Cold Case SOLVED After 36 Years By Chewing Gum | Nova Welsh Case… | Mysterious Hook
In July 1981 a 24 year old mother of two Nova Welsh disappeared Without a Trace in Birmingham England no one knew what had become of her until three weeks later when her decaying body was found inside a storage cupboard in her own home detectives launched an investigation but would not make a breakthrough until 36 years later Nova’s killer was all the while right under their noses so who was this individual and what was their motive for taking Nova’s life hi and welcome back to mysterious hook today we’re looking at a case where DNA
from chewing gum helps solve a crime after 36 years but first if you have time please subscribe to the channel so without any further Ado let’s Dive Right into this mystery today’s case will take us to Birmingham a city in the metropolitan County of the West Midlands in England with a population of more than one million people it is the second largest city in the United Kingdom it’s also known as the city of a thousand trades due to its status as the world’s first manufacturing Town Birmingham is famous not only for its manufacturing routes
but also well known for its Heritage in the world of food and Cuisine legendary rock music and bustling nightlife Nova was born in 1957 in Jamaica she was not an only child but had a younger sister by the name of Valerie Nova grew up into a carefree and happy child whom everyone in the neighborhood couldn’t help but love Nova was a lovely person always happy and smiling said Nova’s best friends Lorna Edmund when Nova was 10 years old her mother Lorna Welsh decided to move to the United Kingdom in search of greener pastures it was quite a tough
decision as it meant she had to leave behind the people and place they had become so familiar with however the desire to give her girls the best in life helped her to remain resolved to leave the country not long after making the decision Lorna and her daughters traveled to the UK and began their lives afresh life in the United Kingdom was very different from what they were used to but as time went on the family adjusted and settled well into their new environment when Nova was around the age of 16 she met and fell in love with
Osmond Bell a young boy who was also the same age as her in no time they both started a romantic relationship perhaps Nova was simply blind did by love or perhaps she only wanted her independence but a few months down the line she made known her intention to leave home she told her mother that she and Osmond had decided to begin living together it is not clear if Lorna approved of this decision or not but regardless Nova eventually moved and went to live with Osmond two years later Nova and Osmond welcomes their first child it was a boy
and they named him Jonathan four years later they had another son and he was given the name Lee Nova was a devoted mother to her young sons and loved them wholeheartedly to provide for themselves as well as their children the couple took up different jobs Nova worked as a part-time cleaner while Osmond was a builder life seemed to be going at a pretty good Pace but sadly things would not stay the same at some point the love between Nova and Osmond began to deteriorate the spark that had been there at the beginning of
their relationship gradually faded the consequence of this was that the couple began to quarrel more frequently it became common for Neighbors to hear the sound of the couple’s noisy fights in their apartment located in the ladywood area their disagreements also sometimes escalated into violence with Osmond hitting her and leaving her with bruises with each passing day Nova became increasingly unhappy in her relationship and she confided in her younger sister Valerie as well as some close friends about what she was going through in the
end she made up her Minds to give love a chance with someone else she told Osmond that she was no longer interested in the relationship but despite her ending things Osmond was not ready to let her go in May 1981 Nova met a man by the name of Wayne Newby and they both got into a relationship as their romance progressed Wayne would sometimes visit her at her home this did not sit well with Osmond and it gave him more reasons to fight with Nova in June 1981 Nova’s stepsister Sonia visited her for a few days during this period Sonia witnessed
one of their fights and how ugly it could get on that particular day Sonia had been in the living room when she heard a scream from the direction of the kitchen it was unmistakenly Nova’s voice and she quickly ran to the kitchen to find out what was wrong what she saw alarmed her Nova was down on the floor while Osmond stood angrily over her with a dishcloth wrapped around his hands in the moments that followed Sonia made it clear that she would call the police but Osmond tried to stop her from taking this action when police officers later
arrived at the house they asked what had happened and Nova was the one who did the explaining she told them that she and Osmond had been arguing and she wanted him to leave the house she never told police that the real reason why they had argued was because she had gone out the previous night and Osmond had not been pleased about this he had confronted her when she got back from her outing and things had escalated from there with him grabbing her by the neck and trying to strangle her after Nova was done talking officers moved to where
Osmond was and spoke to him he did not argue but packed his bags and left the house it was a moment of relief for Nova and she knew that things would become less heated from that moment she was right with Osmond no longer around she had the freedom to spend more time with her lover Wayne there was no longer the worry of having to meet an angry Osmond after getting back from a late night outing she also had more reasons to laugh and was generally happier but as it turned out Nova’s Newfound Joy would be short-lived on July 24 1981
