices did occur. Whether or not 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:55.599 a hand of glory had any discernible power, it remains 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:58.719 that somebody willing to believe in such things may have 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:02.599 enacted some formal ritual in the murder of the unknown woman. 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:08.160 In any case, despite influencing a number of well known 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:12.960 authors such as Aldus Huxley and Robert Graves, Murray's Haglewood 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:17.080 theory and her witch cult hypothesis have been roundly discredited, 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:20.480 and in reality, there is little to support her claim 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:23.560 that the victim had been subject to a ritualistic killing. 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:28.479 What Murray's theory did do, however, was to enact a 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:32.320 sort of magic of its own. Such spells tend to 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:36.280 be most potent during times of uncertainty, when a scapegoat 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.440 is required to make sense of the ills of the world. 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:43.359 Perhaps it was only ever going to be a matter 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:46.760 of time, but soon a bogey man would be brought 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:50.839 forth from the fog of truth. With all the talk 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:54.680 of ritual murder and black magic fueled by a press, 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:57.320 ever ready to fan the flames of a salacious story. 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:02.760 Many became convinced that local travelers were to blame. The 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:07.520 rumor would persist for ten years, but all that was 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:20.920 about to change. In nineteen fifty three, a journalist at 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:24.840 the Wolverhampton Express and Star, writing under the name Quester, 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:30.240 decided to reassess the evidence. His real name was Wilfred 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:35.600 Bifford Jones. Bifford Jones, who had never been convinced by 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:39.680 the reductive traveler theory, revisited the case in a series 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:44.040 of articles appearing in late November of nineteen fifty three. 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:47.440 Concluding the series, in a third and final article, published 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:52.840 on Friday, November twentieth, Bifford Jones notes whether the young 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:55.360 woman is supposed to have been a gypsy who was 0:07:55.480 --> 0:08:00.560 ritualistically murdered with witchcraft or after a trial by her tribe, well, 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:04.560 I do not accept it. It is true that there 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:07.640 had been gypsies for years in the area, but every 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:11.600 crime is laid at the door of Romanes. For Bifford Jones, 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:15.520 the suggestions of witchcraft had been a gross and fanciful 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:19.320 obscuring of the facts. It was a gallant and single 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:22.800 minded campaign that fought to wrestle the case back from 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:28.120 acceptable fiction to more unsettling fact. But nobody could have 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:32.280 anticipated what came next when a few days later a 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:38.360 strange letter landed on Bifford Jones's desk. It was postmarked Cleverly, 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:44.880 Wolverhampton and dated eighteenth of November nineteen fifty three. It read, 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:49.920 my dear quester, finish your articles regarding the witch Elm crime. 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:54.000 By all means, they are interesting to your readers, but 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:57.319 you will never solve the mystery. The one person who 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:01.120 could give the answer is now beyond the jurisdiction of 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:06.120 earthly courts. The affair is closed and evolves no witches, 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:11.440 black magic or moonlight rites. Much as I hate having 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:13.920 to use a nom de plume, I think you would 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:17.080 appreciate it if you knew me. The only clues I 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:19.760 can give you are that the person responsible for the 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:24.040 crime died insane in nineteen forty two, and the victim 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:28.800 was Dutch and arrived in England illegally about nineteen forty one. 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:36.800 I have no wish to recall anymore, Yours, sincerely, Anna. 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:39.600 It is not uncommon for people to claim knowledge of 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:43.040 crimes they have no connection to but something of Anna's 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:47.360 letter rang true to Bifford Jones. After a series of 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:50.800 pleas for Anna to come forward and reveal herself a 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:56.520 few days later, against all expectation, she did, and so 0:09:56.679 --> 0:09:59.520 it was on one cold morning at the local police 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:03.240 station that Anna proceeded to reveal everything that she knew. 