What is the meaning of the popular English expression associated with an unsolved crime: "Who put Bella in the Witch Elm?"

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

This story began in the distant war 1943, when teenagers, in search of food, climbed into a remote part of the forest near Birmingham and searched a tree, which in those places was called the Witch Elm. The skeleton of a woman they discovered was never identified, and the case could have been forgotten, but a few years later the mystery found an ominous continuation.

On April 18, 1943, four teenagers climbed into Lord Cobham's estate. The boys wanted to find some food in the forest, but they were not lucky that day. Already at the end of their sortie, they reached the place about which they had been told more than once terrible stories in childhood. The witch's elm - a strangely overgrown tree - has aroused awe among the local population for several decades, but in my youth I so want to laugh at the old horror stories! One of the boys climbed into the mass of branches and found a void inside the tree, in which an old skull was lying.

The guy decided that it was a skull of an animal and launched it at his frightened comrades, but when they all considered the strange find, they were really scared. The skull was very human-like, with a patch of long dark hair adhered to it. Having agreed to be silent about the terrible discovery, the teenagers went home, but in the evening one of them could not resist and told everything to their parents. The next day, the police were already working at the witch's elm.

It turned out that the guys found the remains of a woman. An almost complete skeleton was hidden inside the tree, only an arm was missing. She was found later, for some reason the limb was buried nearby in the ground. Forensic scientists concluded that the woman was about 35 years old, most likely she was a mother and was definitely visiting a dentist. Her body lay for over a year, but scraps of clothing, size 35 blue shoes and a gold ring remained nearby. Of course, it was about murder. It is difficult to imagine that a woman hid herself in such a strange place.

Detectives have performed miracles trying to solve this riddle. They conducted a full survey of all the dentists in the county, since the deceased had very crooked teeth and shortly before her death she treated them, but none of the doctors remembered such a patient. Then we managed to find the factory where the victim's shoes were made, trace all the points of sale of this model and even find almost all the women who bought such, however, this path did not lead to anything. The investigation was at an impasse. Affected by the difficulties of wartime, the lack of people and time, and even hotter matters demanded attention. Gradually they began to forget about the mysterious woman, but then an unknown person intervened in the matter.

At the very end of 1943, an inscription appeared on an old obelisk, not far from the crime scene: "Who put Bella in the Witch elm?" ("Who put Bella in the Witch Elm?"). It was done in chalk, in a sweeping handwriting. Newspaper headlines were again full of "Witch Elm" - the secret graffiti lover aroused everyone's interest no less than the victim of the crime: who is he, how does he know that the woman's name was Bella, and why is he worried about this case? - a lot of questions arose, but none of them found an answer, although the strange "well-wisher" did not stop at one inscription, he continued to create them in different parts of the county, but was never caught.

A mysterious "witness" (or maybe the criminal himself?) Wrote the same phrase for several decades in a row, the townsfolk became more and more perplexed, the police did not abandon their searches, but the secret was never revealed. True, during this time the case has acquired several versions, and some of them are very interesting.

According to one version, Bella was a German spy and became a victim of the special services. Even the name of this woman was called - Clara Bauerl. She was thrown into approximately these places with a parachute, and then her traces were lost. Another possible scenario was presented to the police by a resident of Birmingham ten years after the start of the search. According to the woman, her husband and a friend once made a joke on a drunken prostitute - they put her asleep in a witch's elm and left. The unlucky joker had already died by the time the skeleton was found, but a whole year before that he was tormented by nightmares.

A couple more versions are opposite to each other, but both are occult in nature. It is possible that the mysterious Bella became a victim of the magical rite of creation of the "Hand of Glory". It turns out that this eerie object is not an invention of J. K. Rowling, but a popular artifact in the Middle Ages. To make it, the brush of a hanged criminal was required, which was mummified and used as a kind of candlestick. It was believed that the magic hand helps thieves perfectly: either its light lulls the owners of the house, or immobilizes them, according to some versions, the light from candles inserted into the Hand of Glory is visible only to its owner. If unhappy Bella really became a victim of an ancient ritual, then it probably was not completed, since her limb, although separate from the body, was still found.

Experts consider the version of the "reprisal against the witch" very likely. In civilized and respectable Great Britain in the middle of the 20th century, superstition still flourished with might and main. Residents of remote counties, most often farmers, could well inflict bloody lynching on a suspicious woman. A similar incident, incidentally, occurred in 1945 in Gloucestershire. The victim was an unsociable old man who was accused of poor harvest and brutally torn to pieces right on the field.

The police knew that on such occasions the locals were always surprisingly unanimous and never reported anything. It is possible that Bella was a gypsy, in that year one camp was just staying in those places. A woman could be mistaken for a witch and killed in the most "witch" place of the forest - near a tree that is notorious. This would explain the fact that no one knew or looked for her. But who the mysterious "well-wisher" was, writing the buildings with an unsolvable question, remains a mystery.

The fact that the killer in the case of unfortunate Bella was never found, unfortunately, is not a rare case. Known at least 7 popular personalities whose disappearance remains a mystery today