WEBVTT - Thinking Sideways: Hagley Woods Mystery 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:17.000 Thinking Sideways. I don't just stories of things we simply 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:21.720 don't know the answer too. Well, Hello there, and welcome 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:27.800 to another episode of Thinking Sideways. I'm Joe your host host. 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:31.080 Oh yeah, I guess we're all co hosts. Well I'm 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:37.120 Devin your host. Okay, all right, so we're gonna we're 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:40.560 just getting together one more time to solve another unsolved mystery. 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:44.680 This week, we're going to talk about the Hagley Wood mystery. Yeah, 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:47.320 it's a creepy one. A little intro here. There's an 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:49.840 area in the West Midlands of England. The West Midlands 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.519 is like the western part of the middle part of England, 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:54.440 which is like kind of abuts Wales for all of 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:57.520 those who who really care, the western part of the 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:03.800 Middle of exactly. Yeah, So anyway, it's it's a part 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:07.399 that's kind of just east of Wales. Anyway. In this 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:10.679 there's an area there known as the Black Country, which 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:14.399 earned his name with his dark mysterious mccab passed and 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:16.000 well it's not really true. It was at the heart 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:18.520 of the coal industry and a good part of the 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:21.800 Industrial Revolution took place there and it was still smoking 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:23.920 and sooity that it was said to be black by 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:27.119 day and read by night. So that's why I'm assuming 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:30.440 from fires. Yeah, you have from coal fires and furnaces 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:32.479 and you know, foundries and all kinds of good stuff. 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:34.960 But anyway, I'm sure there's a Mountain of death somewhere there. 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:37.920 Creek of Doom. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Actually, um, so there's 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:41.040 the Mountain of the Dead in Egypt, Um Mountain of 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:46.520 Death in Costa Rica, of Death in Poland, Death Valley California, 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:50.880 UM Highway of Death. I think in Bolivia Valley of 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:52.800 Doom is a video game. Do you want me to 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.280 keep going? No? No, no, no, you're right of deaths yeah, 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:59.800 right in the neighborhood too. So yeah, so I right there. 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:02.480 Think we can say without equivocation that the Black Country 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:12.960 has earned this dark, creepy reputation. Okay, case solve, uh alright, 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:16.919 So anyway, are our saga begins? In April nineteen three, 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:21.480 four young lads were out poaching on the estate of 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:24.400 somebody named Lord cobbum In, And so there was a 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:26.640 patch of woods on his estate. He had a fairly 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:30.120 large estate, but there's a patch of woods called Hagleywood, 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:32.880 and they were they were looking for birds nests so 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:34.959 they could steal some bird's extra food because this is 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:37.840 wartime and rations were a little short, so you know, 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:39.480 they can get a little extra food here. They were 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:41.360 looking for anything that they could do. They were tired 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:45.440 of potatoes. Yeah, they wanted to kill some small, helpless 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:48.120 animals or steal some birds eggs, whatever they could protein 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:52.760 of some kind of yeah. Yeah. So anyway, they're looking 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:56.400 for birds nests in the trees of Hagley Wood and 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:58.000 they find this one. I don't I don't know if 0:02:58.000 --> 0:02:59.960 you guys saw the picture of it, well, certainly certain 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:05.520 posted on the website. It's it's a weird looks like, um, 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:08.200 what is that? It looks like something out of the 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:12.160 last Headless Horseman movie with Johnny depth that was in 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:14.760 that Ye, Johnny Depp played about Crane. Yeah, and they 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:18.360 had that really really was it a Tim Burton film? Yeah, 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:20.840 yeah it was. Yeah, it was a crazy tree at 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:22.480 the end, and that's what I thought of, as he 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.520 doesn't think for weird everything. It was casting with Christopher 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:33.400 Walkers a Headless Horseman. Yeah, he made made a credible one. 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:36.640 I mean, he's creepy no matter what, right exactly. Ok 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:39.240 So anyway, back to this tree. So they spot a 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:41.320 tree that looks like it's got some nests and it's 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:43.800 one of them climbs up the tree and finds a 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:46.360 large hole in the side of the tree. Looking into 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:50.240 the hole, he spots a skull. Yeah, like a bird skull. 