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:08.760 Her name was Una Hainsworth, and this was her story. 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:19.240 Sometime in the early thirties, Una had met and fallen 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:22.560 in love with a dashing young man called Jack Mossup. 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:26.480 Not long after, the young lovers would be married and 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:31.120 expecting their first child. Sure Enough, in nineteen thirty two, 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:34.600 with the couple still in their teens, a son, Julian, 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:38.800 was born as the country slowly clawed its way back 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:43.000 from a decade of economic stagnation. Here encapsulated in the 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:46.280 face of their newborn baby was a renewed sense of 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:51.120 hope for the future. But that hope would be short lived, 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:54.600 for there was a shadow looming over the young family, 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:58.040 a shadow that was soon to fall across most of 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:03.319 the world. On Sunday, September third, nineteen thirty nine, at 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:07.400 eleven fifteen am, families up and down the land huddled 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:11.440 around the wireless as Neville Chamberlain announced that the country 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:15.760 was at war. Less than a year later, on Friday, 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:19.840 August ninth, nineteen forty, the first of many bombs dropped 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:23.679 on the Midlands. What followed was just under two years 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:28.679 of sustained bombing of the heavily industrialized region. For Jack, 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:33.040 perhaps to his relief and shame, as a skilled factory worker, 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:37.040 he was exempt from the draft and was instead assigned 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:41.559 to work in coventry building munitions. But as the months 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:45.040 wore on, UNA's relief that Jack had avoided the draft 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:48.880 was tempered somewhat by a sudden change in his character. 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:54.200 He started to drink more and stay out later, often 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:57.120 at a new favorite haunt, a lively place on the 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.760 edge of the Clent Hills called the Littleton Arms. He 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:05.120 started buying new clothes, including an r F officer's jacket 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:09.000 to which he was not entitled. He had also started 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:13.880 to accrue money from an unknown source. Una was particularly 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:16.480 suspicious of the new crowd he seemed to be hanging 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:20.680 out with, a suspicion that was further aroused when one 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:23.240 of the crowd turned up one night at their home. 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:27.480 The enigmatic man who gave his name as Van Rolt, 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:31.240 was well dressed and claimed to be from Holland with 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:36.560 a seemingly endless disposable income, despite no discernible occupation to 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:41.040 speak of. One evening in the spring of nineteen forty one, 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:46.000 after yet another late night, Jack returned home drunk and agitated. 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:49.400 He'd been at the Littleton Arms again with Van Rolt, 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:52.240 where they were joined by what he described as the 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:56.600 Dutch piece. Jack claimed that the woman had become awkward 0:12:56.720 --> 0:13:00.760 and later passed out, at which point Van Rot decided 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:04.000 to play a trick on her. After carrying the woman 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:06.920 to Van Rolt's car, the pair drove to a nearby 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:10.200 wood and dropped her unconscious body into the hollow of 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:13.520 a tree. They had only meant it as a joke, 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.560 he said, believing in the morning that she would come 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:20.880 to her senses. In the weeks that followed, it was 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:24.040 clear to Una that something was playing on Jack's mind, 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:28.640 as he retreated further into himself and his behavior became 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:35.040 increasingly erratic. Una eventually had enough, so she left, taking 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:39.720 their son with her. For Jack, now without his wife 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:43.920 and child to keep him company, things began to unravel drastically. 