Hey weirdos, it's Ash here, ready to share a little secret.
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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.
She did not listen to it, but she said, girl, this title sounds so you.
And let me tell you, it did. I've been listening to it while I walk and I am absolutely loving it.
I love all the different narrators. I love Audible.
There's more to imagine when you listen.
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I'm obsessed. It's pillowy. It's satisfying.
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I really am obsessed with the strawberry flavor right now.
My mochi is only around 70 calories per piece, which like, hello, that's amazing.
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Hey weirdos, I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid. in the morning, in the morning, in the AM.
I feel like it's just become customary at this point to tell you what time it is and what day it is.
It is. Just so you get the feel. Okay, so I should probably know what day it is before I inform you.
It's Thursday, right? It is Thursday. It is Thursday, the end of the week, which doesn't mean anything anymore.
All the weeks are the same. But we don't really have a whole lot to chat about beforehand.
Mainly, I just want to let you know that you might have seen the title of this.
I'm like, wait a second. They did that.
Did they already do that? Why'd they do that again?
So we're covering today who put Bella in the witch elm.
And we did cover this a long time ago. This was our early. very early scuba days this was also when we were doing actual mini morbids where they were like short Yeah, this episode was like a half hour, 45 minutes.
I looked back on... So I've been looking, like I've mentioned in other episodes, I've been looking back on the research and like the quality, the sound quality of the episodes just to remaster something.
And I looked at this one and I was like, there's like four pages of research on this.
And I was like, that's not enough. So I just happened to start.
I was like, I'm going to start looking into it because I do like this case a lot.
And there was new stuff that had come up.
And there was all kinds of things that I just hadn't touched upon in the original one.
So I was like, you know what? We were still getting our research hats on.
I can do this better. And with the new stuff that has come out, I think it's important to update it.
Hell yeah. So instead of just putting a little update, we figured scrap it. do the episode over again because i can do it better let's do it always improving So without further ado, we're going to talk about who put Bella in the witch elm.
To be honest, I only remember small details from this.
You remember a tree. remember uh a witch elm a witch elm and i remember little kids finding her yeah Well, like teens.
Yeah, teens. So little kids, yeah. So this takes place on April 18th, 1943. four local boys named Robert Hart, Thomas Willits, Bob Farmer, and Fred Payne were poaching rabbits and trying to catch birds in Hagley Wood.
Alrighty. And this is located in Worcestershire, England.
Worcestershire sauce. Worcestershire sauce.
Worcestershire. Worcestershire. So this was this place was part of the Hagley estate belonging to Lord cobham near witchbury hill hell yeah you know the place right I've been there, actually.
We're Americans. We don't know anything about this, but I hope I'm saying it all right.
I bet you are. When they came across this... crazy looking tree, which is referred to as a witch elm.
Right. The tree itself is like, we'll post a photo of it because it's definitely like an odd tree.
Or at least odd to me. It's got a big bulbous bottom to it, and then it's got all these crazy spikes coming out of it.
Because it's cursed. It looks like a witch elm.
Like, it looks like that's what it would be called.
Yeah. Like a witch tree. It's a spooky tree.
It's definitely spooky. Now Thomas Willits was 17, Bob Farmer and Robert Hart were 15, and Fred Payne was 14.
Yeah, see, 15-14 equals little kid. Sure.
They're teens. Either way. Now, before I get really into this, I just want to mention There are two books on this that I originally did not know about when I first did my research like long ago.
What? Elena didn't know about a book? I know, it's insane.
And there are two books, they're volume one and two, called Who Put Bella in the Witch Elm?
They're, the author is Alex Merrill, and actually it's a father-son team who did these two books and Alex Merrill is his 15 year old son who helped him write this book and do all the investigation but he put his name on the book Which I think is so cool.
That is cool. That he gave him the proper credit.
That's adorable. they're really cool so I recommend you go check it out because they went back One of the things we'll see with this case is that a lot of the original documents are very difficult to find.
Things have been lost. Things were misinterpreted.
There's just a lot of shit going on here.
The 40s. But they went back and really investigated this.
They looked at all the old autopsy reports.
In the book itself, they have the actual text of the autopsy reports and all the inquests, all the reporting.
That's cool. the investigation. So it's really interesting and there's a ton of detail that I'm not going to put in here that I think you should check out those books and see.
So these kids were actually on their way home when they had passed Hagleywood.
And when they saw it, they were like... I bet there's some stuff.
Because I guess bird poaching is like taking eggs.
And poaching them? Out of like nests. Like stealing?
Yeah. There's different things about what they were actually doing.
I think they were up to no good. Yeah, they were doing something that apparently is illegal to do on like, you know, private land and stuff.
They were kidnapping birds. They were being teens.
That's fooked. So when they walked by this, they were like, oh, I bet there's a lot of stuff to do in there.
So they're... they gotta try. So one of them, I believe it was Bob Farmer by all accounts, He saw Blackbird leave this big hole in a tree.
Smooky. and he followed because he was like what's in there it's got to be a nest in there so he followed and when he looked He said, you know what?
I'm going to look in here, but it's like dark in here.
So he said... You guys go look in these other trees that are nearby and see if you see anything.
So Robert Hart looked into an old elm tree and he said immediately he looked into this big hole in the tree And he said he thought he saw an animal skull, but he couldn't get a good look at it.
But he was like, oh, cool. There's an animal skull in there.
I want to see it. So he got the other boys to help him.
And they ended up using a stick to somehow kind of lift it up, stick it into the eyeball of the skull and then just lift it up.
And this cavity was pretty deep. It was like three feet deep.
So after moving it a bit, they could see that this was clearly not an animal skull.
This was a human skull. So they were able to tell this, one, because you know the look of a human skull, but two, It had a big, it had a clump of human hair on one side of it.
Oh my god, that freaks me the fuck out. And it had...
Very human teeth, like a full set of human teeth.
Because teeth take a while to go away, to disintegrate, right?
They don't go away. Yeah, right. Never?
Yeah, they stay in your head. Huh. Yeah.
But it had a full set of two. Why don't they ever go away?
They're just what they're made of. That's so cool.
Yeah. Because like your bones, you know. that would be a long long long long long long time for anything to happen to them yeah fossils man Wow.
AM Ash. So he realized that he had found a full human skull.
So they put the skull back into the tree and then they ran into Wallace Goat into town. and ran into Donald Payne, who was Fred's older brother.
