“Black magic” massacre or murdered Nazi spy? Why the Bizarre ‘Bella in the Wych Elm’ Murder May Never Be Solved

A tangled web of wartime espionage and dark magic remains at the center of a terrifying murder mystery – 81 years after a skull was found hidden in a tree.

The chilling story began in April 1943, when war-torn Britain was facing air raids and strict food rationing.

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Desperate to put something on the table, four teenagers went poaching on an aristocrat’s land in Hagley Woods, Worcestershire.

One of them, Bob Farmer, reached into the hollow of a large tree and felt what he believed to be an egg nestled among the withered branches.

But it turned out that the much-needed food was actually a human skull.

Terrified, Bob later revealed: “There was a small piece of rotten flesh on his forehead, with hair attached to it.

“The two in front teeth They were crooked.”

The teens initially agreed to a vow of silence, but one of the boys soon broke it and told his father about the horrific discovery.

Police went to the scene and found the almost complete skeleton of a woman.

Police also discovered a shoe, a gold ring and some fragments of clothing.

The woman’s hand was eventually found nearby – leading police to believe the woman was ritualistically mutilated.

This theory was furthered by a piece of taffeta that was placed in the woman’s mouth.

Her body was sent for forensic examination, where it was quickly established that the woman had been dead for at least 18 months.

She was still warm when she was thrown onto the tree trunk, as this would not have been possible if rigor mortis had already set in.

Wild theories began to emerge – including that she was a victim of black magic in the area.

Others believed the woman was a German spy murdered when a mission behind enemy lines went wrong.

But interest in the assassination began to wane as Britain became too preoccupied with the Second World War.

Then, six months later, a chilling message was scrawled on a wall in Birmingham that read: “Who put Bella in the elm-wych?”

That question still remains unanswered 81 years later – as does the identity of the woman named Bella.

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In 1953, a possible breakthrough came when a woman named Una Hainsworth came forward with her own extraordinary story.

She claimed that her ex-husband Jack Mossop met a Dutch man called Van Ralt three years before Bella’s body was discovered.

Una, who believed the man was a spy, said Mossop told her he had been drinking with Van Ralt and a “Dutch piece” – probably Bella – who passed out in the car on the way home.

Van Ralt apparently told Mossop to drive to the woods where the pair placed the woman in the hollow tree, believing she would come to her senses the next morning.

Bella obviously never woke up – causing Mossop to be so tormented by Horror he died in a mental health center in 1942, Una said.

But her allegations were never proven – with officers questioning why Una waited more than ten years to speak out.

Another theory came from a declassified MI5 file on Josef Jakobs – the last man to be executed in the tower from London.

The Czech-born Gestapo agent was captured by the Home Guard after parachuting into Cambridgeshire in 1941.

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It turned out that Jakobs was carrying a photo of German cabaret singer and actress Clara Bauerle, who had good connections with senior Nazis.

Clara spent two years before the war working in music halls in the West Midlands and mastered a Birmingham accent.

Jakobs claimed that she was also recruited by the Gestapo with the aim of creating a spy network in the United Kingdom.

He told his captors that she was the woman in the tree and was supposed to parachute into the area at the same time the body was dumped.

But Jakob’s claims were never investigated further and it is believed that Clara died in Berlin in 1942.

The mystery was further inflamed when detectives established the link between Bella’s murder and the murder of Charles Walton in neighboring Warwickshire.

Charles also appeared to have been the victim of a ritualistic massacre after being beaten with his own stick, his neck slashed with a hook and his body impaled on the ground with a pitchfork.

Some have pointed out that the cutting of one of Bella’s hands was consistent with a ritual known as the Hand of Glory.

In 2018, facial reconstruction was performed in the hopes that someone would recognize Bella and come forward.

But in another bizarre twist, Bella’s skull was lost to police – meaning her identity will likely always remain a mystery.

West Midlands Police told The Sun Online: “Searches were conducted by Police Museum volunteers and they have confirmed that we have no exhibits and have not found any documentation that could be linked to this case, at any of the West Midlands Police Museums. West Midlands.

“In addition, searches were carried out by our Force Records team who confirmed that there is no relevant documentation held within the main investigation team or in external storage.”

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