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:52.640 He's sticking. It's an animal skull. So he grabs a 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:54.440 stick and he pokes a stick in and kind of 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:57.440 hooks it and brings it out. And surprise, surprise, how 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:00.280 old is this kid? You know? Actually I never never 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:04.520 got their ages and all the places I was looking, 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:08.560 and I'm guessing, I'm guessing they're probably you know, what 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.200 does every three team boy do? He grabs his stick 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:15.600 and he pokes it. Let's let's poke it with a stick. Yeah, 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:17.880 I mean, you know, it must have been turned down 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:19.760 in such a way that you couldn't see the face 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:21.840 of the skull, and you know, otherwise, you know, you're 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:23.400 looking at the face of a human skull. I mean, hey, 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:26.440 pretty its pretty obvious. So it's a human skull. Yeah. 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:30.000 But anyway, so they decided to put it back in 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:33.360 the tree, and they and they and they headed back 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:35.599 to town. And since they had been trespassing, they thought 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:37.599 they would just keep it a secret. This seems to 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.160 be kind of like a recurring theme in all of 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:43.839 our kind of mysterious dead things, right, Like, somebody discovers 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:45.640 the body and it's like, well, I don't really want 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:47.440 to report it, So they wait a couple of days, 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:50.039 and then they decided to report it. Yeah. We've talked 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:52.039 about this in a number of kids. Yeah, yeah, I 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:55.360 think it's I don't want to tell anybody I found 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:57.520 a body. Yeah, you know exactly, it's gonna be awkward. 0:04:57.920 --> 0:04:59.640 That was one time I woke up from a black 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:01.760 houn on the body in my bedroom. So I didn't 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:03.440 I didn't report that one right away. In fact, I 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:07.480 never did. Yeah, it does. Yeah, So one of the 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:10.120 boys had second thoughts, and so he told his dad 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:12.960 about what they found. And if the little rat had 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:15.840 just kept his piehole shut, then we wouldn't be sitting 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:18.320 here wasting our time, wouldn't if it wasn't for those 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:23.520 darn kids. Kids. Yeah, so any way, but you know, 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:25.800 it's it's history now, it's something there's nothing you can 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:27.440 do about it. So we're stuck here in the studio 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:32.000 solving this mystery. Yeah, naturally, dad tells the police and 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.720 so the police and the kids come back to the 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:36.400 place the next day with the posse of the po 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:40.760 PO who look into the tree and discover yeah, and 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:43.120 the kids aren't lying. There's a human skull in there 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:45.880 and some bones, and so I'd tell yeah. They they 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:48.800 called in some of some heavy lifter investigators from from 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:51.880 the bigger the big city, like Birmingham is the largest 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:54.440 town nearby. One of the people they called in was 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:58.720 a forensic scientist named Professor jam Webster who he was 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:00.640 the one who actually lifted the skull out of the tree, 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:04.520 and he found cloth wedged in the mouth of the skull, 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:07.119 so that led him to believe that there was murder 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:10.080 involved in this person had been had been smothered by 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:12.560 having cloth stuff in her mouth apparently, and so he 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:15.000 declared that, he said it was probably murdered, and they 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:17.680 declared the crime scene, which meant they had this time 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:20.800 to get serious now and so and so they started 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:23.440 start started searching the area. And there's this is one 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:25.480 place where there's a little bit of diversions in the stories. 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:28.600 As always, there's diversions and all these different versions of it. 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:31.200 One of the one is that the skull and a 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:34.839 complete skeleton were all in the tree, and another in 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:39.200 another version, they found bones scattered all over the place. Yeah, well, 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:41.880 I should say in the in the first version, the 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:45.159 complete skeleton except for the right hand, which had severed 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:49.200 and was found near remember specifically people saying they were 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:52.000 the hand was buried outside. The hand was buried outside 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:53.560 the tree, and everything else was in there. But other 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:56.119 other accounts say that there were other bones also found 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:59.280 outside the tree, which is entirely possible. I mean, because 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:01.400 if the body was there for any any length of time, 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:04.640 animals would have gotten in there, you know, and