And when they ran into him, they dragged him back into the Hagley Wood.
And they showed him the tree. This is like some stand by me shit.
It certainly is. They were like, because they were like, what the?
They ran into Ace and his squad. Because one of the issues was they were like, we're not supposed to be in here. like and we're doing shit that we're gonna get in trouble for so like what do we do we just found something really bad but like Do we tell anyone?
Like, older brother, please help. Exactly.
So they brought Donald back. Donald said he looked into the tree.
He saw what they saw. He also saw a green bottle.
He saw shoes and he saw more bones. inside the cavity.
But again, they were on this land illegally.
So they were like, what do we do? So Farmer put the skull back into the tree again, and all of them returned home without mentioning anything to anybody. that I would be like cursed from like picking up the skull.
Well, Thomas Willits, was on your vibe because it didn't take him long before he felt very guilty about leaving that.
Yeah. And he immediately told his parents that night about it.
He was like, I need to tell you what I did and what I saw.
Because if not, who's to say that that lady's spirit didn't intertwine in your fingers and haunt you.
It's like you picked it up. Yeah, you got...
You got it. You got it. And so his parents were like, okay, Thomas, let's...
Let's bring you. So they brought him to the Lye police station where they told Sergeant Charles Lamborn about this entire ordeal. you.
So they made a plan to go the next day to go through it because this was at night and this was late at night and the police were like, which is kind of funny that police are like yeah we can't really see in there like you don't have a flashlight we'll just go tomorrow What if somebody gets rid of it?
What if somebody saw these kids discover this and then goes back and retrieves all that and it's gone?
The 40s! But you know what? At least they didn't, I guess.
So there's that. So when they did go back, they also had with them Sergeant Richard Skerritt, Constable Jack Pound and Sergeant Jack Wheeler.
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So the pathologist that was on scene was Professor James Webster.
And he was like apparently very well known in the book that I read.
Like there's a whole chapter on him and like his whole life and all his, you know, accolades and all that.
He's an impressive character. Get it, Jack.
They also had Detective Superintendent Sidney Ingram Inite, I believe.
And he was the senior investigating officer that was in charge of the body, the scene, and the investigation.
So when Webster retired, actually, just speaking about how amazing he was, the pathologist, He was described as quote, the greatest detective of them all.
His evidence sent more murders to the scaffold than any other pathologist in Britain.
And they said that he was one of the most brilliant pathologists in Britain.
What an honor. So they had like top notch.
That's like a pretty big deal just to be like, oh, hey.
It's a pretty big deal. The best detective we ever had.
Yeah. Literally we've ever had. Burton's pretty big.
Yeah, one would say. One would say it's great.
It's pretty big. It's great. So police checked the trunk of the tree and they found an almost complete skeleton.
Almost. Not totally. Okay. The teeth were definitely still there.
They were there as Ash is really focusing on these teeth.
And don't worry, we're going to talk about the teeth.
Because there is some interesting things with the two.
I thought so. Yeah. It's not very interesting, but it's a unique thing.
There was also a shoe in the tree trunk with her and a gold wedding ring. and some fragments of clothing.
And according to Professor Webster, he said, quote, pair of shoes because they found another shoe like going with that pair a little ways away from the tree Oh, wow.
So he said it would appear probable that the pair of shoes, one recovered from the bowl of the tree and the other at some distance, are connected with this body.
Thank you. As we'll see later, well, not as we'll see later, but if you read certain sources, people question that a lot, whether these shoes were actually connected to her?
Because I... When we get to it, she is pretty old, right?
She'd been in the tree a while? Yeah. No, no.
Yeah, I mean, they think so. They're not positive how long.
Yeah. But I feel like it would be weird that like one of her shoes was in the tree and then one was far away and like stayed far away for a little bit.
You know, like it just seems kind of weird.
Yeah, I mean, it could have been that she was in the tree with her and then, like, an animal moved it far away.
And then, you know... things can stay in a wooded area something can stay just like chilling for a long time yeah you know But I think there's a couple of things that point to it being a little strange that these are her shoes.
The body was then sent for forensic examination by James Webster.
And he said that he knew without a doubt that this was a woman, this female, this skeleton.
He knew that this was a woman. This woman was female.
This was a female skeleton by all accounts.
And when he went through the process the aging and everything like that, and time of death and cause of death, that was when things became a little...
Well, I would assume like back then, I'm sure that was pretty hard to do.
Yeah, and he said that he was comfortable saying that she had been dead and in that tree. somewhere between 18 months and three years.
Yeah, so that's like a big stretch. It's a pretty big stretch, but he was like, I literally can't. narrow it down any further than that.
Like, that's... I mean, it's a big stretch and it's not.
You know what I mean? Like, for back then, like...
That was pretty good. And honestly, they do that today.
Right. It's just bones can only tell you so much like they're great for telling you very, you know, minute details and some things that you definitely need to help with that but like When it comes to this kind of thing, it's like one forensics is really not in its like heyday here. no yeah in the elements and then like the trunk of the tree that she was in because i'll talk about how small it was and everything like It kind of created its own environment in that tree where it's like warm and like...
It just, I don't know, it just like, it can hasten, it can definitely hasten the whole, so it really throws things off.
But he said that the time of death was in or before October 1941.
That's all he could really say. He said that he thought she was probably around 35 years old.
They used a ton of different parts of her skeleton to really tell what the age was.
They used cranial sutures, teeth, pelvic bones, and others to determine this.
And what Dr. Webster said was, quote, about that.
This woman unfortunately has not undergone the usual routine joining up of her bones. but I'm equally certain that the other limit is 40 years of age.
Further, I gave as an estimate probably 35 years of age, but I cannot be definite as on the other two points.
But my impression is that she is on the 40 side of 35 rather than on the 30 side of 35.
So I'm supposed to find the mean of all those numbers?
Is that what you're telling me? He's like, she's younger than 40.
She's older than 25. I would say she's closer to 40 than she is to 30.
Sure. So that 35, I think, is a pretty good... you know, compromise.
I love it. I think you did a good job. And she had what they described initially as mousy brown colored hair.
That's rude. Because there was some. Straight up rude.
But at one point in an interview, one of the doctors did say she had the girl had ginger hair.
Oh, she's a Ginge. She could have been a Ginge.
And what could have happened was she could have had ginger hair that kind of. faded into brown over decomp like decomposition can definitely like change what hair looks like really Yeah, so they were kind of going between those two.
