Green Bicycle Case

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, England, on 5 July 1919.[14] Ronald Vivian Light was born on 19 October 1885,[11][18] the son of a wealthy civil engineer who managed a Coalville colliery[11] and reportedly also invented plumbing devices.[23] After three years of active service, Light was classified as suffering from severe shell-shock and partial deafness,[14] and was sent back to England to undergo psychiatric treatment."[27] On 21 September 1916, Light's father died in an apparent accident,[24] although it has been posited that the death was a suicide caused by concern for his son's safety on the Western Front.[11] By all accounts, Wright and Light met by chance on 5 July 1919 at around 6.45 p.m. as she rode her bicycle to the village of Gaulby, where her uncle, George Measures, resided."[17] Although Wright remarked to Measures that Light had behaved like a "perfect stranger" in her company,[30] just before leaving his cottage, she jokingly informed him, "I hope he doesn't get too boring",[17] before adding; "I shall try and give him the slip."[30][n 1] The two rode away from Measures' cottage at approximately 8.50 p.m.[13] According to Light's subsequent testimony, when the two approached a junction beyond King's Norton,[32] Wright informed him she would have to "bid goodbye" at this stage as her intended route was to the left.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.A careful search uncovered a .455-calibre bullet 17 feet (5.2 m) from where Wright's body had lain, slightly embedded in the ground by the imprint of a horse's hoof.Hall proceeded to the unoccupied house and washed the congealed blood off the face of Wright's corpse, finding a single entry wound beneath the left eye.[37] Informed of Hall's discovery, Dr Williams and another doctor performed a full post-mortem upon the body, discovering the victim had been shot once beneath the left eye from a distance of six to seven feet,[20] and that the bullet had exited the rear of her skull.The Chief Constable of Leicestershire Police issued appeals in both the local and national press,[38] urging this man to come forward and assist them with their inquiries.Each section—except the rear wheel with its coaster brake—was thrown into the River Soar; an act witnessed by a labourer named Samuel Holland, who had been walking to his night shift at a nearby mill.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.The prosecution's contention was that a mile west of Gaulby, for unknown reasons, Wright had fled from Light, panicked and headed south on an inferior road that was a possible route home, but not the shortest one.[45][n 5] Despite conceding that the prosecution had produced ample circumstantial evidence proving Light had indeed been in Wright's company shortly before her death, Marshall Hall stressed to the jury his client freely admitted the truth of their testimony, before emphasising the lack of a motive for his client to have killed Wright, adding the two had not known each other before their chance encounter on the evening of her death and she had not been robbed, attacked, or subjected to any form of sexual assault.[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] For several decades following Light's acquittal, his green bicycle hung on the wall of an Evington cycle shop, although its current whereabouts are unknown.[40] Opinions among criminologists and authors alike vary as to both Light's guilt or innocence of Wright's murder, and the actual circumstances surrounding her death.[32] This accidental killing theory is backed by a note supposedly written by the Leicester superintendent of police, Levi Bowley,[55] three days after Light's acquittal.