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The Great Defender: The Life and Trials of Edward Marshall Hall KC, England's Greatest Barrister

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Her first husband, Sgt Ernest Lester, also of the Royal Engineers, had been killed in action in 1917. The widow had abandoned her two sons in a Wolverhampton orphanage, fearful of destitution, but kept a younger daughter. The Green Bicycle Case was a British murder investigation and subsequent trial pertaining to the fatal shooting of Bella Wright near the village of Little Stretton, Leicestershire on 5 July 1919. Wright was killed by a single bullet wound to the face. [1] [2] The case takes its name from the fact that on the evening of her death, Wright had been seen cycling in the company of a man riding a green bicycle. [3] [4] The victim, Annie Bella Wright, seen here in a newspaper article published shortly after her murder Bella Wright 'Green Bicycle' Murder Recreated in Leicestershire". BBC News. 19 May 2016 . Retrieved 7 December 2017. Light was arrested on 4 March 1920 at Dean Close School in Cheltenham, where he had secured a position teaching mathematics two months previously. [35] He was brought to Leicestershire to be charged with the murder of Wright. [27] Two girls, Muriel Nunney (14) and Valeria Caven (12), [42] would also testify for the prosecution that approximately three hours [5] before Light had encountered Wright, he had pestered them as they rode their bicycles close to where Wright's body was subsequently found. [43] [n 4] "When Bella Wright was murdered, I knew from newspaper reports the next day that she was the girl I had been with just before she died. I knew the police wanted to question me. I became a coward again ... I never told a living soul what I knew. I got rid of everything that could have connected me with her [because] I was afraid ... I see now, of course, that I did the wrong thing." [27] [45]

Initially, Light denied having been in or near Gaulby on 5 July, or meeting Wright on that date. He also initially denied ever owning a green bicycle, but upon being informed of the remaining serial number on the fork, claimed to have sold it years before to an individual whose name he could no longer recall. [28] Nonetheless, he was identified by eyewitnesses as the individual who had been riding alongside Wright on the evening of her death, including by her uncle. [5] Cox also identified Light from a police identity parade as being the green bicycle's owner. [6] His mother's maid, Mary Elizabeth Webb, informed investigators that on 5 July, Light had not returned home until approximately 10 p.m., claiming his bicycle had broken down, and that he had had to push it home. [ citation needed] He had also sold or destroyed all the clothing he had worn that day. [ citation needed] Following his acquittal, Light returned to live with his mother in Leicester, where he initially maintained a somewhat reclusive lifestyle. [20] For a time, he assumed the name "Leonard Estelle". [48] He was fined in December 1920 for registering under a false name at a hotel where he had been staying with a woman. [50] By 1928 Light was living in Leysdown-on-Sea on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent. In 1934, he married widow Lilian Lester. [n 6] a b c d "Who Murdered Bella Wright? Class Matters in Case of the Green Bicycle". New York Daily News. 11 July 2010 . Retrieved 22 November 2017. PC Alfred Hall would testify at Light's trial that the blood he had found on this gate came from a dead carrion crow that had "gorg[ed] itself on [Wright's] blood", with this crow apparently making six separate journeys from the gate to the corpse. [1] However, at the initial inquest, ballistics expert Robert Churchill stated that this crow had also been shot, leaving a possibility that whoever had shot the bird had also shot Wright. This evidence was never presented to the jury at Light's trial. [35] Bella Wright (The Green Bicycle Murder)". Crime.net. 4 May 2016. Archived from the original on 17 November 2017 . Retrieved 17 November 2017.The dead girl was identified by relatives as Bella Wright. An inquest into her death returned a verdict of murder by person or persons unknown. [17] Investigation edit Bella Wright 'Green Bicycle' Murder Recreated in Leicestershire". BBC News. 19 May 2016 . Retrieved 9 December 2017. At the scene, PC Hall found what he later described as "smears of blood on the top bar of the field gate", although he discovered no human footprints on either side of the gate. Nonetheless, a dead carrion crow was discovered in a field close to this gate. [n 2] [36] Annie Bella Wright at Find a Grave (Record mistakenly states her burial place to be Stourton, Wiltshire.) Ronald Light died on 15 May 1975 at the age of 89. [9] His body was cremated at Charing Crematorium, near Ashford, and his ashes were scattered in the crematorium's Garden of Remembrance. [51] Light had no children of his own and his stepdaughter had no notion of Light's trial and acquittal until after his death. [40]

Lane, Brian (1991). The Murder Guide to Great Britain. London: Robinson Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-1-854-87083-4. Bella Wright 'Green Bicycle' Murder Recreated in Leicestershire". BBC News. 19 May 2016 . Retrieved 8 December 2017. Blundell, Nigel; Boar, Roger (1991). The World's Greatest Unsolved Crimes. Hamlyn. ISBN 978-0-600-57231-2. At the time of her death, Wright—described as a girl with good looks and of good character [16]—was 21-years-old and engaged to be married to a Royal Navy stoker named Archie Ward, who served on HMS Diadem — a training ship in Portsmouth. [17] She is known to have had at least one other suitor, [14] and to have told her mother of an officer who had fallen in love with her. This may have been Ronald Light, although he denied this supposition in court. [14] Ronald Light edit The accused, Ronald Light, pictured after his 1920 acquittalOn 23 February 1920, one Enoch Whitehouse was guiding a horse-drawn barge, laden with coal, along the River Soar. The tow-rope [26] of the barge snagged the frame of the green bicycle, bringing it to the surface of the canal. Whitehouse informed the police and a decision was made to drag the canal. Other pieces of the bicycle were discovered. Examining the frame of the bicycle, investigators discovered that although the serial number had been filed off both the frame and the seat lug, and the BSA brand name had been filed off the fork, a faint serial number was still visible on the inside of the front fork. [35] Inquiries at businesses which bought, sold or otherwise repaired bicycles revealed this cycle had been bought by Light nine years previously. [37] Arrest edit

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