And I guess sometimes like brown hair can look a little more ginger during decomp.
So it's like. That's interesting. Yeah. So they were wavering a little bit on that.
And they believed at first that she was five feet tall.
And they thought that she might have had one pregnancy.
And they said they weren't positive about, but he, he said he felt comfortable at least like questioning if she had one pregnancy.
How would you be able to tell just through the bones that... Like, I know you get, like, hips when you're pregnant, but, like...
Well, the reason you get hips all of a sudden, I have definitely seen that in action.
Then all of a sudden I'll put on one of my old pair of pants and I'm like, oh, okay.
Says the girl that can still fit in her. wedding but or like or an old dress though and you go to pull it over your hips and you're like those weren't there before The hips aren't just like, you know, love handles or anything.
They're literally your pelvic bones have spread open.
Like to allow that child's room. And, you know, they're sitting on your pelvic bone at one point. during pregnancy so it's like it spreads the whole thing wide open See, I didn't realize that your bones actually moved when you were pregnant.
Yeah, they definitely moved. And then there's also...
I can't remember what the names are, but there's certain tendons that they believed, especially back then, that would like kind of tear off. pelvic bone and it would cause scarring on the bone itself.
Oh. Yeah. They did mention though, like there's certain studies that will say like, you know things like horseback riding can cause that to happen though like there's right there's variants that can make it so like it might look like somebody had it child, but... They may not have.
That's cool. I think that's where he was back then.
He was like, it kind of looks like she might have, but...
I don't know. One of the other things that Ash will be excited to hear is that she had very unique teeth.
So don't worry, we'll get into it. So like...
Like we said, the skull had a lot of good evidence attached to it, teeth, hair.
Like, that's good. Yeah. And she was missing a couple teeth, but...
They said two of the teeth that were missing had come out In the tree.
Or not in the tree, but like after her death.
They could determine that. And one of them was removed through a dental procedure. maybe a year before her death.
Oh, okay. So what he wrote in his report about the skull was the skull was in two parts consisting of the head which lay exposed on the floor of the tree bowl in the lower jaw, which was in line with the disarticulated vertebrae, the spine. under the overhanging entrance to the hollow bowl.
So her mandible was, you know, disarticulated from the rest of her skull.
He also said, and this is very interesting, and this is the thing a lot of people are like, ooh.
So he said when they got the skull, there was a big tuft of taffeta fabric that had been stuffed into her mouth.
Yeah. Yeah. So that's telling. So immediately he was like, that could be.
And he said it was stuffed. enough of it and stuffed far enough back that it would have caused suffocation.
So he said, quote, tightly pressed over the lower jaw in the cavity of the mouth.
I found part of the khaki or mustard colored dress that the deceased was wearing at the time of her death.
So far as this thrust over the teeth margin and so firmly adherent to the teeth, was this part of the apparel that I do not consider it likely, I cannot say impossible, that this came into the mouse accidentally after death." it appears much more probable that this has been forced into the mouth prior to death.
And if so, this would have been capable of causing death from asphyxia.
Wow. That would be a horrible way to go.
Exactly. He's saying this doesn't look like it just happened to end up in her mouth after death. like it doesn't make sense and what it's seeming more and more like is that that was shoved into her mouth and then she was stuffed into this tree and Just asphyxiated.
Yeah. Now, there was a portion of the hyoid bone... that they found in the bowl of the tree as well.
But Webster said that it looked like The reason it was broken was because animals had probably gotten to it.
So he said... Because her head had basically, after she had decomposed and rotted, essentially, her head kind of just. tumbled off the rest of her body.
And I think that's when it kind of broke.
So it doesn't really suggest strangulation.
And even... We've mentioned in like a recent episode, too, that doesn't always point to it either way.
So after they kept investigating around the area after they had found her in the tree, and they did find the remains of one of her hands, a tibia, and then I believe they found a femur close by.
Oh, femurs freak me out. But she was missing her right hand and they never found it.
Interesting. From the measurement of the trunk in which the body had been discovered, He said there was really no way that she would be able to be put into this tree after rigor. had set in.
Yeah. So he said she had to have been warm It had to have been before rigor or very much after rigor had already broken.
Right. Um, And he said this to him said that she was killed very close to the tree or died in the tree. because either she was brought there and this person had her She was brought there very quickly and this person had a method to bring her there very quickly, like a car.
Yeah. Or she was killed right outside of the tree or in the tree by stuffing that thing in her mouth.
That's like very scary. Because I guess the opening was only 24 inches by 12 inches.
And then it was when I looked up what 24 inches by 12 inches really looks like.
It's like a hamster cage. What? Yeah, so it's really not that, like a big hamster cage.
That's nuts. I'm like really, I'm glad you said that because I'm so about it.
I am too. So I was like, I got to look up exactly visually what this looks like.
It's very small. And she had been put in their feet first.
So it's, yeah. And so he said, one thing too, a lot of people knew about these woods, Hagley Woods.
And this, you know, these kind of trees in particular.
So he said he felt like the person was local. they knew this was an area that maybe she wouldn't be found for a while in.
Mm hmm. And in Who Put Bella in the Witch Elm Volume 1, they suggest that maybe this was a secondary dump site. and she was moved after decomp had set in.
And this could be true, but it, There's parts of it that seem like it could be true that this could be a secondary dump site.
But then parts of the notes of the investigators mention that some of the roots of the tree inside had like continued to grow and had like intertwined with some of her decomposed clothing.
Right. So she was there decomposing for a while.
So it's like... How many people are going to move a body while it's decomposing?
You literally just took the words out of my mouth.
Because my next thing when I was thinking about it was like, if she's fully decomposing, that's not easy to handle.
No. It's not easy to handle. And it's like, of course people are gross and terrible and have done worse things.
But it's like... Stuffing her in a tree while she's decomposing, I know No, murder is not logical, but, like, I can't imagine a lot of people wanting to handle a completely, like, putrefying corpse yeah you know too far into putrefaction and then It's also gonna be difficult because if she's decomposing and you're shoving her into that tiny hole, bits and pieces of her are going to be embedded into that opening.
Yeah, and they didn't see that. Right. So it just doesn't really make a lot of sense to me.
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Some more findings around the site was a pelvic bone, a right femur, and a right fibula.
So they were scattered in an area. But all in all, the bones were not all discovered.
