Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm? : An English Mystery

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[00:00:00]BBL War, Black Box Online Radio, coming to you from West Virginia at heart and from around the globe. And hello Neds.

[00:00:13]Hello Black Box Battalion. Today is Tuesday.

[00:00:17]Another Mystery Tuesday. Welcome to the show. How's everybody doing? On Tuesdays I talk to you guys about unsolved mysteries and today I will be discussing the mystery of Who put Bella in the Witch Elm? And you guys know the drill, you can hit the like button if you want, subscribe if you haven't, and drop a comment down below if you have something to say about the mystery of the Witch Elm. For larger things you can send them to me at [email protected].

[00:00:47]And I am your host, Black Box Ned.

[00:00:52]Firstly, I would like to give a shout-out to YouTube user Matt M [clears throat] who said, "Who put Bella in the Witch Elm would be a good Mystery Tuesday topic. A dead woman inside a hollow tree in 1943.

[00:01:05]Lots of theories but no killer was ever identified." And as you see, this is one that was requested by one of the listeners. So, if you guys have any ideas for a future episode of Mystery Tuesday, you know where to write the show and you can also drop it in the comment section down below. This is a story that I learned about years ago.

[00:01:24]I'm obviously not an expert on it but I've definitely heard of this one. It's a very famous mystery from England from the World War II era. And every Friday on Black Box Online Radio I talk to you guys about the story of D.B. Cooper and I learned about D.B. Cooper and Bella in the Witch Elm in the exact same way.

[00:01:43]There used to be lots of these channels that were very popular such as Dark Five, List 25, Old Time Tens. They would do countdowns of various subjects including unsolved mysteries and the case of Bella in the Wych Elm, came up very frequently.

[00:01:59]However, when Madame wrote that out, I was surprised to see this because I thought the case had been solved. I thought that Bella had been identified.

[00:02:09]And it turns out that it's exactly what Matt said. What I had read in the news was just one of the competing theories.

[00:02:17]And I mean, I think Matt provided an excellent introduction. A woman was found inside a tree in the World War II era, in 1943 in England. And she was found only with her skeletal remains, also with some clothing. But what really surprised people is that the skeleton was fragmented. It was a part. Some people think that she was dismembered before she was put into the tree. Other people disagree with that. And also, there was a type of material, a type of fabric that was found in her mouth. So, some people think that she may have been suffocated, or she had it forced into her mouth to silence her for a particular reason. But as we're going to see, all of this is disputed. All of these things are just very general statements that you might encounter if you're first looking at the story of who put Bella in the Wych Elm. But the long and short of it is that four boys were playing around, and they found these skeletal remains in the tree. And this occurred back in 1943. It was actually on April 18th of that year. Four local boys who were poaching local birds in Hagley Wood decided to search a wych elm for bird for birds' nests, and one of the boys discovered a human skull in the trunk. But I really do have to get right to the theories. I mean, I would love to just provide some type of 20-minute introduction as to the whole backstory.

[00:03:40]But what I often do on Black Box Online Radio is I tell you guys how I encountered the information. And what I had heard in the past about Bella being identified is that um she was actually a spy from World War II. And, I mean, I'm just going to read you guys the most basic introduction here. Another theory comes from an MI5 declassified file about an individual named Josef Jakobs, the last man to be put to death in the Tower of London on August 15th of 1941.

[00:04:12]An Abwehr agent, he parachuted into Cambridgeshire in 1941, but broke his ankle when landing and was soon arrested by Home Guard. On his person was found a photo purportedly of his lover, a German cabaret singer and actress named Clara Bauerly.

[00:04:31]Jakobs said that he was being trained as a spy and she was also being trained as a spy and he had made contact. She might have been sent over England after him.

