Could tip-off solve Natalie case?
COULD a 14-year-old mystery be solved in the wake of a performance by the Missing People Choir on Britain’s Got Talent? Their appearance was designed to jog a memory, any memory, to shed new light on what might have happened to the people they have lost. And it seems to have done just that. After the choir’s appearance, police received a phone call from a man in a telephone box about one of the missing, 17-year-old Natalie Putt. They have now started to exhume graves near her home.
Certainly the tragic case of the missing teenager, who had given birth to her son Rhys just 11 weeks before she disappeared, is as strange as that of the chef Claudia Lawrence, who vanished in 2009, and Manic Street Preacher guitarist Richey Edwards, who has not been seen since 1995. Natalie left her home in Lower Gornal, Dudley, on September 1, 2003: the night before she had been out with a friend and returned home at 9am.
She then left a voicemail suggesting that she was going to visit friends in Tamworth and went out to the shops at noon, a five-minute walk from the family home. She has not been seen since. She took no belongings or phone with her and she had never gone missing before.
Her family reported her disappearance to the police and an appeal was soon launched; Natalie’s case appeared on the BBC’s Crimewatch, which prompted reported sightings from Bournemouth to Scotland, none of which led anywhere. Initially it was treated as a missing person’s case but matters turned a lot darker the following March when an 18-year-old man was arrested by West Midlands police on suspicion of her murder.
But that too came to nothing. The man was released without charge and although Natalie regularly popped up on missing persons lists the trail went cold. In 2005 Natalie was one of 10 missing people to feature on posters on the side of Ford lorries and in 2006, by now missing for three years, she was in the final episode of an eight-part series on BBC Three entitled Runaways. “We all still miss Natalie every day,” her half-sister Rebecca Coggins said sadly. “We love her so much and just want to make sure she’s OK.”
THE years went by and the family continued to hope. “Every single day I wake up wondering if this is the day we will see her again,” Rebecca, now 34, said in 2011. “Did she decide to go off to start a new life? Or did something terrible happen to her? I have always had this feeling that she is somewhere close and as long as we don’t hear anything definite I will hope that she is alive and well.
“She was devoted to her baby boy and it’s impossible to think of any reason why she would leave him. I visit our mother’s grave and I wonder if Natalie goes there too. Just in case, I leave a card telling her how much we love and miss her. The family isn’t complete at Christmas without her. As always, I will order a little extra food, just in case she turns up. And I’ll choose a present for her, just as I’ve done every Christmas… The greatest gift for all of us would be simply to know, for sure, what became of Natalie.”
That wish might be about to come true, although in the saddest possible way. “A picture of Natalie was shown on Britain’s Got Talent last Friday during the Missing People Choir’s performance and it seems to have sparked interest in her case again,” said Rebecca. A call was made to the police from a phone box in Gornal and they have now started to exhume four graves 200 yards from Natalie’s home.
“All cases are periodically reviewed and the disappearance of Natalie has led us to believe that we are looking at a murder inquiry,” said Detective Inspector Ian Iliffe from the force’s cold case review team.
“We have had no positive sightings of Natalie in all these years and there has never been any financial activity connected to her bank accounts or any access to health services across the country, which points to the fact that she is no longer alive.
“Following a review of the information we have received, we have been granted permission to exhume a number of graves in Ruiton Cemetery off Duke Street in Upper Gornal.
“We also believe that at least two people know what has led us to this site and they may have further information which could assist our search. We would very much like to hear from them.”
The family, who have been living in hope that Natalie would one day be found, are understandably devastated. Rebecca and another sister, Lowri Putt, put out a statement: “In the near 14 years that Natalie has been missing, we have never given up hope of finding her safe and well,” they said. “Until we know anything to the contrary this remains the case.”
Speaking yesterday Natalie’s father David said he was still hoping for answers but if his daughter’s remains were found he could “put them to rest”.
Admitting that the latest development has come as a shock he said: “It’s something that I was expecting but not wanting to expect. It’s over 14 years now and something’s got to come to light somewhere.”
He added: “I just want some answers about what’s happened. I don’t know whether it will get any better if I do find closure – that’s something that will have to come in the near future.”
West Midlands police are digging up four graves after the Britain’s Got Talent final prompted a call from anonymous man about the whereabouts of missing 17-year-old mum