Paranormal Murders In The UK

village where he lived with his niece Edie. On February fourteenth, nineteen forty five, he was trimming hedges on the farm where he worked for a farm having walked to work that morning carrying a pitch bark and a slash up, and the slash up is used for cutting branches, he will have been laying down hedging. Edith returned on from work about four pm and was surprised to find her uncle not at home. His habits were normally as regular as clockwork, and so after a while she asked a neighbor,

Harry Beasley, if he would help search for him. Immediately went to the fur and Alfred Potter, Walton's employer, joined them as they walked a where Potter claimed to have last seen Charles cutting edges sometime between twelve and twelve thirty pm. Mister Potter gave at least three separate timestamps for when he claimed that he'd seen Charles in his shirts leaves working on the edge cutting. As he said, he walked home from the Collige Arms pub. Before long

the trio came upon the body of Charles Walton. The old man had been brutally murdered. He'd been beaten about the head and faced with his own walking stick, and there were injuries to his hands and arms where he had tried to fend off those blows. And then his throat had been slashed open with his own slash up which had been buried into his neck with great force.

And finally, a pitch bark had been thrushed into his neck so powerfully that he completely pinned his body to the ground, as if to keep his spirit from rising. A large cross was also carved into his chest, leading villagers to suspect that Witchcraft was somehow involved in the savage killing. His pocket watch was missing, and it was found invariably fifteen years later in his home. Houses had

been unfastened and his slies were undone. His shirt, too had been unfastened, and many people have claimed subsequently that a cross had been cut into Charles's chest, perhaps the source of the witchcraft theory. Despite his employer mister Potter's claims to have seen him with his shirts leaves rolled up, child was wearing a short sleeve shirt was found with his shackyon. Whoever did the deed, was possessed of an unnatural strength and violence, at least in those terrible fireal

moments of Child's life. Locals were so concerned by the events that they sent the Scotland Yard and they sent Inspector Robert Fabian me and Hill where Child's body was found. As being the subject of strange tales for centuries was reports of huge black dog stalking a supposedly haunted hill which appeared from nowhere and no obvious owner was aroure. In fact, the police inspector saw one of these dogs

near the murdercy before hearing about the legends. He thought it must be long to a small boy who had appeared soon afterwards, but as soon as he Spector Fabian mentioned the dog, the boy ran in terror. In eighteen eighty five, another boy had seen the black dog and three consecutive nights before a death in his family, and that dog was a sort of black shook. On the final occasion, the dog was accompanied by the apparition of

a headless woman. That boy's name was Charles Walton Charles, who was found in the fields all those years later. A few nights after his body was found, the body of a black dog was found hanging from a tree close to his home, and it was said by the villages that Charles had a strange way with animals, and that he could calm the fastest of dogs, and birds would fly and land on to his hand. The mystery

has never been sold. Nobody knows who killed George or who left him there in that way, and somebody does, and that somebody probably still has relatives in the area. Today the normal world will have heard of the screaming Woods of Pluckley, also known as deer in Woods now. It is said on Halloween night in nineteen forty eight, locals reported strange lights, sunweyed sounds that were seen and

heard coming from the surrounding woodland. The next morning, a dog walker who lived locally discovered the bodies of over twenty people, including several children, lying scattered in piles amongst the leaf litter. Sadly, they were identified as villagers from

the nearby Mountman's Hill area. Their bodies showed no visible wounds signs of the struggle, and an autopsy failed to determine a clear cause of death, which led to the police labeling the deaths as caused by carbon monoxide poisoning and closing the investigation, despite the usual symptoms of CMP not being there on the bodies. In nineteen sixty four, private investigator Robert Collins was determined to solve the mystery of the woods. Allegedly, it said a religious cult in