[00:04:41]However, there is no evidence that Clara Bauerly parachuted into England and several witnesses describe Clara as being 6 ft tall or 180 cm and the body that was found in the Wych Elm from Bella was 5 ft tall or 150 cm. And yes, that's exactly the theory that I had heard in the past. It was some kind of, um, just discussion they were having on YouTube about the case had been cracked and that she was actually someone who was trying to rescue a German spy and she was trying to parachute into, um, well, into England and she was unable to open the parachute successfully and she landed in the Wych Elm and that that solves the whole mystery of who put Bella in the Wych Elm. But as we see, that story is almost certainly false and I don't mean to be this type of Debbie Downer or to just throw water on a particular theory, but when you hear these very specific points about how she is 5 ft tall, Bella was 5 ft tall and Clara Bauerly was, uh, 6 ft tall, that really is mostly a deal breaker. But one of the reasons, um, why the story became popular, and I remember this from the countdown sites.

[00:05:50]The story became popular because of graffiti. Graffiti that was shared about people just spreading the story, fueling the flames of this story, actually. And they would write things such as who put Bella in the Wych Elm would be a form of graffiti that shared.

[00:06:07]It started with who put Lou Bella down the Wych Elm, and also who put Bella down the Wych Elm Hagley Wood. That was another one. Sometimes the witch is spelled w y c h, sometimes it's spelled w i t c h. But there are some other sources that I'm going to look at for today's Mystery Tuesday.

[00:06:25]And there was a very interesting one that was actually uh written by someone whom I haven't discussed before on the channel. His name was Mike Noble, and he has a very simple post called Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm, A Chance of Discovery. A body that was found in 1943 led to a bizarre local legend of witchcraft, espionage, and murder. But who put the body in the tree? All right, so now we are we have established some things. Bella was found in 1943, and these are the main competing theories. If you do any reading at all about this story, you will find that these are the main competing theories. At number one, it's the espionage theory. And if it's done in that very particular context, saying that Bella's real name was Clara Bowarly, almost certainly false. The second one is the witchcraft theory or the occult theory, and that is that she may have been dismembered as part of an occult ritual, and that's why the hands were removed. That's why the skull was found almost as if she had been decapitated, and something was found in her mouth. And then there is the third one that Bella was somebody who was murdered, and the body was put into the tree as a way to hide her remains. So, these are the main competing things, and I kid thee not. I kid thee not. If you do any reading on this particular story, you will most likely find these three theories being disputed. But uh Mike Noble continues by saying that Stephen King actually wrote a novella called The Body. And when it was adapted for a screenplay, it actually became the source material for Stand by Me. That's some interesting stuff. But um I knew that Stand by Me was based on Stephen King's writings. I didn't know it was based on Who Put Bella in the Witch Elm. So, that's pretty cool. But in the Stephen King novella, The Body, adapted for the screen as Stand by Me, four preadolescent boys embark on an adventure to seek out the body of a fifth boy who had recently disappeared.

[00:08:22]Acting on stolen intelligence that concerned the location of the boy's body, the four lads set out to find it.

[00:08:28]So, you have the four boys who are looking for well, something. And then they know about the dead body.

[00:08:35]Despite the finding of a human body being their specific object, the actual discovery is a shocking moment, and the boys are naturally upset. Upsetting though it was, it would perhaps would have been worse if they had not been expecting to find the body. In April of 1943, four preadolescent boys embarked on their own adventure. Their object to seek out birds' nests, trespassing on Lord Cobham's estate near Whichbury Hill in the English Midlands. And they found a large witch elm which they believed was an ideal location.

[00:09:05]As one boy climbed the tree, he glanced into the hollow trunk and he saw a pale human skull. And this will become another very important piece of information because as I said, there was some type of material that was found in Bella's mouth. And one explanation as to how this may have happened is that the boys may have taken the skull out of the tree and then decided, "Oh no, we found this human skull." So, then they forced it back into the tree and that's actually how the materials got into Bella's mouth. So, it wouldn't necessarily mean that someone was trying to silence her or that she was uh choked or had anything forced into her mouth upon death. All of that could have been done with the discovery. But, there was actually a very um interesting um write-up about this at Cockburn's Eclectics. That's the name of it. You can get it at uh cockburndj.wordpress.com, which is written by well, an individual named uh DJ Cockburn. And he had a very good telling of the Bella in the Wych Elm story. And I would like to transition to that one right now.

[00:10:11]Like all the best mysteries, it started when four boys went trespassing. But, this isn't the beginning of a novel.

