N.B. The Saskatoon Police announced this at the end of September 2025.New details may emerge after the publication of this blog (8 October 2025). What if Bella could be named today? In Britain, the “Woman in the Wych Elm” remains one of the most enduring mysteries of the Second World War—her skeleton discovered in Worcestershire […]
The Woman in the Well: A Century-Old Murder Finally Solved Read More »
There are so very many podcast, videos, blog posts and articles about Bella in the Wych Elm. Including this one! Every time one pops up, I take a look at it and usually, I am disappointed. Most of them just seem to be a regurgitation or rehashing of other, often erroneous, articles/posts/videos. They just add
Muddy Media Articles: Bella in the Wych Elm Read More »
This is the second book about the Hagley Wood Murder (a.k.a. Bella in the Wych Elm Murder) that I have read this year. The first book, by M.J. Trow is a sad and disappointing volume which mixes fiction with fact. It contributes nothing to the investigation of the case and actually muddies the waters even
Book Review – The Hagley Wood Tree Murder – Keith Swallow – 2023 Read More »
A few months back, I read M.J. Trow’s 2023 volume on the Bella in the Wych Elm mystery. The book was a disappointment. It suffered from a number of errors and inaccuracies. On top of that, the dearth of source citations meant that readers and researchers were left wondering what was fact and what was
Lavinia Stratford – A Candidate for Bella in the Wych Elm? Read More »
Most readers of this blog will know that Jack Mossop and family were dragged into the Bella in the Wych Elm mystery by Jack’s former wife, Una (nee Abel) Hainsworth a.k.a. Anna of Claverley. The West Mercia police files on the Bella case have a folder on Jack and Una’s son, Julian M.A. Mossop who,
An Older and Wiser Julian Mossop Read More »
While listening to some podcasts on the Bella in the Wych Elm mystery, I was struck by one claim which didn’t sound right. This extract is from the Unsolved Murders: True Crime Stories podcast, Episode 165 (part 1 of their Bella trilogy). The excerpt below comes from around the 16:30 mark of the podcast. Narrator:
Bella: A Mystery within a Mystery Read More »
I discovered a veritable treasure trove of podcasts the other week and quickly found a whole bunch related to Bella in the Wych Elm. I thought I would start with a trilogy from Unsolved Murders: True Crime Stories, produced by Parcast. The three part series starts with an overview of the murder and the various
Podcast Review – Unsolved Murders – Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm Read More »
The waters of the Bella mystery seemed to have calmed quite a bit in the last few months. Obviously, with Covid19 ravaging the world, many things have taken a back seat to the virus. Still… the most recent news on the Bella case was Alex Merrill’s second book on the Bella case, which came out
A few Bella Blips on the Internet Radar Read More »
The Book Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm: Volume 2 – A Crime Shrouded in Mystery. Alex Merrill. APS Publications. 2019. Summary The mystery of who put Bella in the Wych Elm has an enduring fascination. Over the decades, theories of whose skeletal remains were found in a hollow tree in Hagley Wood, Worcestershire,
In the mid-1950s, after “Anna of Claverley” wrote her cryptic letter to journalist Wilfred Byford-Jones (a.k.a. Quaestor), the police were able to track down and interview the letter writer, one Una Abel Mossop. Una claimed that in 1941 her husband, Jack Mossop, had told her a story about a mysterious Dutchman named van Raalte and
Bella in the Wych Elm – The Van Raalte Connection Read More »