History press for the UK 

Who put Bella in the Wych Elm 

Second world war 
4 young boys went into Hagley Woods 
They were looking for bird’s nests to steal eggs. 
They were on private land at the time 
They found a human skull hidden in the hollow trunk of a wych elm tree 

 
When the police were alerted they discovered the full skeleton, the left 
hand was buried separately 
Pathologist’s examination showed that it was of a female who had been 
dead about 18 months + because of irregularities in the jaw, police were 
confident they would soon establish her identity 
A nationwide trawl of dentists produced no candidates 
Professor Margaret Murray (then) a respected anthropologist let it be 
known that this bore all the signs of a ‘black magic execution’ the ‘hand 
of glory’ of an executed person being ritually very powerful and the 
dead body enclosed in a tree would be unable to haunt its murderers 
The graffiti started appearing ‘who put Bella down the Wych Elm’ first in 
Birmingham and then at other points in the west midlands 
The police seemed no closer to answering the question and over the 
next decades the graffiti continued 
In the 50s another line of enquiry opened up 
A letter claimed ‘Bella’ was a German spy killed by her confederates. 
This was dismissed as fanciful 
MI5 files have been opened to public scrutiny 
The graffiti kept appearing, the last time in 1999 until a resurgence in 
June of 2016 
Possible death of asphyxiation 
‘Clara Bauerle’ - German actress and singer disappeared in 1941 
‘Who put Luebella down the Wych Elm’ 
‘Who put Bella in the Wych Elm’ 
Was ‘Bella’ truly her name? 
 
Anthology - noun - a collection of artistic works that have a similar form 
or subject, often those considered to be the best. Cambridge 
Dictionary. 
 
Topic research 
anthology series examples include: 
Black Mirror, American Horror Story, Room 104, The Terror, Inside No.9, 
The Twilight Zone, Are you afraid of the dark, Tales from the crypt, 
Beyond Belief, Masters of Horror, 
Anthology movies: horror: 
Quicksilver Highway - hosted by Christopher Lloyd, made for TV, A 
travelling storyteller, Eric Quicksilver, The 2 stories are written by 2 
horror icons, Stephen King and Clive Barker, King’s story of ‘The 
Chattering Teeth’ tells the story of a highly-strung traveller and a 
hitchhiker who fight amongst themselves and become prey to a set of 
sentient novelty chattering teeth. Barker’s story ‘Body Politic’ with the 
man who played Max Headroom, falling prey to an extreme case of 
‘Alien hand syndrome’ an actual thing that people can have where the 
body loses control over a hand. The story is oddly charming and goofy. 
The full film Quicksilver Highway serves as a ‘fun’ introduction to low 
budget horror. 
 
Tales from the Dark side: the movie. Tales from the dark side started 
out as an anthology series. The overarching story of a boy captured by 
a female cannibal and to stop her eating him for a while longer telling 
her 3 tales. The first being ‘Lot 249’ which involves the resurrection of a 
mummy which is controlled to be an assassin. The second ‘Cat from 
Hell’ which follows a hitman hired to kill a ‘demonic’ cat. The final story 
is ‘Lover’s Vow’ a retelling of a Japanese story ‘The Woman of the Snow’ 
 
Necronomicon, with Jeffery Combs as H.P Lovecraft, it tells 3 updated 
versions of original H.P Lovecraft works, with intense practical gore. 
This film is apparently underrated according to the reviewer. 
 
Twilight Zone: The Movie. Another anthology series of the same name. 
This film would serve to add detail to the series fan favourites. 
Produced by horror icons Stephen Spielberg and John Landis, ‘It’s a 
good life’ tells the story of an omnipotent boy and the exploration of his 
family life and the deadly innocence it also has segments starring John 
Lithgow and Dan Akroyd. 
 
V/H/S, V/H/S 2 - the collective shorts showcased within these 2 movies 
are some of the most effective but overlooked within the genre and also 
one of the most effective found footage style horror films ‘10/31/98’ 
follows gate crashers at a demonic summoning. ‘A ride in the park’ 
which show the perspective of a recently turned Zombie. ‘Safe Haven’ a 
documentary covering a cult raising the devil. There are many more 
films in both films. 
 