[00:10:18]This actually happened in April of 1943 in Hagley Wood in the Midlands of England. The known facts. The little that is known about this case is bizarre enough to open the door to more speculation than conclusion.

[00:10:34]The skull belonged to a woman who about 35 years old, who had been dead for around 18 months when she was found. I mean, if she's found in 1943 and dead in 18 months, then some things do match up with the Clara Bowley story because you remember that the guy that she would have been trying to get in contact with would have been imprisoned in 1941.

[00:10:56]That timeframe does match up, but a 6-ft woman versus a 5-ft skeleton, no, almost certainly she was a not the person in the Wych Elm.

[00:11:06]But, um yes, Bella was approximately 35 years of age. She had been dead for 18 months. And the tree had a hollow trunk into which the woman had either climbed or been placed feet first. She could not have been placed up once rigor mortis had set in. So, she was either alive or recently dead. Getting the body out of the tree proved sufficiently difficult, and the tree was cut down so her positioning could not have been accidental. Her hand was not with the rest of the body, but was found near the tree. Some descriptions say that it was buried, and others say that the finger bones were scattered around the tree.

[00:11:40]Then, it gets really strange. I just love that sentence. Then, it gets really strange. As As if this story is not strange enough about how there's just this skeleton inside the tree, and nobody has any idea how it got there.

[00:11:54]And also, it appears that parts of the body, such as the skull and the hands, have been separated. I mean, yes, this is a very strange story.

[00:12:02]A year and a half after Bella was found, graffiti started to appear in England that said, "Who put Bella in the Wych Elm?" But, the word Wych Elm has multiple spellings. The graffiti continued appear to appear in the Midlands until the 1990s.

[00:12:18]The skeleton was donated to Birmingham University, while the pathology reports presumably went into the police file. In a final twist, both the skeleton and the pathology reports subsequently disappeared.

[00:12:29]Well, there is um that's a very uh very um unfortunate set of events, but we are going to see this when we're looking back to cases prior to 1950, when we're looking in cases from the World War II era in the 1940s. Yes, records got lost.

[00:12:46]And I also talk about Jack the Ripper here on Black Box Online Radio every Wednesday. And that's another example of when the information has also been distorted.

[00:12:55]That's even longer, going back to 1888.

[00:12:58]And yes, every Wednesday I talk about Jack the Ripper, Ripper Wednesday here on Black Box Online Radio. I've already told you about Cooper Friday. This show comes to you Monday through Friday, talking about unsolved mysteries. Feel free to start your day with some mystery talk in the morning. And on Mondays about the Zodiac Killer, you're listening to Mystery Tuesday right now.

[00:13:16]Ripper Wednesday, Black Dahlia Thursday, and D.B. Cooper Friday. Lots of unsolved mystery talk going around. And if you um want to follow along with all of these discussions, you can hit the like button and subscribe.

[00:13:29]There is also a video that was made about this by Simon Whistler. And I almost said right now that it was on his channel The Casual Criminalist, but it was not. It was on a channel called Decoding the Unknown. He has so many channels on YouTube, I can't keep them all straight. And also, the recommendations underneath the video about Who Put Bella in the Witch Elm were also from channels that he was in the thumbnail for, but I had never heard of them before. He does a lot of things on YouTube. But it was done in a very similar format to his Casual Criminalist presentations, where he sits down and as an unknown observer, he reads a script and then gives his initial observations.

[00:14:11]And the reason why I'm talking to you about it is, even though he's not familiar with the story, he is giving an honest take on the subject, a fresh take on the subject, and he's very, very skeptical. And I do like skepticism when we're discussing these unsolved mysteries. For example, with the story of Who Put Bella in the Witch Elm, he had never heard of it before, not even like me, somebody who watched videos that mentioned it 15 years ago on YouTube. And I mean, during the introductory segments, I was just sharing the story as how I remembered it and that theory that had been promulgated, if you will. But he was just an absolute newcomer to this.