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:48.680 It wasn't their leaving that tortured him every night, but 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:54.959 rather what had crept in in their absence. Later, after 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:59.560 Una and Jack had divorced, Jack confided in Una. He 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:02.320 told her that he was being driven mad by the 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:06.160 recurring image of a woman's faith leering at him from 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:11.000 inside a tree. But it wasn't until Una heard that 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.040 a skeleton had been found in Hagley Wood that she 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:19.200 put the two events together. Back in the police station 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:23.240 all those years later, the interviewing officers are dumbfounded by 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:27.520 UNA's statement and immediately demand a contact address for her 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:32.480 ex husband, but she couldn't give them one. Jack had 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:36.400 been committed to a psychiatric hospital in Stafford in nineteen 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:40.280 forty two. A few months later, at the age of 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:44.760 twenty nine, he was dead, apparently driven insane by his 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:49.920 recurring nightmare. But what really shook things up was UNA's 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:55.120 parting thought on the matter, Van Rolt, she believed was 0:14:55.160 --> 0:15:02.280 the spy. Are you always taking care of your family? 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:04.960 Do you often take care of others and not yourself? 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:08.240 Now it's time to take care of yourself, to make 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:12.160 time for you you deserve it. TELEDOC gives you access 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:14.800 to a licensed therapist to help you get back to 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:19.240 feeling your best, to feeling like yourself again. With teledoc, 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.400 you can speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video. 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:26.160 Therapy appointments are available seven days a week from seven 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:30.000 am to nine pm local time. If you feel overwhelmed 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:34.640 sometimes maybe you feel stressed or anxious, depressed or lonely, 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:37.960 or you might be struggling with a personal or family issue, 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:43.680 teledoc can help. Teledoc is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches, 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:46.520 so they make it easy to change counselors if needed. 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:51.640 For free. Teledoc therapy is available through most insurance or employers. 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.920 Download the app, or visit teledoc dot com forward slash 0:15:56.000 --> 0:16:01.480 Unexplained podcast today to get started. That's t e ladoc 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:13.200 dot com slash Unexplained Podcast. There is no firm evidence 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:16.360 to suggest that Jack Mossup had found himself embroiled in 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:20.960 a spy ring, So what to make of UNA's story. Certainly, 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:24.480 much of it is true. She did indeed have an 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:27.680 ex husband called Jack Mossup, who had been a regular 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:31.480 visitor to the Littleton Arms. It is also true that 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:34.560 he would later die in a psychiatric hospital in nineteen 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:38.960 forty two, police also had some luck in tracing the 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.880 mysterious Van Rolt figure, but nothing untoward could be found. 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:47.200 It could be said that much of UNA's story begins 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:51.760 to make more sense if her spy theory is applied. Certainly, 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:55.600 in his capacity as a munitions worker in Birmingham, Jack 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:58.800 would have been uniquely placed to pass off useful information 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:03.720 to the German Air Force. Although UNA's spy theory was 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:07.560 never officially confirmed, it was a theme keenly picked up 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:13.560 fifteen years later by writer Donald McCormick. In nineteen sixty eight, 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:17.639 McCormick is alleged to have conducted a series of interviews 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:22.520 with a former Nazi called Franz Rathgeb. It turned out 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:25.480 that a number of spies had been active around the 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:29.440 Midlands after all, at precisely the time that the unknown 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:34.040 woman would have gone missing. One of those spies was Rathgeb. 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:38.520 Although he claimed not to know anything of the murdered woman, 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:41.320 he did recall a fellow spy by the name of 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:47.000 Lera who had a Dutch girlfriend called Drunker's Clara Bella Drunkers, 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:52.880 who was herself a spy living in the Birmingham region. Intriguingly, 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:55.359 She would have been around thirty years old at the 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:58.600 time of the murder and had a regular front teeth 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:02.679 similar to those note on the skeleton. Could it be 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:06.080 that the fruitless search of dental records all those years 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:10.399 ago hadn't failed because of an administrative error, but merely 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:13.240 because the woman had not actually been from the UK. 