Smarsden could have been responsible for the Halloween massacre. Robert conducted extensive witness interviews and might have been onto something. Unfortunately, he died in a tragic car accident in nineteen sixty five. Was his death coincidence or another murder? Now? In nineteen ninety eight, fifty years later, on the anniversary of the mass death, villagers saw an odd spider shaped light covering

over the woods and feared the worst. That night, four college students who camped in the woods disappeared and we're never seen again. Oddler. The police investigation was abandoned three weeks later. I know a couple of cryptid investigators that have had their own experience in the strange Pullock cly Woods. Have you have you ever been there? Have you ever heard of the mystery? And if you have been there and seen something, I'd love to getting touch and let

me know or murder I'm sharing next. He's one written by the world of famous psychic researcher Tom Sleemy, which from my neck of the woods, and it's called Look for Me at Midnight Now. Tom is very well known here in the Northwest of England and all across the UK. He has a number of books that I would urge you to check out and if you like my content, you'll absolutely love Tom's Now. In this case, Tom tells

the Hanky Tale of the Axe Man. Now. It all started in January nineteen seventy seven and two bachelors, twenty three year old John Wildman, a security guard from Liverpool, and Nigel Selby, a twenty seven year old librarian from Birkenhead and the former boyfriend of John's sister Joanne. They decided to move in together and went to look for a decent Patchel flat. Both young men were still living at home and they felt that they's done a better chance with the ladies if they had their own pad.

After much searching, Nigel spotted a luxurious low rent furnished at it flat and it was advertising their local rag. The flat was in a rather goth thick looking house on Park Road West, right on top of Birkenhead Park. Now. The two lads looked at the flat and agreed that although it was a bit glorified and it was just more of an attic, twenty five pounds a week was reasonable.

We paid the deposit and moved him. John was a keep fit enthusiast and looked forward to jogging around the nearby park, and Nigel claimed the little side room off the open plan lounge and kitchen. As he stood where he could line the walls with bookshelves. The only mind of great John Wildman had was some of the old furniture the landlord had left behind, a rickety dining chair, a huge ornamentally framed mirror which measured six feet in

height and three feet in width. John had mistaken the mirror for a doorway at first, as it was mounted flush against the wall. Nigel liked it. John said it was too big and great difficulty. He removed it from the wall. I found had a loose mahogany panel on its reverse. Took it off and saw a green tinted mirror of the same dimensions as the one on either side, and upon looking at it, there were some faint, greasy looking words, possibly written in lipstick in some foreign language.

Now Nigel was an avid reader of Voltaire and spoke French fluently, so he knew immediately what the mirrors scrawled message was. It said, looked for me at midnight now. Nigel later asked an own female resident downstairs if the previous occupier of the flat had been French, and he was told that it had been an old eccentric American that came from New Orleans named Richard Montford. He died nearly seven years back, and the flat had been empty

all since. Around this time, John Warner's grandfather passed away over in Liverpool and the old man left John one thousand pounding his will tidy sun Back then, John said he'd use some of the money to get the flag decorated. He also, would you know, install a waterbed and build a cocktail bar in the kitchen. John and Nigel and went to the nearest pub and met a couple of very attractive ladies in their early twenties named Judy and Holly.

As the scene plays out, I can guarantee it would have included a curly perm, some high kerta and some fire pants with his sharpest greasy Nan could iron now. The girls said they were our students, and pretty soon Holly made it clear that she liked John, and Judy kind of lashed onto Nigel and the four of them sat in a corner chatting and drinking the evening away.

By eleven forty pm, Nigel was discussing his love for abstract art with Judy, while Holly embraced a drunken John as they slowly danced Leo Sayers When I Need You on the jukebox. The lawndlads said there was a locking, and the girl said they were just going to go and powder their noses. But they were gone for quite some time. I concerned, John asked the bar maybe if she'd go into the toilets if the girls were there.

