Down the rabbit hole we go…
1. Who put Bella in the Wych Elm?
Jack Noel
On 18 April 1943, in Hagley Woods in Worcestershire, England, four young boys who were looking for birds' nests found a human skull inside an elm tree. They shouldn't have been on the land – so they put the skull back. However, the youngest boy told his parents what he'd seen; they told police, who found a human skeleton, a shoe, a wedding ring, and fragments of clothing, along with a severed hand buried nearby.
According to author Brian Haughton:
The task of examining the body fell to Prof. James Webster, then head of the Home Office Forensic Science Laboratory in the West Midlands, who, just prior to World War II, had set up the West Midlands Forensic Science Laboratory at Birmingham University. After a detailed examination at the lab at Birmingham, Professor Webster ascertained that the woman was probably about 35 years old, five feet tall, with mousy brown hair and irregular teeth in the lower jaw. She had also given birth at least once. He estimated that she had been dead for at least 18 months before she was found.
In other words she had died in about October 1941. There were no marks of disease or violence on the body, but her mouth had been stuffed with taffeta. The coroner declared it murder by asphyxiation, and stated that the woman was probably murdered and then pushed into the hole while still warm, as the body would not have fitted into the hollow trunk after rigor mortis had set in.
Then graffiti began to appear. It started around Christmas that year. As The Independent reported:
"Who put Luebella down the wych-elm?" said the first one, in nearby Old Hill. "Hagley Wood Bella", said another, in Birmingham. Gradually, the messages – which seemed to be written by the same hand – took what was to be their settled form: "Who put Bella in the wych-elm?" they asked.
The Wolverhampton Express and Star received a letter in 1943 claiming that the woman was part of a spy ring who'd been giving out information about munitions factories to the Germans, while a London academic thought the death was due to a black magic ritual. A Radio 4 programme in August this year suggested two possible victims: a Dutch woman who'd got drunk and been left in the tree by her drinking companions, and a Birmingham sex worker.
Eventually, the graffiti stopped. And then, half a century later, someone asked the question again. It has still not been answered.
2. D.B. Cooper
Jack Noel
On November 24, 1971, an unidentified man wearing a white shirt, narrow black tie, dark suit, raincoat, and sunglasses and carrying a briefcase arrived at the airport in Portland. He identified himself as Dan Cooper and boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 305, a Boeing 727 flight to Seattle that contained 36 passengers. As The Guardian said in 2007:
Once the plane was in the air, headed for Seattle, he lit a cigarette and ordered a bourbon and soda. Then he passed a note to the 23-year-old stewardess, Florence Schaffner, who at first assumed he was flirting, and didn't bother to read it. "Miss, you'd better look at that note," Cooper said. "I have a bomb." She unfolded the piece of paper. "I have a bomb in my briefcase," it read. "I will use it if necessary. I want you to sit beside me." Schaffner sat down, and Cooper opened his bag, revealing a mass of batteries and wires.
He told the plane's captain, via Schaffner, that he would set it off if he wasn't given $200,000 in ransom money and four parachutes. When the plane landed in Seattle, Cooper's demands were met and the passengers were let off the plane. The plane, now only containing Cooper and some crew members, took off for Portland. Cooper gave each of the crew $2,000, and then jumped out of the back of the plane into a heavy rainstorm with 21 pounds of $20 bills strapped to his torso.
The mysterious man has not been seen since.
His crime seems to have been elaborately planned. He specified the bills should have random, not sequential, serial numbers (the FBI quickly photographed each one so a microfilm record was created). It's believed he asked for four parachutes so the FBI would think he was going to make one of the crew jump with him and wouldn't give him a dud.
He also seemed to have knowledge of the area and of flying, recognising Tacoma from the air and showing awareness of the specs for wing flap angles, refuelling times, and the fact that the aft stair could be lowered. While the accounts vary, he seems to have been polite to the plane's staff, paying his drinks tab and requesting meals for them when the plane was in Seattle. There are various opinions on the likelihood of a man in his 40s surviving a 10,000 foot jump into sub-zero temperatures while wearing a business suit; many believe he didn't even manage to open his parachute.
Some of the money was found in 1980, which for some investigators suggested Cooper was dead at the bottom of the Columbia river. None of the other bills have ever been found.
There have been scores of promising leads and suspects over the years, but Cooper's identity has never been confirmed. Whatever happened to him, he disappeared into the night.
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