[00:14:53]And as he was going through the list of possibilities, he was like, "A cult murder? No. Espionage? No. This was the case of a murder. This woman was murdered and someone tried to hide the body in the tree. They thought that that was a sufficient place to dump the body, a hollowed-out elm tree." But one theory that was also discussed on Decoding the Unknown was that somebody may have placed her there not intentionally trying to kill her, but she may have been drunk and they put her in the tree as a type of prank or uh just they put her in the tree as almost just having a laugh as some people would say, and they didn't realize um how intoxicated she was. Maybe she had alcohol poisoning, and they weren't necessarily trying to kill her. Now, that theory was discussed, but um Simon Whistler didn't like it, and I didn't like it for the following reasons. And you guys can give your feedback. What do you think about this about what happened to Bella?

[00:15:50]Do you think that she was put into the tree because she was drunk and some people were playing a prank on her? My biggest issue is that there is insufficient evidence to support that. How do you know that she was drunk when she passed away? If all you have are skeletal remains, I mean, how would you know that that's what happened? That just sounds like speculation on top of speculation, or it sounds like it's forcing assumptions.

[00:16:17]But let's go back to this article by D.J. Cockburn because he's going to list off the possibilities and give his take on the subject.

[00:16:25]The facts throw up enough questions to leave Sherlock Holmes without a clue.

[00:16:29]Inevitably, I'm considering them with with a fanciful mind, the mind of a fiction writer rather than the sober and unimaginative mind of a police detective. Well, I mean, I think that's actually kind of good to um examine this with the unimaginative mind of a detective. And that's exactly what Simon Whistler did. He's like, "Witchcraft? No. Espionage? No. Those make for great stories, but that's most likely not what happened." The next line here. A straightforward murder seems unlikely because it's such an overcomplicated way to dispose of a body. Oh, no, I disagree completely. I disagree with this writer completely because that would be a place where you wouldn't expect to look for the body, and she only would have been found if these boys had been looking for birds, and they were poaching birds, birds that they should not have been looking for. I mean, this person perhaps knew about the hollowed-out elm tree and they put Bella in the tree, but this just looks like a case of somebody knew of a hiding spot.

[00:17:24]They knew of a place where they wouldn't have to dig a grave, where they wouldn't have to do something that was extremely strenuous, but they still were hiding a body and they didn't expect it to be found. I don't think there's anything overly complicated about hiding her body in the Wych Elm as part of a murder.

[00:17:43]What do you think? Drop your idea in the comments section down below.

[00:17:47]It would be an eccentric murderer who drags a body through a forest on the off chance of finding the ideal tree to hide it in. No, no, no, not at all. You'd just be like, yeah, there's a big tree that's um looks like there's a space in it.

[00:18:00]All you would have to do is just know some things about the forest. So, maybe that's something we should narrow things down. This is a local person.

[00:18:07]It's possible that Bella was hidden by someone who already knew about the Wych Elm. Bingo, exactly. Now we're on the same page. And he may have hoped that the tree would grow around to conceal the body. Nothing in any of the material found that DJ Cockburn found gives a clue as to how well known the tree was.

[00:18:25]I mean, I totally understand that, but when you look at photos of the Wych Elm, it's a very noticeable tree. I mean, if I saw that even one time, I would know um where that tree was, what it looked like. I mean, yes, I would know what that looked like.

[00:18:41]But, let's keep going here. Let's look at the occult theory because this is something that is widely discussed. It is widely discussed that this was part of some type of Roma ritual or even a type of witchcraft ritual. And when I say Roma, I mean, I'm referring to the people who were previously known as the Gypsies that it was done in one of their trademarks. While I'm not an expert on that, that is one of the explanations that has been provided.

[00:19:07]Could Bella have been put there as part of an occult ritual either involved her sacrifice or simply went wrong.

[00:19:14]Now, somebody was interviewed and that who claims to be an expert on this who recognized no ritual sacrifice, but there's no reason to assume that everyone who performs a ritual follows a textbook. Well, there are very few things that you would have. A woman's found in the tree, her skull was detached, and the the hands were detached, and possibly as you heard, the finger bones were separated as well. I mean, that that could easily have been done by decomposition. So, I agree that there's not a lot of um information. You don't have this person's remains to examine after they've been recently murdered. I mean, Bella was in the witch elm for a year and a half. I mean, all types of decomposition had taken place, and I don't even necessarily know if a killer would have thought that the tree would grow around her. They perhaps just thought nobody would find her. I mean, you guys can let me know. There's a podcast called Operation Cone of Power.

