How grim ‘tattoo clue’ on severed arm solved murder of mum Natalie Clubb… & exposed dark underbelly of drug-ravaged city
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WALKING his Highland terrier in the bleak landscape around a Hull pumping station, Anthony Snowden was horrified when the dog pulled at a black plastic bin bag - exposing a human arm inside. In a state of shock Anthony, the manager of the plant, called the police who established that the dismembered limb was female. But when they noticed the roughly scrawled tattoo on her lower arm bearing the simple blue inked word ‘chaos,’ their blood froze.
![[Photo of Natalie Club, murder victim.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/hulllive-men-964422472.jpg?strip=all&w=615)
Two months earlier, in May 1998, 25-year-old mum of three Natalie Clubb had been reported missing by her boyfriend. She, like two other women who had been murdered in Hull during the past 10 months, had worked as prostitutes. The women working the streets were already nervous. This third finding would fuel fears that a Ripper-style serial killer was on the loose.
![[A bulldozer and other machinery at a pumping station.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Pumping-station.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
But, as more body parts were found, the dark underbelly of Hull’s drug scene was exposed - as police struggled to extract the truth from addicts and career criminals used to lying to save their skin. In the ITV documentary Murder – The Tattoo Clue, police officers investigating at the time recall the horrific story.
Crime Scene Manager Trevor Lawley was first on the scene at the pumping station. “There was a missing person report out in relation to a lady called Natalie Clubb, with the recording of such a tattoo on the arm,” he says. He was joined by Senior Investigating Officer, DCI Paul Davison who was taken over to see the arm laid on the ground.
![[Blurred image of Natalie Clubb's arm, from ITV's True Crime documentary.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tattoo-clue-itv1-itvx-natalies-964424241.png?strip=all&w=960)
