Bella, whose skull was found by four boys wedged in a tree’s hollow near Hagley in Worcestershire England on 18 April 1943 along with remnants of clothing and finger bones dispersed around the trunk. The Police where then contacted and set to work. They contacted every dentist in the country, hoping to identify the victim by her distinctive teeth which protruded forward, plus one of her front teeth was missing. And it was proved that it had been removed within the last twelve months. Sadly, not only did dentists remove teeth but back street people would remove a bad tooth with no credentials back then. The police also painstakingly eliminated all missing persons from the area which turned up nothing.
Painstaking detective and forensic work did not reveal who the victim was. Sadly, the mystery has endured because of sporadic outbreaks of graffiti in the area, which first started appearing six months after the body was found Was it the killer or somebody who knew her tormenting the police.
Unfortunately, That crucial piece of evidence the skull has been lost by police along with other evidence over the years. But the more pertinent question is, who was Bella?
Bella’s body had rotted in the woodland for at least eighteen months before she was found. The murder could be ritualistic and had all the hallmarks of a Satanic ceremony. Some say Bella was a Nazi spy, Others believe she was slain after tripping upon a Third Reich “cell”, Was Bella the spy’s lover and a singer or a gypsy girl who got in the wrong crowd and became a prostitute.
These are some of the questions as Bella’s body still to this day has never been identified. In this book there are a few different people she could be that have never been identified. Is she Clara Bauerle or somebody else entirely. To this day it has proven to be as enduring a mystery.
M.J. Trow has researched and written an excellent book and has come up with his own theories which I found very interesting but the book has left me pondering the question of who put “Bella” in the wych elm. Thanks to NetGalley and to the publishers of this book for giving me a free advance copy of the book to preview and I am leaving this review voluntarily.