Found Deceased UK - Nicola Bulley Last Seen Walking Dog Near River - St Michaels on Wyre (Lancashire) #9

[sriraaacha]

The police seem very confident she is in the water, or has been in the water, IMO they must have a piece of evidence to back this up, to make such a statement. It does feel like this case is turning into a circus with people turning up taking selfies, TikTok’s etc where has the respect gone, NB is sadly missing but she is still a mummy, partner, sister, and daughter.

It's weird tho because you'd think if the police did have that almost evidence then they'd have shared it with Peter? And Peter was very flip-flopping. He said definitely not, then he thinks she is in the river just a day later, now he's searched for a few days he thinks she's not again. So it would seem he doesn't have any other info either?

 

[markoid]

MOO. I just don’t buy the theory that she accidentally fell into the river and never have.

I am a similar age to her and walk my spaniel along my local river path most days. The drop looks very similar. In the hundreds of walks I have done, I have never once come remotely close to falling in.

I mean, realistically what are the chances of a young, fit adult, not under the influence of drink or drugs, in daylight, not doing anything silly like trying to walk across stepping stones etc, falling into a river accidentally….

Most of the other tragic cases I have read have been at night, in poor visibility, involved alcoho, or being chased etc.

I think this is probably what the family are thinking (MOO) In my mind, if she is in the river it is intentional or criminal.

Not sure what the chances are, but it’s possible. You can trip or stumble and then fall. You don’t have to doing something fundamentally dangerous to fall. And by way of comparison, my brother has fallen into the Shropshire Union Canal on 2 occasions.

 

[cottonweaver]

Cold shock is not hyperthermia. For North Sea survival training they used to have a “cold dip”, involving immersion in the harbour till an unfortunate incident meant this was removed from the curriculum.

It something that happens when you head is suddenly immersed as well as your body.
Commonly called brain freeze when you eat cold ice cream.
The more intense version combined with extreme cold immersion can stun the individual and mean the May gasp for air whilst still immersed or be overwhelmed.

It’s not something I’d expect to overwhelm a fully clothed strong swimmer falling into a river in the absence of waves or string currents.

As for hypothermia well again a strong swimmer can survive surprisingly long, and clothing doesn’t generally make you sink, once immersed it keeps you warm although it might inihibit movement and make you tire more quickly.

Warmth is retained in the same way as in the air.

Warm water is trapped near the body to some extent and the layers reduce water flow accross the body .

I worked for many years as a swimming instructor and lifeguard and have some experience of open water swimming and apnea diving in various parts of the world.

I didn't say that cold shock was hypothermia, hence the ' & ' between the two words.

the links I've been reading must be wrong then (about the risks of cold shock response for accidental water falls, sudden aspiration of water, hyperventilation, blood pressure rise and the risk of cardio vascular difficulties etc)

Maybe, instead I should view the risks in this case as more akin to the habituated user who routinely uses the local lake in winter for wild swimming....

 

[MsBetsy]

I think for the dive team to stop their searches now because they haven’t found anything is kind of ridiculous. After almost two weeks missing, NB could have floated miles downstream. And now for experts to be saying she might not even be in the water at all is crazy. From what I’ve been seeing online, people want to make this case something it’s not, and it’s sad.
MOO

Yes, It's not uncommon for searchers to miss finding a body on land the first time around.

In water, I would think it would be much more difficult. A body can travel quickly, sink and float again several times depending on conditions and the rate of decomp.

If in very deep, cold water, it's possible that a body would never surface again, especially when there is a lot of muck at the bottom.

 

[cottonweaver]

police have suggested the phone left on the seat may be a decoy, if they are saying there is no other person and she is possibly in the water, are they suggesting she may have intended to disappear?

No that was Peter Faulding who suggested that. Just speculation because he felt she'd never gone into the water and that there must be a third party involved.
( Later he changed his mind and said that LE was right to interpret the phone ( along with the other details) as evidence that she's likely gone into the water at that spot)

 

[EH_13]

I think for the dive team to stop their searches now because they haven’t found anything is kind of ridiculous. After almost two weeks missing, NB could have floated miles downstream. And now for experts to be saying she might not even be in the water at all is crazy. From what I’ve been seeing online, people want to make this case something it’s not, and it’s sad.
MOO