The toilet was found to be empty. The barman said he'd never seen the two girls before, or them in the pub. Or even in the toilets. Then did John delve into his Geene pockets and discovered that he couldn't find the keys to the flat, and Nigel discovered that his set of keys was also missing. When we were dancing, did those girls no, surely not yet, he said, we've probably just been robbed. Those girls have had our keys off, you know. So the two men staggered out of the pub,

both in a livid estate, absolutely through me. That's you talking about all that money you've got off your uncle, yoll Nigel, that's what's done it. You turned it in to victims. They found Judy out called on the floor of the flat with a gash to her forehead, and when she came to, she said, a weird looking man in a hood with two eye holes in a creepy, smiling slit of a mouth. They'd come out of the long mirror. He had a cook where his right hand

should have been, and he'd hit her with it. Judy's accomplice ran into the arms of two policemen on the beat. In his hysterical state, she said a hooded man brandishing an ax had tried to kill her, and she too mentioned the cook he had come with for a right hand. Ali said she thought the monster had killed a friend when it had come out of the mirror. The police thought Ollie had been drinking at first, but then they wondered if some prankster was behind his weird attack the girls.

The police discovered at a criminal record and they work on artists, and they were going to robe the boys that night, and they were charged, and John and Nigel later moved the flat. When that long mirror started shaking

violently one night, what was haunting it now? Tom said, I trace the owner of that mirror to a certain quarter in New Orleans, and I have a sneaking suspicion there might have been one of the occultists who back in nineteen eighteen hunted up the demon known as the Axe Man, a mysterious murderer who killed six people and injured so many more. And I was vanished into the night despite a massive police presence. And what happened to that mirror? And where is it now? Because nobody seems

to know. No UK murder mystery theories would be complete without the almost eighty year old case of Beller in the Witch Owl. The discovery of skeleton remains in the tree were found during April of nineteen forty three my full local boys who went bird nested in Hagleywood, which is located just outside of Stourbridge and must One of the boys then made a very shocking discovery. Robert Hall

of Wolves Coach Stourbridge, told the Coroner in jury. At midday on Sunday, April the eighteenth, he and three other lads went bird nesting in the wood. He left the others, walked off alone and went to the stump of an old elm tree. Looking in, he saw, to his horror the top of the skull. He called his friends across the sea and one of them raped the skull out of the tree with a stick, and in panic they

put it back again and ran home. When they got home, one of them mentioned it to the father, who then telephoned the police. Professor J. M. Webster, who was director of the West Midlands Forensic Scigns Laboratory, was called to the scene. The tree trunk was opened out and he was able to reconstruct the skeleton. He found no evidence of violence upon any of the bones. However, he did find part of the garment stuffed deep into the cavity of the mouth, which might have been the cause of death.

He did not imagine anyone getting into that tree voluntari whilst the skeleton had been there for at least eighteen months. With the murder suspected, the police were keen to establish the identity of the female victim as well as her killer. A probable description the victim was published by the Hartley pil Northern Daily Male in the twenty fourth of April nineteen forty three. The victim's age is estimated has been between twenty five and farter, most probably around thirty five.

She was five foot in height, with light brown hair, and she was dressed in a dark blue a mustard colored striped cardigan and a mustard colored skirt, blue crapes, old shoes size five and a half. All the garments

were as described as being of poor quality. I know wedding ring found among the bones was of rolled gold, probably worth about two and six At the time, despite hundreds of leads being followed by police and her identity was not established, the inquest returned the verdicts of murder by some person or personal unknown, and then in nineteen forty four the case took an even more perplexing twist chalked on the wall of an empty premises on Upper

Dean Street, Birmingham, with the words who put Bella down? The witch Elm, Hagleywood. The Sunday Mirror reports that another message was chalked previously, and that said who put lou Bello down the witch Elm? At Hayden Hill Road, Old Hill, but it was not connected to the case until the second piece of writing appeared. According to the Evening Dispatch on the thirtieth of March forty four, the writing was too high on the wall, have been done by children?

Are boys and the police are inclined to the view that it is the work of someone coming into the city early in the morning with farm produce, possibly who wrote her, But like the victim and a murderer, the identity of the writer's offer was never uncovered. In a series of articles in the Birmingham Daily Post in nineteen sixty eight, Donald mccorbyck takes an extensive look at who Bella might have been and what might have happened to her.