Mm hmm. She was missing a few. Again, records are really weird from back then, and it's also kind of... confusing to understand if she's decomposing in this trunk for however long she was, It's weird that no one passing through this wood would have smelled her decomposing.
I was gonna ask that. or seen a massive amount of insect activity swarming on this tree.
Right. And this there was this this was a place people would walk through or be at least around the perimeter of, and the smell definitely would have permeated to outside. people walking around the woods.
And the records also say that she was just bones and hair, so her flesh was totally gone.
And the only thing I could think was that this woman was murdered. allowed to decompose for a significant amount of time wherever she was, or in a place that was rife with insects and high temps and things that accelerate decomp.
And then her skeleton was placed in the tree.
Yeah. But that... You think that is weird.
Right? It's like... So that's the only thing I can think of.
The roots of the tree were intertwined with her clothing, I think.
Yeah. I think she was in there from the get.
Yeah, it's just as strange. None of it really adds up.
So let's talk about her teeth because I have told you that she had a unique dental pattern.
Show me your teeth. So in the maxilla, which is the top jaw, the left lateral incisor and the second right molar were missing.
But like I said, Dr. Webster said in his records that they were there when she died and must have just fallen out or been like, bumped out or something.
They were never found. So there is some speculation that they either fell out in transport or that the murderer stole them because one Something, there could have been like dental work done in them, which would have identified her, or there could have been maybe valuable material, like a gold filling or something like that that he stole from them.
They were all in, her teeth were in pretty good condition.
There was a couple like one or two that had signs of like a cavity.
Yeah. The usual. Yeah. But what wasn't taken into account in a lot of the records, which is strange to a lot of people, especially in the two books I was reading.
They are questioning it like hard. was that her two central incisors, so her two front teeth, They're very prominent.
They are described very big. It's rude again. and they're very crooked okay and when i say crooked i mean one is almost entirely over the other It is projected outwards and it's like fully over the other one.
So it would be something that people would notice about her.
Yeah. This isn't one of those like. look, my tooth is crooked.
And you're like, no, no, it's not. Like it really was.
When I say it really was, like when you look at the skull, we'll post a picture of the skull. it's almost entirely overlapping the other tooth and it's projected out.
So it would have been something that you would have noticed the second she started talking.
It's a distinguishing factor yeah I'm not saying it's a bad thing it's just something like you would have been like oh like she has that Right.
And if they were to say that in their records and like really make a point of like this very unique thing about her two front teeth.
Mm-hmm. people who knew her would definitely remember that about her.
Like, they'd be like, oh, that's unique to her.
That's like so and so. But they didn't really make a huge thing about that. they more concentrated on the fact that in her lower jaw, a couple of her lower teeth were like slightly overlapping each other, but not even really noticeably.
I don't know why they focused on that part, but not The big part.
Yeah. And I don't know if it doesn't make any sense to me and it doesn't.
Doesn't make sense to anybody really when you look back on it because you're like, you really should focus.
In fact, they posted photos of the teeth in like newspapers and such and like in news reports.
Yeah. To try to get people to be like, this is what the teeth look like.
Do you know somebody whose teeth looks like this?
Right. At one point, they only posted the mandible.
And it's like, that's not the, and maybe they did it because one of her teeth had been removed in a dental procedure down there.
So maybe they were trying. to point that out, but the central incisors in the top jaw are the thing that I would have focused on.
Weird. But I wasn't working the case, so...
Well, what were you doing? Things fall by the wayside when I'm not working a 1940s case.
I know that you were alive back then. I was.
Why didn't you just pop on over? I guess I was busy.
I don't really know. Well, what they did with the teeth was they started a nationwide search of all dental practices and they were like they put out an inquest they wrote all the stuff about the teeth and And they were like, tell us if you've seen anything like this.
Because they said that that tooth had been removed Probably like a year before her death.
It was pretty close to when she had died.
So that should have been a procedure done. that would be still on record.
Right, right. And no trace. No trace of any of these kind of procedures.
Nothing. What if she took her own tooth out like a badass?
Maybe she did. I don't know. There was no evidence to say.
I don't know. If we have any dentists listening, maybe you can tell by like bone. or anything, like if somebody had like traumatically ripped their tooth out, like not done it in a proper way.
But I'm not very sure. But again, they didn't mention those central incisors in the original dental inquest, which...
Is a very strange thing to me. Yeah. Yeah.
It's weird. In terms of the clothing that she was wearing, she was found, the clothing that was found was in pieces. essentially like it was all very decomposed but they found pieces of a corset Mustard or khaki colored skirt, which is what they used to suffocate her, like a piece of it.
There was a slip, which they said was either peach or maybe like...
I think they said like a fawn colored, but they couldn't tell because of how decomposed it was.
Yeah. and a navy blue, what they described as cheap type of knickers.
That's nice of them. They're pretty rude in these lines.
Yeah, for real. They're just doing her dirty.
But I think it's just like of the time. Yeah.
And there was also a wool cardigan that matched the skirt.
It sounds like a really cute outfit. A bunch of people have done mock-ups of this outfit, like a drawing of it.
And it looked like a cute 40s outfit. It really did.
But they also said that When it comes to like her status in life, because people were like, all right, what are we talking about here?
Is this somebody in high society? Is this somebody who has, you know... live their life, you know, in the streets?
Is there somebody in between? Like, we gotta try to narrow this down because we gotta try to find her. um basically what they said in their investigation was um She doesn't seem like she'd be like crazy high class.
She's not like a crazy rich elite person. money-wise, but like, she's also not, like, you know, catching a ride on like a caboose somewhere.
You know what I mean? Like she's, she's somewhere.
She's like middle class. And what they said was she is moreover a type of person who may have been rather neglectful as to her appearance and habits.
And they said this carious tooth, so the one with the cavity that was like kind of rotten, which she had caused her considerable pain and must have given her a nasty taste in her mouth.
Oh. So it's like, okay, so she had a tooth rotting.
Yeah. But maybe she was scared of the dentist.
Yeah. I mean, obviously, if they're saying she was in pain, like, but again... you could take phobias yeah maybe you're just scared of the dentist or maybe she was in the middle class somewhere somewhere couldn't afford it yet but still couldn't afford the dentist you know like maybe it was just I don't know it's hard to discern that kind of stuff I can't say she's neglectful because she's got one crappy tooth.