probably 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:06.880 like you know, pulled out a thigh here, an armbone 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:10.000 there and chew. Yeah, I mean, think of a Raccoons 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:13.280 are not small creatures. I know, Devil loves raccoons, man, 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:15.320 but I mean, do you think about a raccoon getting 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:22.160 in there and it's it's it's bonus time. So yeah, 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:26.320 most likely some of the bones were scattered about by animals. Well, 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.880 unless she was like wedged so tightly in there. Well, 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:32.760 I'm sure we'll cover this, yeah, you know, and it 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:34.760 might be that she was killed by a Terraine serial 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:37.240 killer who chopped her into pieces and then and then 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:41.840 scattered all over the place that the hand was found nearby. 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:45.320 That was significant to some people, and we'll talk about 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:47.600 that a little later. They also found in the hole 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:51.280 they found some fragments of clothing, gold ring, apparently a 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.720 wedding ring. Also one shoe, and also some accounts say 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:57.480 that there was a green bottle in the tree as well, 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:01.600 like glass glass, green bottle. Yeah, not all the new 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:05.680 like a wine bottle sized wine bottle. I got the 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:11.640 impression there was a smaller bottle, yeah, like a type bottle. Yeah. Anyway, 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:14.000 So the one when they were pretty pretty well shared 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:15.800 they've gotten all the bones. They they bagged him up 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:17.400 and took him back to the professor's lab and he 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:22.120 reassembled the skeleton, and he drew some conclusions from his reassembly. 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:24.640 He concluded the body was a woman, that she was 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:27.800 about five feet tall and roughly thirty forty years old. 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:31.920 She had had a child at some point. Okay, yeah, 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:34.120 I guess that was something I didn't realize you could 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:36.200 find out from bones. But some of it was a 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:38.200 woman or not, No, if they had had a child 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.960 or not. I think that when the hip bones don't 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:45.240 they don't they change. They change when you have what 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:50.480 I never want to do now. Yeah, yeah, so hard 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:55.640 that your bones change? Yeah, okay. Next up she had 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:58.240 as she had a deformation in her lower jaw and 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:01.720 a mueller had recently been pulled, which gave them hope 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:03.760 that they could they could find a dentist somewhere who 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:06.800 could identify the person who they found. Again, I got 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:09.000 I gotta stop and ask, so how do they How 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:12.280 would you know that the moller had recently been pulled? 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:15.520 You know, I don't really know that. I'm guessing that. 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:17.880 You know, when you pull a moler out, it kind 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:19.760 of I think it kind of breaks up in scars. 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:23.000 But have you ever had a mola removed like like 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:25.520 wisdom teeth whatever? You know that you know, like when 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:29.520 they stick the augur when and the aug and they 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:31.560 start they start reefing on that thing and you can 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.200 hear things break, crunching and breaking in there, you know. 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:37.000 So are you thinking that like the bone is damaged 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:41.840 in the bone where, Yeah, it still hasn't entirely, that's 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:47.280 my guess. Yeah. I think Also the jaw bone is 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:49.320 pretty good at healing itself. So if there's a hole 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:52.520 where the mueller's like roots were, I don't know this, 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:55.040 This is just speculation. But doesn't that hole kind of 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:57.640 like get some tissue, Like doesn't it kind of steal 0:09:57.720 --> 0:09:59.960 up a little bit? Talking about the gums over there 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:01.600 over the top, are you talking about just the hole 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:03.400 they left in the Yeah, yeah, I would think it 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:06.160 would see, it would seal up, there'd be some recognition 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:11.800 of kind of time. Yeah, so that's my best guess. Uh, 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:14.840 So let's see what else. There were no visible signs 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:16.719 of injury or violence on the bones. Of course, that 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:19.120 doesn't mean she wasn't done in violently. It just means 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:20.400 they didn't leave a mark on the bone, so she 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:23.640 could have been Yeah, no fractures, so she wasn't being 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:25.920 to death, you knowing like that, you know, but she's 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:27.800 still okay. So it could have been stabbed at death, 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:29.120 you know, as long as he didn't hit a bone 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:33.280 