It was theorized that she may have been a brass a lady of the night, a scarlet woman, lord by car to the woods, where she's then met her death. According to McCormick, the police thought it was more probable that she was a refugee from the Blitz, for many people fled from Birmingham when the German air raids came,

and some had been known to shelter in Hagleywood. McCormick also draws the link to witchcraft because Hagleywood has a reputation in the horn of witches and always had, and more compellingly, there is an ancient rite here in the UK that says that the spirit of a dead witch could be imprisoned in the hollow of a tree and then she can't come back, and you know, recab it anymore in the Villagers. Mister McCormick, however, does not put

much cregence to the motive of witchcraft. He cites a letter received by the Wolverhampton newspaper in nineteen fifty three which pro faians the affair is closed and involves no witches, no black magic, and no moonlit rites. The writer claims that the victim was a Dutch woman who arrived illegally in England in nineteen forty one, and that her killer

died of madness. A year later after she was killed, McCormick explores the theory that Bella was in fact the Dutch girlfriend of a German intelligence recruiter named Laher, who had had a lover in Kidderminster before the war and was fluent in English. German intelligen records tell of an agent code named Clara who was dropped into the area between Birmingham and Kidderminster between March and April of nineteen

forty one. There is nothing to say that she was dropped in Hagleywood, but you know she never again made contact with the intelligence agency. So who put Bella in the witch elm? Almost eighty years on now, you know? And that shocking discovery by those poor boys in the wood.

It seems we're no closer to finding the truth. However, the newspaper archive does give us a fascinating glimpse into some of the series and the legends that have trickled down through the decades of the mysterious Lady of Hagley Wood. One thing of interest that stood out to me most You know, everyone has a family named don't man. Let you guys know me as Debrah hatswell. But when I was my family don't for my family, I'm w Crossley, so most of my life my name is in Wi Loom.

So I wanted to know what the origins of the name Lou Bello was. Ah, what its meaning is. It seems it is of Italian origin and it means battles the famous fairy maiden, which I found absolutely fascinating. Now these days, you know that case would have been solved really easily using modern forensics and DNA testing. We probably would know who Bella was. Now we would do genetic DNA. We would go into Ances Street and try and find her father or her mother and work back from there.

Somebody back in those days, that cardigan was probably hand knitted and somebody would know or be able to know the pattern, because another thing about the UK and Europe is that a lot of places have their own knitting pattern and it's a way of knowing where you're from, especially in places like the Highlands or you know, island. My grandfather already only ever wore the same kind of knit jumper. It's a strange thing back in the day, obviously, isn't it. But yeah, it's a fascinating case in it.

Who put Lou beller in the witch and somebody out there knows. And the strange thing is she has descendants, no doubt from maybe brothers or sisters, as does the murderer, and maybe walking around out there not knowing a link to the strange case. A Smith ghost murder case of eighteen oh four set a legal precedent in the UK regarding self defense, meaning that someone could be held liable for their actions even if they were the consequences of

a mistaken belief. So towards the end of eighteen oh three, many people claim to have been seen or even being attacked by a ghost in the Hammersmith area of London. The ghost believed by locals to be the spirit of a man who took his own life. And January the third, eighteen oh four, a twenty nine year old excise officer named Francis Smith, a member of one of the Armed Guard patrols set up in Awaker reports, shot and killed a bricklayer, Thomas Millwood, mistaking the white clothes of Wilmore's

trade for the shroud of a ghostly apparition. Smith was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, later commuted to one year's hard labor the difference. Now, the issues surrounding the case were not settled for one hundred and eighty years, until the Court of Appeal made a decision in nineteen eighty four. Let's look at the local reports of the ghost for some context on the murder. Now. Local people said that the ghost was that of a man who had died by his own hand the previous

year and had been buried in Hammersmith Churchyard. The contemporary belief was that people who took their own lives should not be buried in consecrated ground, as the soul's would not then be at rest. The apparition was described as being a very tall man dressed all in white, but also said to wear a calf skinned garment with horns and large eyeglasses at other times, so the witness reports a very very different anor. Stories about the ghosts soon

began to circulate. Two women, one elderly and one pregnant, were reported to have been seized by the ghost on separate occasions while walking near the churchyard. They were apparently so frightened that they both died from shock a few days afterwards. A brewer's servant, almost groom, later testified that while walking through the church with the companion one night, close to nine pm, something rose from behind a tombstone

and seized him by the throat. Hearing the scuffle, his companion turned around, at which the ghost gave me a twist around and I saw nothing. I gave it a bit of a push, he said. I hit it with my fist. I felt something soft, like a great coat. On the twenty ninth of December, Wlliam Girdler, a night watchman, saw the ghost while near beaver Lane and gave chase. The apparition threw off its shroud and managed to escape.