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:18.920 McCormick further alleged that he later came across some interesting 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:24.840 information in declassified papers from German military intelligence. The papers 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:28.600 suggested that a spy had been parachuted into the Midlands 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:31.560 in nineteen forty one, but had then failed to make 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:35.560 contact with their handlers. The name listed for the spy 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:44.800 was Clarabella. Needless to say, this theory, too, remains unconfirmed. However, 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:48.960 on the eighteenth of May nineteen forty two, the British 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:52.560 Navy intercepted an unregistered boat just off the coast of 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:57.360 the UK. In it were three Dutch nationals who were 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:02.199 promptly interrogated after routine questioning. Two of the men were 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:05.679 deemed rational and of little threat. The third, on the 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:08.760 other hand, became hysterical at the first sight of the 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:13.800 British officers. He was immediately arrested and later convicted under 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:17.639 the nineteen forty Treachery Act on suspicion of being a spy. 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:24.960 His name was Johannes Mariners Drunkers. Was this the man 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:28.679 Franz rathgeb knew as lera come in search of his 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:33.920 missing wife? Sadly we will never know. On New Year's 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:38.520 Eve of nineteen forty two, Johannes Drunkers was executed in 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:52.880 Wan'sworth Prison in London. Towards the end of the twentieth century, 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:57.280 a number of British wartime files were declassified, with one 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:02.280 proving of particular interest to our case. On the evening 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:06.240 of January the thirty first, nineteen forty one, just above 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:09.199 the town of Ramsey in Cambridgeshire, high up in the 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:12.800 night sky, a man was silently drifting down to earth. 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:16.760 No one saw the black spot as it fell hard 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:19.920 and fast, landing with a bump in a field next 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:25.200 to Dove House Farm. Two men, Charles Bulldock and Harry Coulson, 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:28.640 had been walking by the area shortly after when they 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:31.800 heard the sound of a revolver being fired into the air. 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:37.440 Locating the source of the gunshots, Bulldock and Coulson were 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:39.879 astonished to find a man lying on his back in 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:44.040 a field surrounded by the silken canopy of a parachute. 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:48.000 The man, who was in some distress, had clearly broken 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:52.679 his leg. Coulson ran immediately to fetch James Godfrey, a 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:56.159 member of the Home Guard, who in turn telephoned Ramsey 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:59.560 Police Station before accompanying Coulson to take a look at 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:04.720 the prost man. Godfrey later noted that the man had 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:09.040 been wearing civilian clothes underneath his flying suit. They also 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:12.800 found in his possession an attache case, four to five 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:18.480 hundred pounds in one pound notes and a wallet. Together, 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:22.239 the three men bound the parachutist's leg and waited for 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:27.800 further instructions. A short time later, Captain William Henry Newton 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:31.480 arrived on the scene and began to question the mystery man. 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:35.840 He gave his name as Joseph Jacobs and claimed to 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:39.159 have flown over solo from Luxembourg before baling out of 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:43.119 his plane. Jacobs was then loaded onto a horse and 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:48.680 cart and delivered to Ramsey Police Station. Once detained, Jacobs 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:52.840 was asked to open the attache case. Inside they found 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:55.320 a wireless set, as well as a pair of headphones 0:21:55.359 --> 0:21:59.560 and batteries. They also found a map on which was 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:05.159 marked the location of two RF satellite stations nearby. But 0:22:05.359 --> 0:22:10.280 Jacobs is also carrying something else, something found tucked away 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:15.080 deep inside his pocket, a picture photograph of a glamorous 0:22:15.080 --> 0:22:18.240 looking woman, on the back of which was a message 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:23.399 written in English. It read my dear, I love you forever, 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:30.880 Your Clara Landau, July nineteen forty The woman is Clara 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:36.640 Sophie Bowler born in Ulm, Germany, on the twenty ninth 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:40.320 