The experts (PF SGI team) have stated on numerous occasions that this is incredibly unlikely, even impossible, given their experience in 100s of drowning cases. PF team searched an area of up to 4 miles, which is all they were employed to do, and LP divers searched the immediate area (where they believed she entered the water) almost immediately. The LP teams will continue to search the water further upstream but IMO, we have to take PF experience into account here and agree that NB is extremely unlikely to be further downstream/ into the estuary? MOO

 

[San111]

I think for the dive team to stop their searches now because they haven’t found anything is kind of ridiculous. After almost two weeks missing, NB could have floated miles downstream. And now for experts to be saying she might not even be in the water at all is crazy. From what I’ve been seeing online, people want to make this case something it’s not, and it’s sad.
MOO

I don't think they stopped their river searches just PF's team have cleared the immediate area. It's a long way to the sea so a big stretch to search but PF said the police were doing it. He seemed confident she wouldn't have gone further than the area he searched.

We know the divers were at the scene quickly and thoroughly searched the immediate area and found nothing so what can we take from that? Either they missed something which seems unlikely, she didn't enter the river there or she did but her body moved far quicker than logic would suggest

 

[Karin1974]

IMO I have changed my mind & believe NB has unfortunately & accidentally fallen into the river. My Fitbit (sorry…..again) auto recognises exercise, well it tries to & there is an activity I do every 3 weeks that my Fitbit auto recognises as cycling, I’m actually mowing my lawn but the movement of me doing this shows as cycling & I change it manually to lawn mowing. I believe if NB fell into the river her Fitbit data may have auto recognised her flailing about in the water as swimming, especially if she was moving both her arms & her legs. The police still seem so adamant she went in the water that it’s the only thing that makes sense to me as I do believe her missing Fitbit data can be analysed. MOO

 

[Seattle1]

New here but long time lurker.

I think I tend towards the view of the police. The simplest answer is usually the correct one. It seems plausible that she headed back to the bench from the upper field and let Willow off the lead. Having had Springers, I know they like to run off and don't always stay close by. She probably sat down to concentrate on the meeting. She might have heard Willow barking in the distance, stood up to look out for the dog as she knows that there are issues with dogs off of leads, then turned her ankle at the top of the bank. Easy to do, she's wearing wellies. Willow comes back and has no idea where she has gone.

It's quite the tumble. It doesn't matter how strong a swimmer she is if she's dazed and has cold water shock, plus is wearing jeans, a coat, and has undercurrents to fight.

The fact that they haven't found her in the river yet is meaningless IMO. It's large, has pockets of weird depth, and has currents. I think the private search company has created a lot of unnecessary confusion. In my line of work, I deal with pushy experts all of the time and they can be wrong sometimes, no matter how clever and self-assured they are. It rings alarm bells for me that a person of this level of experience would have the audacity to say that anything is categorically true or false.

It's a horrible case and my heart goes out to the family.

MOO

I also tend to agree with police here except I think NB let Willow off leash as she sat on the bench when she logged in to her call-- only to be interrupted when she observed Willow getting into something -- maybe even waterfowl near the bank that caused NB to get up abruptly-- leaving both her phone and Wilow's harness on the bench. From my own experience, I can envision NB catching up to Willow near the bank-- especially if her commands to drop were ignored. And naked of the harness or anything to grab hold of Willow, I can see slipping off the bank into the water as a plausible explanation. JMO

 

[mrjitty]

I am not saying that NB was not by the riverside that day walking her dog, but the people who thought they saw her at certain times may have been mistaken, so the timeline may be off quite a bit. We know she was on the Teams call, sent texts etc, but can we really be 100% sure she was where people think they saw her at those specific times. We sometimes see things and our brain deduces what they are based on previous knowledge etc, but we can be totally wrong.

JMO

RSBM

The location data on her phone likely corroborates where she was until 9.20am

They have the whole dog walk mapped until she puts her phone on the bench - IMO

02c

 

[cottonweaver]

I very much doubt the police would contact everyone who was driving near the area, even if they had a complete set of VRM data. It’s a fairly busy time of day in most areas, and police resources are not unlimited.

Contacting every driver via the DVLA keeper information then writing to them not visiting them before requesting and if necessary taking legal steps to access footage represents a huge investment in police time and resources.
The request is generally to allow members of the public to help by providing footage they might have.

snipped by me, for brevity

Sally Riley has been asking for footage from drivers for over a week but more recently she has said that LE are now contacting all of the c700 vehicles to ask them whether they have dash cam

'As I said Friday, this only leaves the path along Garstang Lane onto the A586 which is not covered by CCTV but the more of those 700 or so vehicle drivers that we can identify who can confirm that they have neither dashcam footage or saw anything on that morning will help us to close that very small gap.'

