Who would you bet on if it came to BuzzFeed and the BBC? Yeah, I’d bet on the BBC too but… in this case, BuzzFeed wins. I came across two videos on the Bella in the Wych Elm mystery a few months ago and watched both of them. Not even comparable.
BBC’s Snapshot: A 2-Minute Overview
I’m really not sure of the point of this little 2 minute video. The presenter is Jono Namara, a filmmaker, journalist, presenter and “Bonafide Taphophile” (that’s a Tombstone Tourist). Given that Bella doesn’t have a tombstone, I’m not sure what piqued his interest in the case.
Namara gives a very brief summary of the case, but in less than two minutes manages to make several errors. He suggests that Bella’s severed hand was found near the tree, which is not accurate. Police and the forensic examiner believed that wild animals had scattered a number of her appendages/bones, and the hand bones were just part of that. There is nothing suspicious (or occultish) in hand bones being found at some distance from the rest of the body.
Namara also focuses on the graffiti (Who put Bella/Luebella in the Wych Elm) and at one point states that the graffiti, placed around the area, finally ended up on the Wychbury Obelisk “where it remains to this day. Finally the police had a name.” The implication is that graffiti placed on the obelisk in the 1950s remains to this day. That is not accurate. Graffiti only began appearing sporadically on the obelisk in the 1970s. The graffiti currently on the obelisk has been there since 1999.
I didn’t find this short video helpful or accurate, nor entertaining or intriguing. It adds nothing new and is not even a good summary. Not worth a view.
BuzzFeed Unsolved: A Closer Look at the Mystery
The Creepy Quandary of Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm, part of the BuzzFeed Unsolved series, is actually moderately entertaining, although viewers looking for accuracy should probably look elsewhere. The video is four years old, coming out in the early days of Covid-19, on 3 April, 2020. It is 23 minutes long which gives the hosts, Shane and Ryan, more time to delve into the details of the mystery.
There is a lot of kibitzing between the two hosts which, for me, fluctuated between mildly entertaining to annoying. The hosts will report some facts of the case and then “discuss”, or rather, share their reactions to the facts. It seems that the “reporting” host has some idea of what is to come, while the “reacting” host hasn’t read the show notes and is reacting “fresh”, so to speak. It’s not a bad format, but some of the discussions, such as whether hair grows off the skull (or off the scalp) does lead to some eyebrow-raised eye-rolling on my part.
The hosts present three primary theories of the case:
- Theory 1 – that the victim sought shelter in the woods during an air raid and was attacked by a nefarious person who killed her and stuffed her in the tree. Her family would then have thought that she died in an air raid. I’m not even going to bother to respond to this theory as I’ve never even heard it before.
- Theory 2 – that the woman was a victim of (a) human sacrifice by a group of witches or (b) a witch who was herself shoved in the tree in order to trap her spirit there. The hosts mention Margaret Murray (famous (infamous?) Egyptologist) and George Elwell. The mention of George is a bit odd as he was the guy who contacted police with the results of insights he gleaned during a hypnotic trance.
- Theory 3 – that the woman was a foreigner and possibly a spy. Three “independent sources” are presented for this theory:
- The first source is the letter from Anna of Claverley announcing that the woman was a foreigner who had been killed by Van Ralt and Jack Mossop. The BuzzFeed hosts are mightily impressed with the dramatic prose in Anna’s letter and note that “if you’re that good at writing, why would you lie”. A very good question indeed. Was Anna really that good at writing, or was she in cahoots with Wilfred Byford-Jones (Quaestor) as suggested by some authors? Our BuzzFeed hosts don’t go there, simply taking Anna’s letter at face value.
- Their second “independent source” is Donald McCormick which again sent my eyebrows straight into my hairline. According to Shane and Ryan’s breathless commentary, McCormick went to Holland and found evidence that a Nazi spymaster named Lehrer hand sent a spy named Klara over to the UK. As most Bella aficionados now, McCormick has been discredited and his writing is highly suspect.
- The third source is Josef Jakobs himself who, according to the BuzzFeed hosts told MI5 that his mistress, Clara Bauerle had “parachtued into the Midlands”. This is a whole big load of poppycock. He said no such thing, and readers who want to find out what he said should take a look at this blog post. The hosts do at least admit the evidence for Bella’s death in Berlin in late 1942, although they don’t believe it.
The key phrase in the entire BuzzFeed video comes at the 21:03 minute mark:
We’re not here to tell truths.
We’re here to sometimes spin a yarn.
Well, that is good to know. If you’re looking to be entertained, then BuzzFeed is the place to go. If you’re looking for accurate information on the Bella in the Wych Elm case, then take your eyes elsewhere. Enough said. The video adds nothing new and isn’t accurate.