Approximately thirty minutes after Wright and her companion had ridden away from Measures' cottage, Wright's body was found on Gartree Road, part of the Via Devana Roman road, by a farmer named Joseph Cowell. [33] Her body was discovered alongside her bicycle, [6] and her face was extensively bloodied, with deep gouge marks visible on her cheeks and jaw. [34] Surmising the girl may have been run off the road by a motorist, Cowell initially deduced she had fallen from her bicycle and fatally injured herself. [13] Cowell proceeded to nearby Great Glen to report his discovery to the local policeman, Constable Alfred Hall, who phoned a doctor in Billesdon. Dr Williams arrived at Hall's residence and the trio returned to Little Stretton, where the doctor gave instructions that the girl's body be moved to a nearby unoccupied house upon Cowell's trap. [19] On 21 September 1916, Light's father died in an apparent accident, [24] although possibly suicide caused by concern for his son's safety on the Western Front. [11] 5 July 1919 edit 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]

On cross-examination, Light admitted that the holster, bullets and bicycle recovered from the canal were indeed his, but claimed he had disposed of these items in a "panic", [28] having read the press coverage surrounding Wright's murder, [28] and noting the general public and media consensus that the man seen riding alongside her on a green bicycle had been responsible for her death. He admitted that, as an officer in the Army, he had owned a Webley Scott service revolver; however, he claimed that when posted overseas, he had taken the revolver with him but not the holster, [35] and that when he had become a casualty, all of his belongings had been left in a casualty clearing station in France in 1918. [48] Overall, Light's version of events, as he presented them to the court, could not be contradicted or disproved in any detail. Despite being subjected to five hours of cross-examination, he did not contradict himself on a single occasion. [45] [n 5] Annie Bella Wright at Find a Grave (Record mistakenly states her burial place to be Stourton, Wiltshire.) Wright had attended school until the age of 12 before beginning work as a domestic servant, subsequently obtaining a job as a rubber hand at Bates & Co.'s St Mary's Mills, a rubber factory in Leicester, approximately five miles from home. [13] She regularly travelled to work on her bicycle. [14] At the time of her death, she was working the late shift at the factory and was known to cycle between the villages and hamlets around Little Stretton to perform errands or visit acquaintances in the late afternoon. [15] On 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 Wakefield, Herbert (1930). The Green Bicycle Case: The Trial of Ronald Light for Murder. Philip Allan Publishing. ASIN B0018GM544.

Summary

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] 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] Marshall Hall restricted his own examination of Light largely to technical matters. He also questioned the testimony of the expert witness on ballistics, the Leicester gunsmith Henry Clarke, who had testified that the bullet which killed Wright had sustained damage which may have been caused by a ricochet [32] and that the bullet could just as easily have been from a rifle as from a revolver. Thus a stray shot fired from a distance by another individual could have killed Wright through misadventure. [48] Marshall Hall also contended that a person shot at close range from a service revolver would have sustained much greater damage to their face, whereas Wright had only a small entry wound beneath her left eye and a larger exit wound on the right side of her head. To this contention, Clarke replied, "It depends on the velocity." [48] Marshall Hall argued that this alternative scenario was a more likely explanation for Wright's death. The jury [40] deliberated for three hours before returning a verdict of not guilty, which was cheered by many spectators present. [49] Aftermath edit

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] Bella Wright 'Green Bicycle' Murder Recreated in Leicestershire". BBC News. 19 May 2016 . Retrieved 8 December 2017.

Marjoribanks, Edward (1989). Famous Trials of Marshall Hall. Penguin. pp. 329–342. ISBN 978-0-14-011556-7. On 19 March, additional pieces of evidence were found in the canal: an Army pistol holster, conclusively identified as having been issued to Light, and a dozen live .455-calibre bullets, precisely [20] matching the spent bullet from the crime scene. [40] Trial edit 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. Blundell, Nigel; Boar, Roger (1991). The World's Greatest Unsolved Crimes. Hamlyn. ISBN 978-0-600-57231-2.

With support from British Cycling, Leicester City Council organises an annual guided cycle ride [52] which re-enacts the case. [53] Participants visit significant locations pertinent to the events of 5 July 1919 and the police investigation before progressing to Leicester Castle, where segments of Light's trial are re-enacted. [54] Wright was buried in the churchyard of St Mary and All Saints, Stoughton on 11 July 1919. In a ceremony conducted before several hundred mourners, the vicar of Stoughton, W. N. Westmore, asked all present to reflect on "this poor girl" who had been taken away from them. Several wreaths and flowers were placed on her coffin by her family, friends, neighbours and colleagues. [11] Bella Wright (The Green Bicycle Murder)". Crime.net. 4 May 2016. Archived from the original on 17 November 2017 . Retrieved 17 November 2017.Brown, Antony M. (2017). The Green Bicycle Mystery: The Curious Death of Bella Wright. Mirror Books. ISBN 978-1-907-32469-7.