Come on. she's got one crappy tooth she's like come on fuck off Come on, don't judge her by her one shitty tooth.
We've all had a shitty tooth once or twice.
You ever had a shitty tooth before? I have a couple of shitty teeth.
That's why I'm using bite aligners. Why is that so funny?
Sponsor us. oh so going back to the shoes because the shoes were a big at first they were like this is a big find it's going to help us narrow shit down but a lot of weird stuff came from the shoes.
So Dr. John Lund was another doctor who was given the clothing to examine.
And Detective Inspector Tom Williams was the guy who was specifically given the charge of the shoes to go investigate this.
There are photos of the shoes in that book that I mentioned, the two books.
There's photos of them. You can also look it up online.
The shoes were actually dark blue in color, although they had originally looked black and they thought that they were black. they were worn out and they were worn out quite a bit.
They were a size five and a half English standard, and she was only believed to be five feet tall.
And they actually later found out that she was probably more like 4'9", 4'10".
She was very small. Petite. And this would be considered a very big shoe for someone that size.
Okay. So what was weird to them was they said, these were very well worn out, but there was no sign that there was any kind of thing like padding in the shoe like if she wore these shoes they would be huge on her yeah so they were like and they were worn out so she was Whoever wore these wore them a lot.
Right. But there's nothing that would keep these on her foot.
These would be a very uncomfortable thing to wear.
That's very strange. So according to the volume one book, on May 1st they were able to identify the make and model of the actual shoe.
And they were able to trace it back to the manufacturer.
It was Clarence Spray Limited was the manufacturer.
And their records show that this shoe in particular was, quote, A blue semi-chrome side Gibson shoe with three rows of pin punching on quarter and vamp.
It was made on a 97 last with leather through crepe sole and fair stitch four part and crepe heel.
I would never know what that is, but if you look at the picture, you're like, yeah, sure.
I was like, you are speaking gibberish. There it is.
It was made between April and June 1940.
That's when it was manufactured. Okay. And they were able to track these shoes to the actual stores in the area that they were sold to.
And they were even able to further narrow it down because they were able to see who sold that size shoe.
Right, right. C.A. Allen Limited of Bilston Staffordshire, they got six pairs of those shoes.
Mezzer's Ambrose Wilson Limited of London got 72 pairs.
They liked them. They liked them. And Messrs.
Darnell and Son in Shoreditch, London, received 54 of those.
Also liked them. So not a crazy amount to look for.
Like one of them only got six. You could do that in like a day.
Yeah, so they went around and they started talking to these shop owners and and they were getting a better understanding of how popular these shoes were.
And they found that locally these shoes were definitely a quick sell.
So they were going to sell out pretty quick.
And they likely would have sold out right when they got them.
So they were like fashionable shoes. They were just like they were.
They were cute shoes and they were also just like, I think, comfortable.
They were fairly priced. And they were, you know, you could wear them for a while.
I think they were just good shoes essentially.
So the investigators now think that they likely were bought around the date of June 1940 and And that's when they were made and sent into stores.
But remember, they said there's a good amount of wear and tear on these shoes.
And what they estimated about six months of good hardware was on these shoes.
So the earliest she was in that tree was June and likely closer to December 1940.
And that would put her a little over two years dead before being found in that tree.
Okay. Because they were trying to use the shoes and the six months of wear on those shoes.
And when the shoes would have arrived in the stores to kind of estimate when she would have bought them.
The six months of wearing them. and then her ending didn't fit.
But because we're not positive these are her shoes, It really can... It makes you think a little bit.
But again... They weren't proven to not be her shoes either.
It's so weird like talking about... the shoes, and talking about her buying them and being alive. putting so much wear into them and then they were found in a tree yeah like there's something so creepy about that There is.
There's a lot of creepiness in that. Yeah.
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So now that they have all of this information, and really from like Dr. Webster's like really comprehensive look and all the inspectors working on this, they really tried to like They didn't have a lot to work with.
They really did. They really didn't. They're giving it their best shot.
I feel them trying. I feel them giving it the old college try.
So they cobbled together a description of her, what she was wearing, where they think she was in life... like her shitty tooth and everything.
And the Worcestershire Constabulary got together a campaign to spread the word to try to coax out her identity.
They were like, someone's got to know who she is.
They asked anyone to come forward, any witnesses, anyone who could know her, but no one came.
Not one person. They looked through 3,000 missing persons reports around the country.
Nothing. What? Couldn't find anything that went with it.
And it was actually a It wasn't until a year after her discovery on March 28, 1944, This is when the who put Bella in the Witch Elm thing became a thing.
So at first they put all this stuff out, they asked for anything, nothing happened.
Right. It was just kind of like, what do we do?
That's crazy to me. But then a year later...
A man named Wilford White saw writing on the wall near his home.
And it was in chalk. And it was handwritten and it said Hagley Wood Bella.
That's all it said. And another one was written on another wall in Birmingham.
And it said, who put Bella down the witch elm?
Hagley would. This was Banksy. A few days later on March 30th.
A guy named James W. Rowley saw another one on a wall on Hayden Hill.
And it said, who put Lou Beller in the witch elm?
What does that mean? I don't know. So they were all in shock.
They all had the same or similar handwriting and the styles were weird and similar.
They were able to determine when they looked at the chalk, I guess, later that it was the same chalk and it was the same handwriting.
Weird. Weird. And this was put in the paper because people were like, who the fuck did this?
But this caused a bunch of like copycats to pop up.
People were doing it everywhere. But then on August 1944, on a subway wall, same writing, same chalk.
It said, Hagleywood Lubella, address opposite the Rosencrown, Hasbury.
What's that mean? So they were like, what the fuck does that mean?
Well, on August 3rd, two days later, on a fence, like this wooden fence...
It's really creepy, the picture of it. They found the same writing in shock, and it said, Opposite Rosencrown, Hasbury, Hagleywood, Lubella.
I hate it. So they're like, what the fuck?
On the same day, on a wall nearby, they saw the same chalk, same handwriting, same Hagleywood Lubella was no pross.
And what that is, because when I saw it, I was like, what?
What does that mean? That is slang for quote unquote prostitute.
That's what I was going to ask. So they were saying she was a sex worker.
That's what they were saying. Which to me is interesting because when we get into like, I think she might have been a missing sex worker.
Oh, you think so? Yeah. I think that's why she hasn't been identified yet. because i think it just i made it it was and i think it seems to fit one at least that's what i think Okay.