In London, not having an organized police force at the time, many people set up kind of like a citizen's party, armed patrols in the hope of apprehending the ghost at the corner of Beaver Lane. While making his rounds at ten thirty pm and third of eighteen o four, Gerda met one of the armed citizens who was also patrolling the area, and that was the twenty nine year old

Francis Smith. Smith was armed with a shotgun. Smith told Girdley he was going to look for the ghost, so they'd set up together at eleven pm at night, just after eleven, Smith encountered Thomas Millwood, a brick layer who was wearing what at the time was normal for his trade or white clothing. He had linen trousers which were white and washed and very clean, a waistcoat of white flown apparently knew and very white, and an apron which

he wore around him. Mister Millwood had been heading home from a visit to his parents and sister, who lived in Black Lion Lane. According to his sister Anne, the brick layer left and immediately afterwards she heard mister Smith challenge him, saying, damn you, who are you? What are you?

Damn you? I'll shoot you, after which Smith shot him in the left lower jar and killed him Outright after hearing the short, Girdler and Smith's neighbor, one John Locke, together with George Stowe, met Smith, who appeared very much agitated upon seeing Millwood's body, and they advised Smith to return to his home. Meanwhile, I Constable arrived at the

scene and tuck Smith into custody. Millwood's corpse was carried to an inn where a surgeon mister Fowler, examined the body on the six of John and pronounced death to be the result of a gunshot wound on the left side of the lower jaw. His small shot about the size number four, and that I penetrated the vertebrae of the neck and went into the spinal marrow. Smith was

trying for wilful murder now. The deceased wife, missus Fulbrook, stated that she had warned him to cover his white clothing with a greatcoat, as he'd already been mistaken for the ghost on a previous occasion. On the Saturday evening, she said, him and I were at home for her live with me. He said he had frightened two ladies and a gentleman who were coming along the terrace in the carriage. For that. The man said he dared to say,

there goes that ghost. That he said he was no more of a ghost than he was, and he asked him, using a bad word, did he want to punch on the head. I begged him to change his dress. She said, there's a piece of work about the ghosts, and your clothes look white, prey. Put on your greatcoat tonight and that may not run into any day. Millwood's sister testified that although Smith had called on her brother to stop or he would shoot. He fired the gun immediately. Despite

a number of declarations of Smith's food character. The chief Judge, Large Chief Baron, Archibald McDonald advised the jury that malice was not required for murder, merely the intent to kill. All killing whatever amounts to murder unless justified by the law, or in self defense in cases of some involuntary acts or some sufficiently violent provocation or lauri is just so long winded in it. Basically, after considering for an hour,

the jury returned the verdict of manslaughter. McDonald informed the jury that the court could not receive such a verdict and that they must either find Smith guilty of murder or acquitting. The jury, then returning the verdict of guilty and after passing the customary sentence of death, MacDonald said that he intended to report the case to the King, who had the power to commute the sentence. The initial sentencing of hanging, drawing, and quartering was commuted to a

year tired labor. I bet it was just about that now the used publicity to give in to the case persuaded the true culprit, the ghost, to come forward. John Graham, an elderly shoemaker, had been pretending to be a ghost by using a white sheet to frighten his appentice as he walked home to pay him back, after the apprentice had been scaring Graham's children in ghost stories so much that they wouldn't sleep. Now there's no record of Graham

ever being punished. What an absolute debacle. They seems to have been beset by a series of calamities. I would you imagine what's happened is one person has seen this Graham dressed up as a ghost, and you know it's gone, and then the next thing, it's got horns and it's fairy, and you know it's got eyes like spectacles, and that's kind of what happens in it. Poor man got shot for nothing, just walking on from work one day after

