A TANGLED web of wartime espionage and black magic remains at the centre of a gruesome murder mystery – 81 years after a skull was found stashed in a tree.
The chilling tale began in April 1943 as war-ravaged Britain grappled with air raids and strict food rationing.
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Desperate to put something on the table, four teenage boys went poaching on the land of an aristocrat in Hagley Woods, Worcestershire.
One, Bob Farmer, reached his arm into the hollow of a large tree and felt what he believed was an egg nestled among the withering branches.
But it transpired the much-needed food was actually a human skull.
Terrified Bob later revealed: “There was a small patch of rotting flesh on the forehead, with lank hair attached to it.
“The two front teeth were crooked.”
The teens at first agreed to a vow of silence but one of the lads soon broke and told his dad about the gruesome discovery.
Police descended on the scene and found the almost complete skeleton of a woman.
Officers also discovered a shoe, a gold wedding ring, and some fragments of clothing.
The woman’s hand was eventually found nearby – leading police to believe the woman was ritualistically maimed.
This theory was deepened by a piece of taffeta cloth that had been forced in the woman’s mouth.
Her body was sent for forensic examination where it was quickly established the woman had been dead for at least 18 months.
She was still warm when she was dumped in the trunk of the tree as this would not have been possible if rigour mortis had already set in.
Wild theories began to swirl – including that she was the victim of black magic in the area.
Others believed the woman was a German spy who was murdered when a mission behind enemy lines went wrong.
But the interest in the murder began to wane as the UK was too preoccupied with World War Two.
Then, six months later, a chilling message was scrawled on a wall in Birmingham that read: “Who put Bella down the wych elm?”
That question still remains unanswered 81 years later – as does the identity of the woman named as Bella.
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In 1953, a possible breakthrough emerged when a woman called Una Hainsworth came forward with her own extraordinary story.
She claimed her ex-husband Jack Mossop met a Dutchman named 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” – presumably Bella – who passed out in the car on their way home.
Van Ralt apparently told Mossop to drive to the wood where the pair put the woman in the hollow tree believing she would come to her senses the following morning.
Bella obviously never woke up – causing Mossop to be so tormented by the horror he died in a mental health facility in 1942, Una said.
But her claims were never proven – with officers questioning why Una waited more than ten years to come forward.
Another theory came from an MI5 declassified file about Josef Jakobs – the last man to be executed at the Tower of London.
The Czech-born Gestapo agent was captured by the Home Guard after parachuting into Cambridgeshire in 1941.
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Jakobs was found to be carrying a photo of German cabaret singer and actress Clara Bauerle, who was well connected to senior Nazis.
Clara spent two years before the war working in music halls in the West Midlands and had mastered a Birmingham accent.
Jakobs claimed she too had been recruited by the Gestapo with the aim of creating a spy network in the UK.
He told his captors she was the woman in the tree and was due to parachute into the area around the same time as the body was dumped.
But Jakob’s claims were never investigated further and it is believed Clara actually died in Berlin in 1942.
The mystery was further inflamed when sleuths made the link between Bella’s killing and the murder of Charles Walton in nearby Warwickshire.
Charles also appeared to be the victim of a ritualistic slaughter after he was beaten with his own stick, his neck slashed with a hook and his body skewered to the ground with a pitchfork.
Some pointed out the severing of one of Bella’s hand was consistent with a ritual known as the Hand of Glory.
In 2018, a facial reconstruction was made in the hope someone would recognise Bella and come forward.
But in another bizarre twist, Bella’s skull was lost by police – meaning her identity will likely always remain a mystery.
Read more on the Scottish Sun
West Midlands Police told The Sun Online: “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 this case, at either of the West Midlands Police Museums.
“Additionally searches were carried out by our Force Records team, who have confirmed that there is no relevant documentation held with the major investigation team or in external storage.”
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