So now remember this is around the time that a little thing called World War II. is happening.
And it ended in 1945, so this is right when everything's going on.
So the world, when it ended in 1945 the following year, the world was much more concerned with like... dealing with that and like coming back into terms with everything and like welcoming these, you know, getting these soldiers home and like, coming back from all of it, this small town murder kind of faded into the background.
Which is sad. Yeah, it got thrust back into the shadows, which sucks.
But then in 1984... In a parking garage, somebody wrote, who put Bella in the witch elm?
Spooky. in 1993 that the phrase, who put Bella in the Witch Elm was put on the Witchbury Obelisk in Hadgley.
And that's the famous... big obelisk, it's like the big stone monument.
It's the one that you see in this case every time you Google it.
It's like that big stone monument that says, who put Bella in the witch elm?
Yeah. That's when that happened in 1993.
It gives me like the chills. Now, what's weird, just a quick, like really quick update.
November 2020. That, the very famous one on that obelisk was changed.
Somebody crossed out who and wrote hers.
Hers put Bella in the witch elm? Yes. Which nobody can really, I guess there is like a graffiti artist called hers. oh but nobody that everybody's like what would that make sense but then again who that could have been anybody that it could have been anybody right But that's what people are like, what?
Yeah. It's just a strange. And it was in November 2020.
So it wasn't that long ago. So in 1944, there was a police report And it was a missing person by the name of Bella.
Uh-huh. She disappeared. Three years before 1944.
Hello. Which is when? 1941. Yes. She was a sex worker who had, she had apparently worked on Hagley Road.
Mm-hmm. Nothing was ever really found about this.
It's in a police report. They never found her.
Her name is Bella. Why would Bella be the name that would suddenly come up?
Well, that's the thing. I mean, obviously people will point to like Bella means beautiful and like beauty and all that.
Maybe that's what people were doing, but what a weird coincidence and what a name to pick.
Yeah, that is very strange. You know, like to just throw Bella out there and Lou Bella.
Right. Like when a lot of times you like we call. unidentified people obviously Jane Doe like why wouldn't we just say like who put Jane in the witch elm yeah It's like very, yeah.
It is telling. To me, it seems like especially back then.
They weren't looking into sex workers disappearing.
No, of course not. We have trouble... The Willie Pickton episode will show you anything.
We still have issues with that in this world.
And it's like, back then, they definitely weren't looking into it.
And it's like, that kind of just went by the wayside.
Mm-hmm. So we don't... There's no description of her...
There's no, it doesn't seem like she had anybody close to her that they could contact and like.
It just kind of went by the wayside. But it's like the timing works out, the location works out, the name works out.
So, I mean, that's a lot of things that fit into the puzzle.
And it's like, was it someone who knew her or someone who's told the story and decided to put that out there right right because it's like It's strange, because in 1944, it's like all these... who put Bella in the witch elms were happening.
So it's like, It makes sense if it was reported in 1944.
It does. It's just strange. It's weird. There's also a like quick little mention of like, and I didn't find anything else about it. that there was a police report around that time that she was found. where like two guards were in Hagley Wood because they were on the Hagley Wood estate. and they were doing like rounds and they came across like a car late at night coming into the woods, which was weird. yeah and when they went up and like kind of checked out the window like they like knocked on the window and the guy rolled down the window I think he was an officer of some sort.
Or was he just dressed as one? He wasn't like...
He was acting a little strange and they said somebody else was in the car and it was like somebody who was huddled up on the seat and not moving. oh and then like they assumed she was sleeping so they were like okay and he was they were like you just got to get out of here and he was like okay Weird.
But nothing was ever followed up on that.
Right. That's creepy. So it's like, who was that? yeah and like huddled up on the sleep like huddled up on the seat sleeping or terrified or dead Yeah.
Like because they said I think there was like a blanket or something around them.
That freaks me. Yeah. It's just those kind of things.
You're like. Because we're going to get into a couple of like crazier theories, too.
And it's like, I think it's something pretty simple.
I think it's something usually it's always the simplest answer.
Terrible nonetheless. But like more simple than like witchcraft or anything like that.
I think it's like... Even like when we did the episode with Paul Holes and Billy Jensen and we were talking about the Oklahoma Girl Scout murders and Paul brought up how we were like, it was so weird that they were placed so far from the campsite near the road.
And then he was like, well yeah like maybe somebody had a getaway car yeah and then the getaway car didn't come so they just had to like abandon like Getaway car running late.
Very simple answer. Because when we were talking about it, we were like, well, he cleaned up some of the blood and stuffed the...
The sheets down in the sleeping bag. Why would he do that?
Right. And I was like, they're just going to find the sheets like you didn't hide them well.
And he was like, well, they were probably planned. on taking them with them and I was like oh my god I didn't even think of that that's why you're the detective and I'm not exactly but yeah it's like it really is it's like You have to program your brain to look at it. what it is not try to like totally overanalyze and it's hard to do So the human brain, I think, makes things way more complicated.
We do. We fill in pieces when we don't need to.
Yes. So in 1945, a woman by the name of Margaret Murray an anthropologist and archaeologist from the University College London.
She actually worked there until she was 72 years old, by the way.
That's when she retired. I was like, damn.
She was a well-known archaeologist and anthropologist, but she was also known to be fascinated and very knowledgeable about the history and anthropology surrounding witchcraft.
And this theory became very prevalent, like people know all about this theory.
It's known as the witch cult hypothesis.
Mm-hmm. And it's bullshit, in my opinion.
Okay. So it was brought forward... It brought this into... a fantastical realm when I think it didn't need to be because I think this is just a pretty Pretty gnarly, clear-cut murder, but we don't need to bring magic into it.
Of course we do. but do you remember like I said that Bella was missing her right hand yes and they did they were like what the hell is that Well, they did end up finding the bones of her right hand partially buried.
Quite a bit away from the... That's kind of weird.
And they thought maybe it would have been buried through the elements.
Or animals. You know, that's very likely.
Well... Margaret thought that this was purposeful.
This was purposeful. See, there's a ritual in dark magic apparently called the Hand of Glory. where bones are scattered to the wind.
So she said that this was likely an occult ritual. that was done on Bella, who was a witch.
And she said a spell would be done, and then after, they would sacrifice her.
And when they sacrificed her, her hand would be removed from her arm and And it would be left 13 paces away from her body.