with a knife, you know. But he surmised that the 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:35.440 cause of death was suffocation due to the cloth in 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:39.960 her mouth, So good enough, I guess. Uh. He surmised 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:42.000 also the body been stuck in the hole before rigor 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:44.040 mortis has set in, because the hole was small, so 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:45.439 small that they had to have a little bit of 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:47.760 flexibility to work with, you know, that sort of squeeze 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:50.280 her in there, and so yeah, with rigor mortis, she 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:52.040 probably probably would have been hard to get her in 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:55.360 the hole. And he also lastly surmised that death had 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:59.560 occurred in eighteen months more or less prior to discovery 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:02.080 of the body. And I'm guessing that's based on the 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:07.520 fact that there there was some flesh and hair still. Ye. Yeah, 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:09.640 but you know, and I'm not sure again how you 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:13.160 do this. Originally I think he u he concluded that 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:15.840 it was it could have been up to four years prior, 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:18.640 and then he revised it based on I'm not sure what, 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:23.800 probably weather patterns and stuff, or maybe it was tree growth. 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:28.440 Maybe you would say, well, this tree couldn't have grown, 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:31.120 it would have grown more over her bodies, her bones 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.720 would have been more incorporated into the tree. They would 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:39.760 have taken a long time, the bones, that would take 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:42.679 a long time. Sure, But no, I mean, I guess, 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:44.920 you know, if four years is a reasonable a lot 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:46.760 of time for the for you to see some a 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:49.760 little bit of that, like the whole being smaller than 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:52.280 she would have fit into or something. Maybe I don't know, 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:55.440 or maybe not. Maybe he was just totally making things up. 0:11:56.160 --> 0:12:01.199 It's I believe the term is educated guests. Yeah, yeahs 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.600 very educated. Guess yeah, I think you know, and you 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:07.320 never know it might he might have made that judgment 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:09.679 from the extent of deterioration of the cloth because she 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:12.640 was wearing clothing. Maybe maybe that was a better or 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:15.960 maybe the amount of corrosion or tarnishing on the gold ring, 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:20.360 you know, I mean, you could make that. Yeah, there's 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:22.720 all kinds of ways to find clues how buried the 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:25.520 bones were, like how you know, especially if they found 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.760 any of them in the dirt, you know, those deteriorates 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:35.360 how much or anything like that. Yeah, that's a tough one, 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:39.520 but okay. So he also there were fragments of clothing 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:41.480 and as I said earlier, there was a shoe found 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:43.360 in the hole with her um. So he was able 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:45.440 to put together a description of her outfit that she 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:48.280 was wearing. It's the time of death. And so at 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:50.560 this point they tried to figure out who she was, 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:53.600 and they figured that probably she was somewhere in the 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:56.120 area they wouldn't have too much trouble finding here. Well, 0:12:56.200 --> 0:12:59.160 guess again, first off, they've got the most obvious thing 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:02.680 to do is the dental records, because she had a 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:04.520 tooth pulled, and she had a she had a messed 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:08.360 up lower jaw. So they took that information to every 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:11.760 dentist in the region and it was all a dead end. Nobody, 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:16.880 nobody had any records to identify and by yeah, so 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:22.520 they checked her clothes, the clothing that she wore was 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:25.040 and of course, again it's some versions of this story 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:27.240 which I don't find believable, but some versions say that 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:33.120 all the labels have been removed from the close yeah 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:39.240 the woman, Hey, I know, yeah, yeah, yeah, um. But now, 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:42.640 actually they they were able to find labels in your clothes, 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:44.959 and they were from fairly common brands and and then 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:48.319 really didn't provide any real good leads to her shoe. 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:50.199 That they found was that was a somewhat unique shoe, 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:53.160 and that gave them hope. And they actually went to 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:55.440 the time and trouble to track down every all but 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:57.600 four of the pairs of these shoes that have been sold. 0:13:57.640 --> 0:13:59.480 They tracked down all of them. Don't ask me how 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:01.839 they managed to do this. Nonetheless, they didn't find out 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:05.160 who this person was through the shoes. Yeah, I know, 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:08.760 I know, so frustrating frustrating investigation for our po PO. 