John Carpenter’s ‘Body Bags’ 3 short tales penned by Carpenter and 
‘Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ creator Tobe Hooper, with cast members 
such as Mark Hamill and Carpenter himself. The stories include ‘The 
Gas Station’ where a student gets attacked by a serial killer while on the 
nightshift. ‘Hair’ in which a man with an obsession for hair and choosing 
to avoid baldness at all costs undergoes an experimental procedure. 
The final short being ‘The Eye’ where Mark Hamill portrays a man who is 
given a donor eye which once belonged to a psychopath. The movie has 
a whole host of cameos from horror stars. 
 
Trick ‘R Treat, the 2007 anthology horror which became a cult classic. All 
the stories take place on Halloween Night. The four shorts convey a wild 
mix of horror, from intensely real to extreme urban fantasy, one being a 
father and working man secretly being a serial killer. Childlike killer 
monsters. An incredibly gothic retelling of Red Riding Hood the most 
overarching is a home invasion plot with a bag-head kid named ‘Sam’ 
where a child and Halloween hating elderly man (played by Brian Cox) 
gets tormented by Sam until he is forced to make a deal in order to 
save his own life. 
 
Three Extremes. With a short story entitled ‘Dumplings’ in which a 
cannibal eats babies. Another short entitled ‘Cut’ tells the story of a 
bitter actor taking out his hatred on the director who fired him, forcing 
him to do vile acts in order to save his family. The final short ‘Box’ tells 
the story of a contortionist’s sister haunted by the spirit of the dead 
sibling. 
 
Kwaidan, another Asian horror, from Japan, as directed by Misaki 
Kobashi. It also features the first cinematic adaptation of the woman of 
the snow. Kwaidan translates into ‘ghost stories’. 
 
Creepshow. George Romero and Stephen King’s ‘Creepshow’ released in 
1982, comprised of five shorts, starring Ed Harris, Ted Dansen and an 
incredibly intimidating performance from Leslie Neilsen. With special 
effects makeup by Tom Savini of ‘Friday the 13th’ fame and having king 
himself act in the film and social satire provided by Romero. 
 
Animated Anthology: 
An anthology series of animation which can be shown in two different 
ways. The first being compilation work which will reuse older works like 
theatrical animations or individual segments of an older ‘Two shorts’ 
series. 
The second version being ‘Variety Show’ styled programming of newer 
material selected or animated for the show and often shown in 3 shorts 
per episode format. 
 
Programming done in the variety show format will/can also serve as a 
collection of pilot pieces which skip focus testing to get direct audience 
feedback on if it should be a series of its own. 
 
Both anthology styles can be themed on a certain genre, for example, 
horror. 
 
Occasionally there is a theme/plot/framing device connecting the 
stories. 
 
Most anthology series will have a ‘revolving doors’ cast where they have 
a different cast every episode. However, there have been several times 
where there is a permanent troupe of actors 
 
Anthology - a collection of works by multiple creators gathered into a 
single piece of media. Anthologies will usually have a unifying theme, 
setting or genre. 
 
Dread Central on the anthology series ‘Dark Ditties’. 
‘At the heart of each unique but interlaced Ditty is the importance of 
rich dialogue, characters that are at once endearing and loathsome in 
their naked humanity, steeped in frailties that are just waiting to be 
exploited in cunningly wicked twists’ 
 
‘Each episode nods to the last and winks at the one to come, offering 
subtle character links and streams that meander towards common 
tributaries’ 
 
‘The Dark Ditties are stories that are designed to delight the ear as well 
as the eye. No corners are cut, no sloppy dialogue permitted and more 
than not the horror element is dredged up from the souls of our own 
humanity, asking us to question our own morality and ask how different 
we are to the characters depicted’ 
 
Treatments: 
Title, logline - 25 words, synopsis - 300/500 words, episodes - 500/1200 
words, characters - 100 words each, script(s) - not always necessary - 1 or 
2 episodes if added. 
Remain realistic - location, character numbers, special effects 
 