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There are, of course, sources that say that that hand was buried 1340. paces away from the tree.
There are other ones that say there's no evidence of that.
Do we really think that the detectives on scene counted the paces?
No, I don't. and that's why and she also thinks that the choice of tree was very significant because witch elms play an important part in the dark arts.
And trees also When it comes to like paganism and like, you know, any kind of thing like that, trees do like have. connections to like souls and binding magic and binding spells and stuff.
So she really went with that. There was also apparently Belladonna around this area, which...
Is the ancient name for deadly nightshade.
Right. And that's a plant that's closely associated with witchcraft.
Mm-hmm. So she kind of put this all together and was like, this is obviously an occult ritual that happened.
Yeah. I don't believe that. I could see.
I feel like there is sufficient evidence to consider it at the very least.
Yes. There was also groups and families of travelers in the areas that they wanted to try to blame this on.
Of course. That either she was one of them, like part of their family, and that something happened and she was murdered and sacrificed.
Or that she was an outsider and was attacked.
Okay. No evidence. There's nothing for that one.
But you'll find it in so many places, people just conjecturing about this.
Now the occult theory, like the witchcraft theory was cranked up a little bit, a notch, Because on February 14th, 1945, On very nearby Mion Hill, there was a man named Charles Walton who was 74 years old.
I believe he was a farmer. And he was murdered.
And it was a strange murder. So his autopsy showed that he was severely bludgeoned by his own wildness.
He had a ton of lacerations on his arms from trying to fight off his attacker.
And then his throat was sliced wide open by a sickle blade.
What? And it was still in his neck when he was found.
They had left the sickle. That is terrifying.
And he was discovered skewered to the ground by a pitchfork.
What? Yes. Like an actual like pitchfork skewered him into the ground through his chest.
Whoa. Yeah. And so, of course, people were like, this is the work of the devil.
I mean, that's warranted. And it's unsolved.
What? So they were assuming that in this area there was some shit going down.
And since these are too strange... Because it's like...
Yeah, finding someone concealed in the woods is not a, that wouldn't ring any bells of like, this must be cult ritual. in a tree is definitely a different feel yeah I feel you know and of course it's like calling it the witch elm and stuff.
It gives it like a whole nother vibe. And it's like, of course it is too strange to, murders and two strange like scenes yeah that's for sure yeah so i can give i can give them that I don't think that that Bella was killed by occultists.
I just don't. I haven't. I don't know. That's me.
Um, And like I say, the people who are blaming like the travelers in the area and like those families.
I think that was just an easy scapegoat to be like, well they were in the woods sometimes so i bet they did it and we don't know any about them so they must be evil.
Bears are in the woods too sometimes but I don't think a bear did it.
And again, no evidence of this. But then in 1953, something interesting happened.
A journalist named Wilfred Byford-Jones. investigated he went into this um and he said in his thing was he definitely didn't believe the travel theory in that the traveler theory was like gaining steam.
Oh. And I think so, like in steam in the sense that no evidence was seen People were like buying into it.
People were like, that must be it. Right.
And so he was really trying to dispel this because he was like, I just think...
And he was like, it's dangerous and we're looking at the wrong thing.
And he was like, I think he said, he was like, we have to get away from this witchcraft bullshit. and we have to get away from this traveler theory because these aren't what happened, and we're not looking at the real case here.
Evidence. Because we're all getting mystified by this crazier thing.
Right. So, he actually said in an article he published in the paper, I do not accept it about the traveler theory.
And he said, every crime is laid at the door of the Romanese.
Because he was like, it's true. It's just an easy scapegoat.
It is. So then he wrote this. He published this whole thing.
And then he received at the newspaper a letter days after publishing this research and thoughts.
And what it said, it was by a woman. It was signed from a woman named Anna.
And it said, finish your articles, The Witch Elm Crime by all means. on the Witch Elm crime by all means.
They are interesting to your readers, but you will never solve the mystery.
The one person who could give the answer is now beyond the jurisdiction of earthly courts.
The affair is closed and involves no witches, black magic, or moonlight rites.
Much as I hate having to use nom de plume, I think you would appreciate it if you knew me.
The only clues I can give you are that the person responsible for the crime died insane in 1942. and the victim was Dutch and arrived illegally in England about 1941.
I have no wish to recall anymore. Anna. Whoa.
So, of course, they get this and they're like, okay, so you're telling me that Bella was Dutch.
Yes. You're telling me that the person who killed her is dead and died insane, apparently.
Yeah. Tell me more. Tell me more. Tell me everything.
Like, does she have a car? So they begged.
They were like, Anna, come forward. Please.
So they put it in the paper. Like, please, Anna, just come forward.
Tell us what you know. That could be anybody writing in. anna showed up what yeah okay anna showed up she showed up at the police station she came and And she was like, I'll tell you what I know.
So her real name was Una Hainsworth. And she was going by Anna because at first she was like, I don't know if I want to be a part of this.
And she told them what she knew. She said...
She was formally married to a man named Jack Mossop.
And after... He was like, fine, everything was good.
They had a young son, they had gotten married, everything was wonderful.
But suddenly he just began changing. He was drinking more.
He was hanging out with unsavory characters.
He was staying out late. He would suddenly have money when like they didn't know where it came from.
Yeah. And he was hanging around a man called Van Raltz.
And she also mentioned another man but I can't find his name.
Yeah. They were apparently kind of bad news bears, according to her.
And they were concerned. So one night...
She said he came home from being out very late with Van Ralt and he confessed to her that he And this Van Ralt character had put a woman in a tree.
Okay, imagine if John came home to you and he says to you, he says...
I put a lady in a tree. I'd be like, well, you should walk right back the way that you came in and never come back again.
I feel you should stick your own ass in a tree. tree right now because literally that's where i'm gonna put you're like i have a true crime podcast i can't know this information stick you in a tree So Mossop and Van Ralt had apparently gone.
Some people, some versions of this have another man involved.
I think there was, it seems likely that there was another person.
They had gone for a drink at the Littleton Arms, which was in Hagley.
It's like a pub. Apparently, this woman, who he referred to as the Dutch woman, was with them.
And later that night, they're driving back, and her husband Jack was driving Van Ralt's car.
And this Dutch woman, according to him, was in between the two men in the back seat.
And he said the woman was drunk or acting very strange.
She referred to it as was acting awkward.