• We've now identified around 700 vehicles that drove through the village on that morning on the 27th. January at around 9:10-9:15 and we're in the process of speaking to all of those drivers to try and find out if they have any dashcam footage, what they saw on that day or anything else that may be of value to the police enquiry.

link UK - Nicola Bulley, St Michaels on Wyre (Lancashire), Jan 27, 2023 *MEDIA, MAPS, & TIMELINES - NO DISCUSSION*

and here's an example of earlier commentary on that
'Our enquiries now focus on the river path which leads from the fields back to Garstang Road – for that we need drivers and cyclists who travelled that way on the morning of January 27 to make contact. We have already done a lot of work around this, but every piece of footage helps us build up a picture of movements on that morning.

We will be making contact with drivers, who we believe were travelling down Garstang Road that morning via letter. If you receive one of these letters and have dashcam footage, we would urge you to make contact so that a member of the enquiry team can make contact and review your footage to establish whether it assists. We would ask that only drivers that do have dashcam footage reply to this request.'

Lancashire Constabulary - Missing Nicola Bulley - latest update

The latest news and information for Lancashire Constabulary

lancashire.police.uk

 

[ginnyw]

I found it very poignant that NB had extolled the benefits of good life insurance on her professional FB page, in case something happened to loved ones. And of course with no firm proof of death it would not be payable. I was also a bit unnerved to see she had put her mobile number clearly on her profile too. JMO.

 

[Cluella DeVille]

This is where I am baffled. Why didn't SGI go the distance?

As I understand it, from explanations given by PF, the choice wasn't his to make as police directed him to the stretches his team were to search. He said yesterday that this extended search is the responsibility of the police

 

[cottonweaver]

As I understand it, from explanations given by PF, the choice wasn't his to make as police directed him to the stretches his team were to search. He said yesterday that this extended search is the responsibility of the police

and tbf Faulding had only ever said he'd spend 3-4 days searching. ( He has a private company and other work)

 

[mrjitty]

I guess they need a break in the case now.

 

[mrjitty]

PF's search is for the water suitable for his side scan sonar

It doesn't make sense for tidal flats.

 

[Seattle1]

British mother vanishes "into thin air" after dropping two daughters off at school

Family and friends of Nicola Bulley, 45, have questioned the police theory that she fell into the river in a tragic accident.

www.cbsnews.com

7 Feb 2023

The mortgage adviser was last seen 10 days ago walking her dog along the riverbank after dropping her two young daughters off at school as usual in the northwestern village of St Michael's on Wyre.

Soon after, her dog was found running loose "in an agitated state" prompting a member of the public to raise the alarm.

With her mysterious disappearance making headline news, police on Friday said they were working on the assumption that Bulley slipped into the water.

 

[Lilly b]

I think for the dive team to stop their searches now because they haven’t found anything is kind of ridiculous. After almost two weeks missing, NB could have floated miles downstream. And now for experts to be saying she might not even be in the water at all is crazy. From what I’ve been seeing online, people want to make this case something it’s not, and it’s sad.
MOO

I'm not sure float would be the correct word. A d**d body sinks, it would have to be a strong current to move an object that weighed around 9 stone (just guessing at weight) for miles

 

[martinwatts5]

In my opinion the river search has been a bit muddled. The stretch around the bench was searched at the start and although this wasn’t using Mr Foulding’s equipment it would surely still have been a thorough search. So it seemed that any body in the water had already travelled a good distance from the early stages. To be searching that stretch again after 11 days seems strange.

 

[Cluella DeVille]

New poster here so apologies in advance if this post is in the wrong place. Surely the reason why the police are adamant she went in the river is the data from the Fitbit. I can look at my fitbit app and it will tell me when I took my last step and/or when my heart stopped beating. If these times are different then they know she's sadly passed after taking her last step just before that. For me the issue is was it an accident or was she assaulted, hence why they want dashcam footage. To me the key is in the Fitbit data and that's why they are so confident about her going into the water

Any idea what the fitbit would register if it was physically removed and thrown in the river? Presumably if it is not on the wearer's wrist it would cease to indicate movement, and if then put in water might indicate that it is immersed?