TITAA #35: Witch Elms and Barrows - by Lynn Cherny

"Who put Bella down the Wych Elm - Hagley Wood?" A famous unsolved murder mystery memorialized by graffiti in England, I ran across it twice this month. The first instance of this graffiti was seen on the wall in Birmingham Fruit Market, in chalk, on March 30, 1944. Then it morphed into "Who put Luebella in the Wych Elm" on March 31 (reddit source). In 1999, a version appeared on the obelisk on Wychbury Hill as seen above and has remained ever since, even after restoration of the obelisk. The graffiti, by unknown writers, evidently refers to the body of a murdered woman found in an elm in Hagley Wood in April 1943. Robert Hart, of Wollescote, Stourbridge, told the Coroner and jury how at midday on Sunday, 18 April, he and three other lads when birdsnesting in the wood.