Interesting. Which I was like, same. Sounds like an awkward situation.
And she just suddenly passed out while driving. like flopped over onto one of them.
Now, one story says that Van Ralt thought this was like, oh...
I have a funny thing we can do because she passed out.
And he was like, let's put her in the hollow of the tree and she'll wake up in the morning and be like frightened and changing her.
Her waist. Oh, okay. Because who are you?
Which? Change your damn waist, motherfucker.
What? That one doesn't seem as likely, but I think it was him trying to make it less...
Yeah, make it quote unquote innocent. The other one says that while they were driving, Van Ralt told Jack that this Dutch woman he was like she's dead like she she slumped over and he was like did she pass out and he was like no she's dead she's dead Which is like, did he poison her?
Did he do something? And he told him, drive to Hagleywood.
Like, he immediately was like, drive there.
And then he forced Jack to help them stuff her into the tree.
Oh, man. Now, he also was apparently so upset about this that he was sure he had just had a nightmare.
He was like, this wasn't real. This didn't happen.
So he went back to the tree the next night and she was still there.
So he had originally thought she was a German spy.
Yeah. like this is like spy theories that well it was during world war ii well in one i was I'm not going to go into the one that a lot of people talk about because it's been proven false.
Just literally no reason to go into it. But the spy stuff just makes it even weirder.
Yeah. I just think it's crazy. It's a lot.
So he started, according to her, after he told her this, things got bad, obviously, because she was like, what's happening?
He started acting stranger and stranger, more and more erratic and volatile.
So she left him. She took her son and she was like, bye.
Well, he's probably eating away at him. Well, he later told her after, so they divorced.
And they still talked a little because he was having a lot of trouble with this.
She cared about him. And he was starting, he was saying that he was losing his mind because he kept having a recurring nightmare of a woman staring out at him from a tree.
And when the police wanted to talk, yeah.
Fuck you. And he said, I'm having it every single night.
I can't. Every time I close my eyes, I see this woman leering at me from- a hollow of a tree.
Why did you say it again? Leering at me from a hollow of a tree.
Spooky. Just staring at me from a hollow of a tree.
It's like the telltale heart. Yes, it is the same thing, but like more scary.
But like a woman in a tree. So it's like the same thing.
That's so terrible. So the police, when she tells them all this, are like, hey, can we talk to Jack?
Yeah, but he died, right? Well, at this point, they didn't know that.
They didn't know if she was telling the truth about that or what.
And they were like, where's Jack? And she was like...
Well, he was committed to the Stafford Mental Hospital because of this.
He couldn't... recurring nightmares, he was literally losing his mind.
And he died at 29 years old in the hospital.
And it was before the body in the witch helmet was found.
So he knew she was there. And she hadn't been found and that was making him go crazy.
Look at my arm. Yes. Because honestly, and this is record.
It's record that he died in this hospital.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's record that he was complaining about these dreams.
And if she had been found... I don't think that would have been the way... Because I think he was having these because no one found her.
Right. And no one was like... I think he probably would have felt some sort of relief if someone found her, but he was losing his mind. because he knew she was there and no one knew.
He was the only one who knew that. Gotta tell someone, man.
You got to. Too late. Yeah. So on record, the way that Anna...
I always say Anna because of Frozen. Or is it Una?
Well, yeah. she had originally said Anna, but yeah, it's Una.
She had written about this. She said, I had no knowledge whatsoever of the Hagley murder until an article appeared in the Express and Star newspaper.
Neither had I read anything before which I could in any way be connected with the incident I've told you about.
I have not discussed the matter with anyone and it was not until I was reading the details and bearing in mind the possible date when the woman met her death that that I in any way connected with my husband's statement to me in March or April 1941, and because of the articles referring to witchcraft, etc., I decided in the first place to write a letter and sign it Anna.
So she was saying... because the witchcraft stuff was coming out and she was like learning the details about this woman being found she was connecting it with her husband and then she was like i have to stop them from going further into this witchcraft bullshit Yeah.
It's just not true. Right. She wrote, I put sufficient clues in the letter which would have helped them identify me.
And it was only because of a subsequent appeal in the newspaper and because I felt I ought to say what I know of this matter that I decided to arrange to meet you. so she was like I sent it thinking I'm not going to say anything else but when you guys asked me to come forward I felt like I had to how could I not which to me is pretty like It's pretty awesome.
Yeah. So bringing us forward because nothing really came of this.
He's dead. They couldn't find Van Ralt.
It's just so it all just kind of went. I mean, it makes sense, though.
Well, in February 2018, a woman named Caroline Wilkinson was asked to recreate Bella's face based on her skull.
She actually had rebuilt Richard III's face after they had found his remains under a car garage. uh, parking garage in England.
Uh, and apparently she was like amazing at this.
Um, She was a professor of craniofacial identification at Dundee University. had to use photographs to do this.
Why did they have to use photographs to do this?
Because they lost her skull. They lost Bella's skull.
What? How do people lose these things? Seriously, like, come on.
It makes me crazy. Like, where do you misplace a human skull?
They lost the skull. That's nuts. Cunningham counselor Peter Douglas Osborne, who is very invested in the Bella case and is considered an expert on it. said searches have been conducted by the police museum volunteers and they have confirmed that we hold no exhibits and can find no documentation that may relate to the case at either... at either of the West Midlands Police Museums.
Wow. But like, where did it go, bro? I don't know.
And that makes me insane. That's nuts. Caroline Wilkinson was asked to do this facial reconstruction by the authors of the book I mentioned earlier.
And they were the ones to publish the facial reconstruction in the book.
And it's... crazy to look at you're like whoa because it's like the teeth and everything you're like that's her yeah So we'll post photos, but like definitely check out those two books.
I highly, highly recommend because they have so many cool. like just features of the investigation in them.
I'll post them in the show notes. But that's where we are.
Dang! We do not know who put Bella in the Witch Helm, but I am guessing it was Jack Mossop and Van Ralt.
Yeah, I think that we know. I'm glad that we redid that one because I definitely feel like I learned a lot more this time.
Oh yeah, there was much more in this one and I feel better about it.
Good job. Thank you. You're welcome. I hope you guys feel that way too.
And we also hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it.
Weird. But that's where you get drunk and stuff somebody into a chum, even though you're not sure if you poisoned them or not.
Like, they just are dead. yeah don't put anybody in a tree don't do it that's the moral of the story If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
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