[00:20:08]Oh, um the podcast refers to something called the Operation Cone of Power. I misread that sentence, but by the way, Operation Cone of Power sounds like an amazing um name for a podcast, even though I don't know if I would immediately listen to that first, but eventually, maybe late at night, I would listen to Operation Cone of Power. But no, there was a podcast that was referring to something called the Operation Cone of Power, and that is a naked ritual performed by the New Forest Coven to prevent a German invasion. It probably didn't bother the Wehrmacht that two members of the coven died due to pneumonia.

[00:20:46]So, I mean, were people in England during World War trying to perform rituals to keep the Germans out, to keep the Axis powers out? That's when things start to get really far out because that's all speculative. I mean, if you just look at the facts, a woman's body was found in the witch elm, and immediately saying that, "Hey, this is a possible explanation and that she was sacrificed to keep the invaders out. I mean, if you're going to make a claim like that, I'm not going to say that you're wrong.

[00:21:17]Instead, I would just say that you should prove it.

[00:21:20]The occult theory gained some momentum a few years after Bella was found when a local man named Charles Walton was found murdered and pinned to the ground with a pitchfork.

[00:21:29]Two strange murders within a few years sparked a few imaginations, but there was never any evidence to connect the two and it was never certain that Bella was murdered. Well, I guess there are other possibilities. I mean, what if Bella were drunk, hypothetically, and entered the Wych Elm herself?

[00:21:45]What if she fell in the Wych Elm while she was looking for birds and she was knocked unconscious or couldn't get out? But, that's just as speculative as the occult problem and that's almost adding in an an additional layers.

[00:21:59]But, I also would be very, very uh quick to challenge this connection to the man who was stabbed with the pitchfork.

[00:22:06]Maybe if you had some type of evidence to suggest that Bella was stabbed with a pitchfork, then you would have a connecting clue. I'm really not seeing a lot of evidence to suggest that any of these theories are viable. And, much as one of the um posters I got, the Mike Noble post said, this is one where there really just is not a lot of evidence.

[00:22:27]But, we've talked about the espionage the espionage theory in the past. Now, we're going to get to the drunken escapade theory, which believe it or not, I think it's more fascinating to discuss than the um espionage one. Let's see what DJ Cockburn says about the drunken escapade.

[00:22:43]In 1953, a local newspaper received a letter signed Anna of Claverley stating that Bella was a Dutchwoman and that the man responsible for her death died in a mental hospital. Anna Claverley has been identified as a woman named Una Mossop, wife of an apparent black marketeer called Jack Mossop. Mossop was commonly well dressed and occasionally wore a Royal Air Force uniform, although he was a civilian. Una told the police that her husband had confessed to getting drunk with a Dutchman by the name of Van Raalte and a Dutch piece who was not named. By the Dutch piece, I believe they mean a woman. The woman passed out and Jack and Van Raalte put her in the tree to sleep it off. The woman's death drove Mossop into a breakdown that led to him being institutionalized.

[00:23:29]I It mean someone has come forward with that story, but are they really telling the truth? And as I said though, it was discussed on um Decoding the Unknown and it's just like I mean why on earth would they put her in the tree to sleep it off? And that what sounds like is more plausible is somebody murdered her and they put her in the tree to hide the body. I mean, there's so many better places where you could bring somebody to sleep off intoxication.

[00:23:59]But supporting the theory that um these two men put Bella in the Wychbury Hill because she was drunk is the account of a Home Guard man guardsman who stopped a car near Hagley Wood that night. The driver produced an RAF identification card and the passenger was covered by a coat, but otherwise undressed. So, the guardsman was too embarrassed to question her. Was the driver Jack Mossop and was the passenger Bella?

[00:24:22]I mean, you can guess all you want, but again, that's just very, very speculative. Applying Occam's razor, alcohol-fueled stupidity makes for a much simpler explanation than anything involving witches or espionage, which makes it attractive. However, a lot of gaps in the narrative remain unfilled.