Nova took her two sons Jonathan and Lee to stay with their father Osmond she had earlier made plans to go dancing with Wayne and some of her friends and because of this she did not want to leave her two sons all alone in the house apart from this she also felt like taking them over will be a great way for them to bond with their father after dropping the boys over at Osmond’s place she made for the club or she and Wayne had agreed to meet that evening was fun-filled as she made Mary to her heart’s content and with Wayne by her
side she felt once again like a teenager in Love by the time she decided to leave the club it had already gotten dark she bade Wayne and their other friends goodbye and left for her apartment that would be the last time any one of them would see her alive the following morning which was July 25th 1981 Nova’s neighbors Carmen and Wendell Turner who lived in the flat below hers were awoken by a noise it was coming from Nova’s apartment above and it was the familiar sound of argument that they had heard many times before
this time around they could only hear Nova crying on the evening of that same day another neighbor saw Nova and would later tell the police that she appeared visibly upset about something almost seven hours later at around 12 30 a.m Carmen and Wendell heard a loud bang from above while contemplating what or who could have made such a noise in the middle of the night a second bang followed that particular one sounded like somebody kicked a door Carmen and Wendell listened for more sound but it never came without any further
disturbances they went to sleep and did not think much of the noise they had just heard until so much later July 27 1981 was a Monday and the residents of Birmingham went about their daily activities however Nova did not turn up for work on that day or the day after that nobody saw her and had any idea where she was around that time Nova’s mother Lorna and sister Valerie had permanently moved from the United Kingdom to Miami in the United States and they had hoped that at a later date Nova would also join them
with her two children upon getting to Miami they called Nova but could not reach her this made them worried we were trying to reach her to confirm that we had arrived safely but we could never get any answer said Valerie Welsh Nova’s best friend Lorna was one of the first people to notice that she was missing Lorna knew that it was unlike her friend to refuse to pick up the phone and not show up for several days she however believes there was a tangible reason for all that was happening after thinking things through she made up her Minds to
pay Nova a visit to see what was wrong upon reaching Nova’s apartment she discovered that the door was locked and no matter how hard she knocked or called Nova’s name she got no response she found it all very strange and wondered if her friend had left the country without telling anyone but something else caught her attention and made her realize that not all was well some clothes which Nova had washed were hanging on the line it was unlike Nova to leave her clothes out in the open after they had dried and this was
something Lorna was well aware of as a last resort ands to confirm her fears she reached out to Osman to ask if he had seen Nova but he told her that he had not and that their two children were with him with this Lorna went to the police station and reported that her friend was missing this was on August 9 1981 two weeks after Nova disappeared Without a Trace police officers began searching for her immediately they reached out to her close friends but none of them had seen her Osmond was also contacted and asked when he last
saw her and why why he had not reported her missing earlier in response Osmond told them that he thought she had gone off with her new boyfriend or To America with her family on August 12 1981 three days after Lorna reported Nova missing she got a letter in her mailbox At first she thought it was from a relative however after breaking the seal and reading the content she realized that she was wrong according to the letter the boyfriend of whoever had written it had seen Nova fighting with a man she had gone out with around the time of her
disappearance the letter claims that the man had grabbed and hit Nova Lorna was confused as she had no idea who had written the letter since the person had chosen to remain anonymous but going by what she had read she could decipher that the person was a female Lorna did not waste time in showing the police the letter after going through the letters office Focus their attention on Wayne since he was the man Nova had been going out with before she had disappeared however when Wayne was questioned he maintains that he had no idea where Nova
was or had gone to on August 18 1981 the police were called upon by Nova’s neighbor to investigate a foul odor that was all over the house nobody knew what exactly was smelling but it was really bad and made everyone uncomfortable when police officers arrived at the house they quickly realized that the smell was much stronger in a certain area and this was upstairs at Nova’s flat they made their way there and after discovering that the door was locked they quickly broke it down the stench grew more intense as