Youtube - Dark history 
Hagley wood 18th April 1943 
Scavenging for bird’s nests in an area of the woods owned by the local 
lord. 
Webster concluded that she died of asphyxiation/choking to death 
Graffiti soon appeared 
Black magic/folklore 
Put a witches body into a tree to stop any hauntings 
Possible spy ring 
 
Bodies found inside things 
Russian Dolls - Anatoly Moskvin 
Bella in the Wych Elm 
The body in the Thames ‘Adam’ 
Joshua Maddux - the body in the chimney 
 
Anatoly Moskvin - creepy Russian guy who made Russian dolls 
Was apparently raped as a child 
An academic success although bullied 
Moskvin stumbled across a potential ritual burial 
Moskvin was ordered to ‘marry’ the dead girl from the ritual 
Had dreams of the girl ordering him to learn black magic 
Moskvin was taken to the doctors for this 
He later lost Natasha’s haunting presence 
Moskvin became a Luciferian 
He taught celtology/Celtic studies 
‘Kind’, ‘punctual’, ‘a genius’ 
Moskvin became a tutor 
Yulia wanted a child so Anatoly (having taken a vow of celibacy) applied 
for adoption but his parents disagreed with his application and it later 
failed. 
Yulia would leave him soon after. 
In 2006 Anatoly was approached by drunkards while at a graveyard and 
taken to a police station and driven to the edge of the town and told to 
leave. 
2005 - 2007 Anatoly visited 752 cemeteries in 35 districts. 
2006 - 2010 Anatoly published research papers. 
2nd November 2011 29 human size dolls (made of a human) dressed in 
women’s clothing and painted in crude makeup. 
Some had music boxes embedded into their chests. 
The dolls would rattle when handled. 
They opened one and found the mummified remains of a human body. 
His parents believed they were actual dolls. 
Their ages range between 3 and 30 years old. 
 
Adam: The body in the Thames 
4 pm on 21st September 2001, London, England. 
A headless, limbless body was found in the Thames river 
The body was a child’s 
‘I’d never seen a child that young dismembered’ 
The body had probably been placed in the river for up to 10 days 
The body was a boy aged between 5 - 10. 
African or Caribean decent 
A high percentage of arsenic 
The boy’s blood was completely drained 
Had not eaten for several days before his death 
Cause of death ‘trauma to the neck’ 
The police called the boy’s body ‘Adam’ 
Leads quickly dried up 
Cuts + drawing of blood could be ritualistic in nature 
Brains were highly prized in Muti (ritualistic medicine killings) 
Highly ritualistic in appearance 
Police soon dropped the line of inquiry 
Hogskins contradicted the previous 
Cuts were too careful for it to be a Muti sacrifice 
Adam was sacrificed but it wasn’t Muti 
Joyce Osagiede, Muhammed Said ‘Black Jesus’ 
2 addresses 1- no info 2-bones in the back garden 
Kingsley Ojo’s apartment was searched 
Pouches of unknown powder. 
Videotaped sacrifices 
Operation Maxim 
Benin Origins 
Identity possibly confirmed 
 
Joshua Maddux - the body in the chimney 
May 2008 7 year search 2015 6 ft tall 150 lbs creative free spirit smart   
Well-liked lived with his father, Mike, sisters, Kate + Ruth 
Older brother committed suicide. Proven he didn’t starve 
Possible dehydration or hypothermia 
 
Flip horror character standards on their heads. 
The killer is usually a male, make them a female 
 
Types of horror villains 
1 - Strong and Silent: Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, Victor Crowley, 
Sam, Leatherface 
 
2 - Talkative Wise-Cracker: Freddy Krueger, Chucky, Baby Firefly, 
Leprechaun, Pennywise 
 
3 - Beastly/Primal - Shark from Jaws, Cujo, Zombies, Gill-man, Wolves 
 
4 - Chaotic/Unhinged - Pazuzu, Horace Pinker, Pinhead, Russ Thorn, 
Buffalo Bill 
 
5 - Half-way Human - Jack Torrance, Hannibal Lecter, Patrick Bateman, 
Norman Bates, Henry