of June nineteen o six. In nineteen forty one, she 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:43.800 would have been thirty five years old. She is a 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:47.639 cabaret singer and sometime actress who not only worked for 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:50.520 a number of years performing in music halls across the 0:22:50.520 --> 0:22:54.439 West Midlands, but speaks fluent English with a Birmingham accent 0:22:55.000 --> 0:22:59.560 and was known locally as Clara Bella. Not only that, 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:03.480 but according to Jacobs, she is extremely well connected to 0:23:03.520 --> 0:23:06.440 the Nazi Party and had been recruited as a spy 0:23:06.720 --> 0:23:10.640 with plans to drop her into the Midlands region. Finally, 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:14.879 it seemed that the pieces were coming together. Is it 0:23:14.960 --> 0:23:22.119 possible that Clara Bowler is our unknown woman? Not so? 0:23:22.320 --> 0:23:26.240 According to Jacob's granddaughter Giselle, whose own website on the 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:30.240 subject provides an exhaustive account of the life of Joseph Jacobs. 0:23:31.320 --> 0:23:35.480 As Giselle's research details the skeleton found in the which 0:23:35.480 --> 0:23:39.359 Elm Tree suggested a woman of around five foot in height. 0:23:40.240 --> 0:23:44.760 Clara Bowler, as has been well documented, was substantially taller 0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:49.240 at almost six feet in height. In a final blow 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:52.600 to the theory, it was also discovered that Clara had 0:23:52.640 --> 0:23:56.080 in fact died in Berlin on the sixteenth of December 0:23:56.480 --> 0:24:03.760 nineteen forty two. Joseph Jacobs was eventually tried and convicted 0:24:03.800 --> 0:24:07.160 of being a spy and sentenced to death by firing squad. 0:24:08.480 --> 0:24:11.800 Jacobs protested his innocence to the end, declaring that he 0:24:11.840 --> 0:24:14.320 was a friend of England and had arrived to help 0:24:14.440 --> 0:24:17.280 in her fight against the Nazis, but it was to 0:24:17.320 --> 0:24:21.640 no avail. On the thirteenth of August nineteen forty one, 0:24:22.359 --> 0:24:26.160 Joseph Jacobs became the last man ever to be executed 0:24:26.280 --> 0:24:38.760 at the Tower of London. Thinking about the mystery in 0:24:38.840 --> 0:24:42.639 its entirety, it is quite striking when you consider that 0:24:42.720 --> 0:24:46.119 perhaps the least strange element of the whole thing is 0:24:46.160 --> 0:24:49.400 that a woman had been murdered and most likely by 0:24:49.440 --> 0:24:52.919 a man, And not only had she been disposed of 0:24:53.200 --> 0:24:56.719 with such apparent ease, but there seemed nobody willing to 0:24:56.720 --> 0:25:01.120 come forward on her behalf. According to writer and broadcaster 0:25:01.359 --> 0:25:04.840 Steve Punt, who investigated the witch El murder as part 0:25:04.840 --> 0:25:08.600 of his Punt PI series broadcast by the BBC, there 0:25:08.720 --> 0:25:11.080 was one report at the bottom of a police file 0:25:11.440 --> 0:25:14.920 that is so often overshadowed by the louder, more colorful 0:25:14.920 --> 0:25:19.000 components of this compelling mystery. It notes a missing persons 0:25:19.040 --> 0:25:24.560 report logged sometime around October of nineteen forty one, a 0:25:24.640 --> 0:25:27.760 sex worker by the name of Bella had gone missing. 0:25:28.880 --> 0:25:32.160 Could it be that that same Bella, a woman whose 0:25:32.160 --> 0:25:37.520 initial disappearance had perhaps been deemed unworthy of investigation, was 0:25:37.560 --> 0:25:41.880 the woman they had been searching for all along. There 0:25:42.000 --> 0:25:45.480 was one other report recorded shortly after the skeleton had 0:25:45.480 --> 0:25:49.800 been discovered, an eyewitness account by two home guards who 0:25:49.840 --> 0:25:52.920 had been wrapping up their nightly patrol near Hagley Wood 0:25:53.040 --> 0:25:56.240 one evening in the autumn of nineteen forty one, when 0:25:56.280 --> 0:25:59.480 the sound of an approaching engine stopped them in their tracks. 0:26:00.520 --> 0:26:03.000 As the guards looked down to a turn at the 0:26:03.000 --> 0:26:06.159 bottom of the road. A scattering of light is followed 0:26:06.160 --> 0:26:09.919 shortly by a vehicle appearing from around the bend, before 0:26:09.960 --> 0:26:13.320 swiftly pulling in to the side of the road. The 0:26:13.440 --> 0:26:17.359 guards approach with caution, surprised to see a private vehicle 0:26:17.520 --> 0:26:21.120 driving round these parts at this time of night. As 0:26:21.160 --> 0:26:23.840 they near the vehicle, one of the guards holds a 0:26:23.960 --> 0:26:27.120 light up to the driver's window and knocks on the glass. 0:26:28.520 --> 0:26:31.720 The driver blinks into the light and rolls down his window. 0:26:32.880 --> 0:26:37.080 He smiles awkwardly as he hands over his ID. The 0:26:37.200 --> 0:26:40.439 guards are surprised to discover, judging by the jacket he 0:26:40.520 --> 0:26:45.760 is wearing, that the man is an RAF officer. Shining 0:26:45.760 --> 0:26:49.000 a light into the vehicle, the patrolman noticed there is 0:26:49.040 --> 0:26:52.240 some one else in the car, huddled under an overcoat, 0:26:52.560 --> 0:26:56.480 lying very still in the passenger seat. At the look 0:26:56.520 --> 0:26:59.560 on the faces of the guards, the officer gives an 0:26:59.600 --> 0:27:04.200 embarrass shrug. The guards return the ID, which is gratefully 0:27:04.200 --> 0:27:07.199 received by the driver, who proceeds to roll up the 0:27:07.200 --> 0:27:17.880 window before driving away back into the night. All elements 0:27:17.880 --> 0:27:21.280 of Unexplained are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please 0:27:21.320 --> 0:27:23.879 subscribe and rate the show on iTunes. Feel free to 0:27:23.880 --> 0:27:26.280 get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the 0:27:26.320 --> 0:27:28.919 stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an 0:27:28.920 --> 0:27:31.640 explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can 0:27:31.640 --> 0:27:34.480 reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com or on 0:27:34.520 --> 0:27:51.640 Twitter at Unexplained Pod. Hello, it's Jamie from My Dad 0:27:51.640 --> 0:27:55.040 Wrote a Porno. Now, Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without 0:27:55.040 --> 0:27:59.080 my dad writing some really terrible erotic literature. 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