they entered the house and the officers held their hands to their noses and grimaced in disgust as they began their search for the source the house was in disarray and dusted settled on the furniture cobwebs were also visible on the ceiling and this showed that no one had been living in the house for some time there were stairs in the apartment and under them was a cupboard officers were attracted to this part of the house because they noticed that the smell was especially stronger there strangely the lock on the door of the
cupboard looked broken and a piece of chewing gum had been used to hold it in place when officers finally opened it they saw the decaying body of the woman that they had been looking for she wore a nightgown and was covered by a blanket and some papers it was a very horrifying sight and the officers could hardly hide their shock Nova had been rotting inside her own house all along while the world was searching for her an ambulance was called to the scene and Nova’s body was taken away for autopsy the gum that was
found on the cupboard door was collected as evidenced by the police and stored away the news of Nova’s death soon spread around the neighborhood like wildfire her family in Miami were also contacted and informed about what had happened they were heartbroken and wept for days the results of the autopsy that was conducted on Nova’s body revealed that she had died as a result of pressure on the neck detectives immediately launched an investigation to determine how Nova had met her end the person at the top of the suspect list
was Osmond detectives felt that there was something fishy about him and so he was arrested in the four days that he was held in custody he was made to undergo a series of interrogations but despite this detectives got nothing tangible from him at some point he was also shown the mysterious letter that Lorna Nova’s friend had received and was asked if he knew anything about it he told them that he knew nothing about the letter since there was no further reason to continue holding him at the station he was allowed to go home after this
detectives continued the investigation and even went as far as asking the public for information regarding Nova’s death but they got nothing and the case went cold Nova was soon laid to rest and life went on but the pain her death brought stayed on with her family and for a long time they wondered who had killed her years went by and the world of forensic science became more sophisticated complex DNA techniques that seems like a pipe dream at the time of Nova’s death became possible due to advances in technology in 2014 detectives decided to
take another look at the case this time they focused on the chewing gum that had been used to seal the cupboard in which Nova’s body was found the gum had been preserved over the years and detectives knew it would contain the DNA of whoever had used it to hold the cupboard’s door in place they believed that whoever it turned out to be was likely Nova’s murderer a test was soon run on the gum and DNA was recovered upon further analysis detectives discovered that it was a match to none other than Osmond the gum wasn’t the only detail that was
tested for DNA the Seal of the letter Luna received back in 1981 was also sent to the lab for testing and Osmond’s DNA was also found on it this meant only one thing he had written the letter to divert attention away from himself with the solid evidence detectives knew that they had finally cornered Osmond he was soon arrested and charged with the arrest of his Nova during subsequent interrogations after the arrest Osmond maintained his innocence and even gave reasons as to why his DNA was on the gum and letter seal for the gum he said that
he had been running a laundry business in the past and he occasionally used the cupboard where Nova’s body was found at some point long before Nova died the cupboard lock had been broken and he had used the gum to hold it in place for the letter he claims that he had come into contact with it back in 1981 when he was being interrogated for the murder what I do remember is being left in a room with a letter and envelope on the table table for several minutes I remember thinking at the time perhaps I am being observed
and they only came back in after I took the letter up and had a look at it I read it and left it on the table Osmond had explained as regards to how his DNA had gotten on the letter since Osmond kept insisting that he had no hand in Nova’s death the case eventually went to trial after six weeks of trial he was cleared of murder since there was no evidence to show that The Killing had been premeditated however he was convicted of manslaughter and was sentenced to 12 years in prison this sentencing was on March 22nd
- Nova’s family were satisfied with the outcome of the trial finally after 36 long years Nova can rest in peace the family can now have closure knowing the person who took Nova’s life has been brought to Justice Nova’s mother Lorna said Nova’s sister Valerie also said the family had forgiven Osman for what he did we forgive him but he still needs to pay for what he’s done he never admitted to that said Valerie Lorna Nova’s best friend was also relieved that her killer had been brought to Justice I often
think about the old times and the things we used to do I still miss Nova and only hope that her family can now find peace Nova can rest in peace knowing that justice has been done I’ll never forget her till we meet again Nova love your friend Lorna Nova’s case is indeed a sad one as she never got to see her children grow into adults but there is the relief that her killer has been finally brought to Justice despite how long it took but why do you think Osman refused to own up to the crime even after all the evidence pointed to
him as the killer let us know your thoughts in the comments section do not forget to like comment share and subscribe