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:10.760 I mean, I forgot to finding the murder. They can't 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:14.600 even figure out who she was. So anyway, in December three, 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:18.640 somebody put graffiti on a wall in Birmingham. Birmingham is 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:22.680 a nearby city, the nearest industrial city. Um, somebody wrote, 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:25.760 who put Luebella in the witch elm Hagley Wood on 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:30.280 a wall in the city and so this, uh yeah, 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:32.440 that's probably the oddest part of this whole thing to 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:37.280 somebody searched graffitiing and like a couple of months later 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:41.800 to right about over six months. Yeah no, I mean, 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:45.080 I mean to continue for decades. But anyway, they gave 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:48.760 a name to the corpse. Anyway, so I did that 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:51.840 yield any results? Did they start like searching for every 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:55.360 Luebella in the area. I think they were looking at 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:59.240 missing person's reports persons called Luebella or bella or whatever. 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:02.320 But yeah, again, you know, dead end. I wonder if 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:06.640 lubella was slang for something in the local local innacular. 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:09.160 It seems like that would have been recorded though, don't 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:11.280 you think. Well, but if it's if it's something that 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:15.600 in the town somebody has randomly started using this name 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:19.560 to assign to some kind of person, and it just 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:21.840 it kind of dies out. You know, there's there's all 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:25.120 kinds of fads with words. Sure, but as a as 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:28.640 a diligent police officer, you're writing your police report and 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:30.960 somebody writes this thing on there, and you say, you know, 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:35.280 this graffiti pertains to the case. And by the way, 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:41.600 lubella is slang for loose woman. Yeah, you don't know, 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:43.760 maybe you would think, I just I just wonder. Yeah, 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:47.240 I have no idea. I think I've heard that Luebella 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:50.520 was not an uncommon name in the Midlands, so somebody 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:52.720 probably said that somebody. It might have been somebody who 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:57.440 actually knew who she was. That phrase a local term 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:00.880 for what we would now say Jane Doe. Yeah it 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:05.040 might be. But but anyway, so now now Bella had 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:08.200 a name, which is Bella, and that's that the police 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:10.280 were interested, you know, because this guy called her out 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:12.160 but called her by name, and so the police thought 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:15.360 that perhaps the graffiti artist knew something about the case, 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:17.600 and so they put the word out that they wanted 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:20.440 to have a word with him. Surprisingly enough, he never 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:25.640 came forward. Shocking. Yeah, oh hey, whoever did the graffiti. 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:29.360 Uh yeah, we'd like to talk to you. We want 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:31.480 to talk to you. Um, it has nothing to do 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:37.080 with the graffiti. This case, we probably won't arrest you. 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:41.200 Yeah right, well we'll arrest you for the graffiti. Yeah, yeah, alright. 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:44.120 So a lot of theories, a lot and rumors were 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:47.480 flying around the area. Obviously, this is a very very 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:50.760 creepy murder abound a good people that Willie's. So the 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:54.760 first one was it was witchcraft. It was a professor 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:58.600 named Margaret Murray wrote a book about this murder and 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:01.840 another murder that happened about five miles away, not too 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:05.120 much after this, and she she claimed that she had 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:10.040 been done in a sort of black magic execution. Um. 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:13.040 She said that an inner book that you can trap 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:15.960 a witch's spirit and stop her from continue to do 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:19.639 evil bad deeds with her spirit beyond the dead, and 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:21.680 you can trap it by stuffing her into a witch 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:26.000 elm tree. And also you can you can sever the 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:29.200 right hand of a dead criminal and the hand becomes 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.200 a very powerful talisman, the hand of power, the hand 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:37.119 of power, which is in all kinds of fantasy books 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:39.800 and stuff. It's always the hand of power, which and 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:42.560 I don't know if you've found this near research. But 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:45.680 the hand of power you always heard about, it's a candle. 