[00:24:43]Oh, yes, absolutely. I mean, um this is something where I do agree. Even though I haven't been the strongest supporter of this intoxication theory, I would still propose that it's more plausible than the espionage theory and it's more plausible than the occult ritual theory because there just doesn't appear to be too much about Bella's body that would indicate that she was actually murdered as part of an occult ritual. If you had some type of symbols that were found on her, if that fabric that was found in her mouth had some type of symbols, or that there were some type of stones that were placed around the tree in a particular way, then you would have stronger clues.

[00:25:23]But, it really just sounds like a woman's body was found in the tree, and they can't figure out how she got there.

[00:25:29]And maybe Simon Whistler was right, and everybody is just saying that um that she was uh murdered, and her body was put there as a way to hide the body.

[00:25:40]But, um there is another article that was written about this that I would like to discuss with you guys, and it is available at the website Strange Remains. Who put Bella down the Wych Elm?

[00:25:52]When a woman is murdered in the prime of her life and her body is left unidentified, the story tends to capture the attention of the public because the mystery of her death is compounded by the apparent lack of loved ones to report her missing or claim her remains.

[00:26:07]Her life and homicide become a blank slate on which people speculate and spread rumors filled with romanticism, scandal, or conspiracy in attempt to understand what happened. Well, as far as lovers and loved ones, excuse me, as far as loved ones not coming forward to claim Bella or say that they know who she was.

[00:26:28]Remember, skeletal remains were found, World War II was going on, and what if Bella didn't originate from England?

[00:26:35]What if she wasn't a local to the area?

[00:26:37]We've already heard a couple possibilities about how she was German or Dutch. I mean, what if she was just from a different country? Not to mention that in the 1940s, we didn't have social media, we didn't have electronic communications.

[00:26:53]I mean, lots of people disappeared, lots of people used aliases, lots of people would go years without contact because of the lack of ability to do so.

[00:27:04]So, I mean, I don't think it's completely shocking that no one came forward and said, "Oh, I think that that's my relative." When furthermore, I mean, Bella had been uh decomposing for a year and a half, as horrible as that sounds.

[00:27:18]Bella in the Wych Elm is an example of the public's morbid fascination with the murder of a young woman and how the enigma of her case can take a life of its own.

[00:27:27]People propose all sorts of weird theories, such as the Hand of Glory, German spies, and even a trapeze artist.

[00:27:34]On April 18th of 1943, four boys went out looking for a bird's nest in Hagley Wood of Worcestershire. And yes, um they were uh apparently poaching, but then they discovered these store they discovered Bella in the Wych Elm, and then her remains were found, and then with the graffiti is beginning to spread around. I'm skipping over some of these parts so we can get to some new things.

[00:27:56]And this is the article though that's really going to talk about the theory that's put forward when someone is trying to connect this to a folkloric type of ritual.

[00:28:07]Two years after Bella's body was discovered, Margaret Murray, an anthropologist and archaeologist from the University College at London, proposed one of the more outlandish theories out there about the case.

[00:28:17]Murray argued that Bella had been executed during an occult ceremony and that her hand was removed. And this was called the Hand of Glory. A Hand of Glory was a dismembered hand used by burglars as a candle that can be carried into homes they wish to steal from in order to make the inhabitants fall asleep. Well, that's um it's a very big amount of effort just to get Bella's hand, and then they brought it back to the tree, I guess, and cut the fingers off and scattered the bones.

[00:28:46]The problem with this theory was that the hand of glory was cut from the body of a felon who had just been hanged at the gallows. Exactly like I mean if Bella were someone who had been hanged at the gallows, then you would have a evidence, then you would have records, then you would be able to say, "Oh, well, I mean, you know, someone a woman who is 5-ft tall was hanged at the gallows, someone stole the body and they put her in the witch elm." Then you would have something, but it just doesn't seem like there is a lot of evidence to support that.

[00:29:15]Margaret Murray, the the anthropologist, also linked Bella to the case of a murder and the man named Charles Walton.