he'd bince visit his mum and dad. And it took them one hundred and eighty years to change the law, which is just mind boggling, isn't it. Now? I couldn't speak about Hammersmith without mentioning the unsolved mystery of a series of gruesome murders that's kept London in the dark for over sixty years. Now. These happened one hundred and

fifty years after The Ghosts was shot. Between nineteen sixty four and sixty five, a number of female brasses were brutally killed, and despite intense media interest and one of the biggest man unts in Scotland yard history, that killer has never been caught. Now. The mystery serial killer was dubbed Jack the strip Off due to the way in which the victims were found undressed in or near the River Thames. The string of murders, which was originally known

as the Hammersmith Nude murders. They had received significant attention over the years, with many theories being put forward. At least six women are officially listed as victims of Jack the Stripper, but it is thought it could be up to eight. To this day, no one knows exactly who the murderer was or how many victims there were. Elizabeth Fig twenty one and Gwinney Threes twenty two, two women

thought to be the early victims of the killer. Elizabeth was found out on June seventeenth, fifty nine, five years before the Jack the Shiper murders started. Her body was found near the River Thames in Chiswick, and many have noted the considerable similarities to the latter murders, such as the location, the method of death being strangulation. Welsh born Gwyneth was found dead in a rubbish tip four years

later on November eighth, ninety sixty three. Once again, investigators thought her death may have been an early murder of Jack The's stripperff due to a body being found near the River Thames, and she was also strangled. Several other teeth were also missing when a body was discovered. The first official victim of the strip off is start to be Hannah Tailford when she was thirty years old and had two children. There were many physical similarities between her

and the two earlier possible victims. She was short and she was slim. Her body was found by the River Thames in February sixty four. She'd been strangled, several of her teeth are missing, and her underwear had been stuffed into her mouth, just like Bella. At first, the police did not seem to take the case too seriously because these were working girls, you know, instead putting her death down to a possible misadventure kind of occupational hazard, as

they say. As little as two months later on in the April, on that same stretch of river, the body of twenty five year old pregnant woman Irene Lockeup was found. She was also petite and she was from Nottinghamshire, and she was found naked based down in the river. Police quickly worked out that she'd also been strangled. With the discovery of another strangled woman, the police began to suspect

they had a serial killer on the loose. Another possible victim was discovered just weeks later, when twenty two year old Helen Bartholomeer was found dumped in an alley in Brentford. Like the other victims, Helen was missing a front teeth, which came to be a recognizable trait of the killer. Hellen's death gave investigators their first piece of solid evidence when they found flex of paint used in calm manufacturing Honor. They felt the paint likely came from the killer's workplace,

and therefore focused on nearby businesses. The next victim was thirty year old Mary Fleming, whose body was similarly discovered with paint spots on it, but without the advanced technology we have now, you know, we're unable to use that forensically. Back then, the front teeth were missing and she had been strangled and her body was found on clothed Witnesses also recalled here in a car reversing down the street

shortly before the body was discovered. The body of twenty one year old Margaret McGowan, who also went by the name Francis Brown, was found in Kensington in November of sixty four. She was last seen allied by her friend fellow brass Kim Taylor, a month before her body was found. The Scottish woman was a lady of the night like the other victims, and had worked at the higher end

of the trade with clients including businessmen and politicians. She testified actually with Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice David at Stephen Wall's trial in the midst of the infamous Perfumo scandal. Margaret's spend was reportedly with her when the man believed to be a killer hit her up, meaning she is able to provide police with a description of the man's car, thought either to be a Ford Zephyr or a Zodiac.

Now it's believed that a local boxer was responsible for the crimes, or like most serial killers, he probably would have started in his early teens and even younger because they don't just instantly start with murder. It's kind of an escalation of events that leads to that. When I hope you've enjoyed what I've brought you tonight. And they may not be from the case files of BBR, but there are things that I'm interested in and I thought

that you'd be interested in them too. So if you like content like this, please subscribe or if it's a rash are it really helps to grow our channel. I will be back next week with some more amazing stories from the BBR case files. Good Night everyone,