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:49.080 So it's basically from about the midfoe arm up or 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:52.439 maybe the wrist up and they you basically burned the 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:54.800 fingers like candles, and they're supposed to have some kind 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:57.840 of mystical power and you can do things. It's a 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:01.840 that's a very common trope sting. Yeah. The problem I 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:04.240 have with that theory as well. If you've just acquired 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:06.359 this powerful talisman, why don't you just drop it at 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:08.240 the base of the tree and walk away? It was 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:12.320 too powerful? Maybe maybe that was it there was Yeah, 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:15.280 maybe maybe after they realized what they've done, they were 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.520 kind of grossed out. Or maybe it's just another way 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:20.679 to like strip that which of the power. Right you 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:22.359 cut off the right hand, so you strip her over 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:25.040 power even more and then you don't really need it, 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:27.920 you don't want it. Maybe you're not a witch covenant. 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:30.320 Maybe you're just trying to get rid of her which 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:32.880 that lives in your area. Yeah, that's a good point, 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:36.040 but but again, you know, I would I would take 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:37.720 that hand and I would bury it at least three 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:42.600 ft deep. Yeah, Well, the other funny thing about it is, uh, 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:45.159 I think you had mentioned this in there, Joe, Is 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:48.320 that the the whole hand of a thief for murder, 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:52.200 which is one of the two, wasn't it. I've I've 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:54.920 seen accounts where he'll say it's the left hand, it's 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:58.400 or it's the right hand, or it's both. So it's 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:01.879 funny that she says it's scifically that hand because it 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:05.320 just meets up with the evidence. Maybe it depends on 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:08.640 whether the witch is right handed or left handed. Yeah, 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:11.639 so yeah, and a lot of Middle Eastern cultures they 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.320 tend to cut off a hand. That's like the punishment 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:16.640 for a thief. And I think usually they cut off 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:19.760 the left hand, the non dominant hand first, and then 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:23.280 they cut off the that's reasonable, yeah, if you keep stealing. Yeah, 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:26.240 you don't keep stealing after that from guests on. People 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:29.320 probably do after you get the second hand taken. Oh, 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:31.680 with their teeth maybe on the other hand. Yeah, Yeah. 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:33.240 A problem with that when you think about it, is 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:35.200 that like, after you've had your left hand chopped off, 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:37.359 then it's it's probably gonna be harder to find work 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:44.400 and you're gonna have to resort to steal. Yeah, yeah. So, 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:47.520 and she also tied tied to her murder. And I 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:49.560 said previously, there was another murder of a man not 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:52.359 too long after this, about twenty five miles southeast in 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:56.280 a village called Lower Quentin. A guy was sound pinned 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:58.879 to the ground by a pitchfork, which is kind of 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:01.800 kind of creepy, but again that's not exactly evidence of 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:06.560 witchcraft though. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, she she eventually uh 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:08.800 sort of used up her credibility and was found to 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:12.200 be a hack. So it was nonetheless that that theory 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:14.320 was very popular with the public and the press for 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:19.600 a long time. That's sensational. It was pretty sensational. Hell yeah, yeah. 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:22.080 This next theory is one more credible. She was a 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:28.400 German spy. Yeah. Yeah. So the first ten years after 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:30.800 the body was found, a letter was sent to the 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:35.560 Wolverhampton Expressing Star by somebody who called herself Anna Comma Cleverly. 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:41.240 Cleverly is a village about ten miles northwest of Hagley Woods. Yeah, 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:44.159 and so she was not too far far away. She 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:48.359 claimed that she knew people involved, that they had had 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:51.480 formed essentially a spy ring operating in the West Midlands, 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:54.000 and they were right. What they were doing was mostly 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:58.800 identifying munitions factories for the LOOFTWAFFA so they could come 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:04.520 in and bomb them and stuff. Yeah, goog war time, Yeah, objective. Uh. 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:07.720 So this little spire ring was composed of a British officer, 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:11.240 some Dutch guy, and a foreign trapeze artist and other 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:14.240 accounts he was a music hall artist. I'm gonna go 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:16.840 with music hall artist actually, because that's a little more believable. 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:21.680 Trapeze artist. Yeah. So, anyway, the British officer, Dutch guy 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:25.640 and and the other guy were in this little spy ring, uh, 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:28.000