[00:29:21]That's the guy who was uh stabbed with a pitchfork. Although Murray was a pioneering archaeologist and anthropologist, she did have a tendency to to see witches everywhere. And that's ultimately what Simon Whistler was going at. He was saying that this sounds like a case of speculation. People are just trying to go down the pathways of the espionage stories or the witchcraft stories because they're wild, they are more eye-catching and they get people's uh neurochemistry fueling. But in all seriousness, what happened? I mean, what really happened to Bella?

[00:29:54]Margaret Murray wrote several books on the history of witchcraft in Western Europe and proposed that there was a secret cabal of witches that infiltrated the highest levels of English nobility and knocked off a number of kings. Now, this is another point that we deal with very frequently. I told you guys I talk about Jack the Ripper every Wednesday.

[00:30:12]And ultimately, I think that this is coming down to the fact that yes, these are wild stories. Yes, people do genuinely believe them. These stories are also very very frequently shared about how um this secret cabal was responsible for the Jack the Ripper crimes, the Whitechapel murders, the autumn of terror. Yes, that gets discussed very frequently as well as with other crimes in England, even going all the way to who put Bella in the witch elm.

[00:30:39]People do genuinely believe these things. And I try not to be overly dismissive, so I simply just state that it sounds like it's a case of you need to provide the evidence. If you actually do believe that these things are happening, provide the evidence. Not just saying that oh well, you know, this is a set of of events that I can arrange in a mental sequence, you know, conjecture, surmise.

[00:31:04]These are how I've connected the dots in my own mind, therefore it is factual and it is real in the external world. No, I do not want to hear that. I would so much I'd be so much more impressed by a fact-driven set of events. If people had the evidence, if they had the reasons to support this, I would be so much more impressed by that type of thinking. But in all seriousness, I also want to um kind of come back to this whole statement of it really does seem like this could be a case of murder. Somebody was with Bella. She was murdered for some unknown reason. I wish I could tell you something that was more specific than that. I wish I could tell you something that was more powerful than that. But it seems like Bella was murdered and her body was put into the witch elm. And if you think I'm being assumptive, I would love to hear more. If you think that I'm being dismissive, I would love to hear more.

[00:31:55]Share your idea in the comment section down below. I would rate the theories of operation in terms of like the theories of in likelihood of number one, Bella was murdered and her body was hidden in the witch elm and someone thought she wouldn't be found. Number two, the drunken story is absolutely much more plausible. And you even have somebody who says that maybe um there's this connection, but they put her in the tree because she was drunk and it's a drunk people doing ridiculous things. That's the second most likely one. The third most likely one would be the occult ritual. The occult ritual is more likely than the espionage because the espionage is fourth. That's the least likely because as as I've already told you, the person whom they were trying to connect to this spy story was 6 ft tall, Bella was 5 ft tall.

[00:32:43]That is a fact. Let me know what you think about this order of theories in terms of likelihood. Number one, murder.

[00:32:49]Number two, drunken misconduct, if you will. Number three is the occult ritual, and number four is espionage. I would love to read your responses in the comment section down below. You guys know where to write the show, [email protected].

[00:33:02]You can also get me on Facebook. My personal Facebook name is Ned Dahan, and there is also blackboxned88 on Instagram. And I use these pages to release shorts and reels Monday through Friday talking about true crime news, serial killers, and anything under the sun or in the darkness. And this show is also available for free downloads anywhere you get your podcasts, including iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify under the names Black Box Podcast or Black Box True Crime. The images that you see going by on the screen are available at True Crime Designs on Facebook. True Crime Designs, please follow. And if you want to support all of these efforts, you can go over to buymeacoffee.com, buymeacoffee.com/blackboxned88, and that allows you to make a donation or contribution to help support the show. And anybody who makes a donation will get a shoutout on Zodiac Monday.

[00:33:54]And if you are a listener to Mystery Tuesday, you can also say in the comment section on buymeacoffee.com, or if you leave a super thanks here on YouTube, that you are a listener to Mystery Tuesday, you'll get your shoutout on Mystery Tuesday as well. I want you guys to hear it. But that's all for me now, and I will be with you tomorrow for a new episode about Jack the Ripper. Until next time.