Mysterious Disappearance In Lancashire

I know it’s horrible for the family, but what do we all think of the disappearance of Nicola Bulley?

As I say, it’s tragic for the family but the circumstances are fascinating and nothing makes any sense.

 

It seems a minor point but I'm puzzled why the dog's harness had been removed. Apparently she rarely did this and certainly we never remove our dog's when he is out for a walk. If she had fallen in the river you would have thought it would still have been wearing it.

Mind you, I can't really see why a third party would have removed it either.

 

I don’t think it’s a minor point as I thought exactly the same thing. I actually said to my OH not long ago when we saw someone walking a dog without a collar how strange that was, as I’d never take the collar/harness of my dogs when I’m out in case they ran off, and a) nobody could identify them b) nobody could grab hold of them.

 

There doesn't seem to have been much mention of this in the otherwise extensive media coverage though.

I suppose she could have taken it off so that it could run around freely while she paid attention to her phone call for a few minutes.

 

One of three possibilities:

(a) fell in river trying to retrieve something. Explains why phone is on the bench but doesn't explain the dog collar.

(b) abducted. Why attempt to remove the dog collar and risk getting bitten and why did the abductor throw the phone in the river?

(c) left of her own volition. Explains phone and possibly the dog collar is this is the case.

 

The other thing we haven’t heard about (I don’t think?) is what happened on the Teams call and what her colleagues said, but I guess that was maybe not significant and/or they’re keeping it under wraps for a reason.

 

Well, (c) on its own seems odd from what we know - to just abandon two young kids (and, for that matter, to leave the dog to run around on its own with a good chance of it getting lost or run over) and not to make any subsequent effort to communicate despite enormous media interest...

I'd be more persuaded by a combination of (c) and (b), ie she left the area by the river for a while, leaving phone and the dog behind without its harness (although that in itself seems unusual), and was then abducted (the mysterious 'shabby red van'?).

 

Why do the police think she fell in the river?
It’s apparently 12 miles to the sea.
Extensive searches have found nothing and they are now checking the estuary.
Could a body be swept 12 miles downstream without being snagged on something, or seen??.

As it is tidal, why are they not putting a dummy body with the same weight/size/clothes/flotation characteristics in that spot on a similar tidal timetable to monitor what could have happened to a human body floating downstream?

Could she have been abducted? Has this been ruled out completely by the police. It hasn’t apparently, so why the insistence on the ‘fallen in the river’ theory?

It is bizarre.

 

They seemed very quick to eliminate the possibility of third party involvement in the early days, and that definitely now looks highly questionable. I'm not sure what made them so sure about that, it's not as if there was/is any positive evidence that she had fallen into the water. Perhaps an absence of any signs that she had struggled with an assailant, or the like?

 

If we’re to believe all those TV dramas featuring forensics, it seems strange that the area including the river bank wasn’t cordoned off for a meticulous search.

 

Some of the social media comments and speculation on this has been quite repulsive. The Police have even had to shoo day trippers away from the area.

No one knows what has happened and it should be left to professional investigators to work it out.

 

That's certainly what happened in Morse.

 

The Police investigation doesn't inspire much confidence, does it? I am in no doubt that a proper policeman, such as Inspector Morse or Detective Sergeant Jim Bergerac, would have cracked this days ago

 

The Sweeney would have done it before going home for their tea.

 

I fully agree with that, but there is no denying it’s highly strange and I don’t think there is much harm in us discussing it on our tiny corner of the internet.

 

No, I don’t disagree. But people should be refrain from unfounded speculation on the big platforms like Facebook and Twitter. That has to be hurtful for families.

Whatever we think we know, we usually can’t really grasp it fully. So what usually happens isn’t that helpful in exceptional circumstances. It’s like we all drive down the left hand side of the road and there should never be crashes ever. But there are.

 

I’ve considered this carefully and it must be because modern police don’t drive vintage cars.

 

There was a chap on the radio this morning when asked why he was there it was because he wanted to help and make a name for himself!! The whole conversation was about thim and not the fate of this poor woman and her family

 

Things that need explanation
Why has the dog had his collar removed?
Why if she went to the river bank did she leave her phone on the bench with a Teams call still ongoing
It's very bizarre but for the families sake I hope it's cleared up soon. I cannot imagine how hard the not knowing is

 

Dumbass sightseer people never cease to amaze me.

I drove south down M62 last week. On opposite northbound side a truck was engulfed in flames. No fire engines yet and first police car had just arrived.
Completely burnt out and I learnt no injuries.
The next day I met someone who told me their daughter saw it driving south and turned back up northbound at next junction to have a closer look.
She was stuck there for 3 hours!!!
And police closed southbound lanes too - I had just got through in time.
Why are people so stupid?

 

That is dense behaviour.

 

No idea.

But what I do know with some degree of certainty is the family and friends of Nicola Bulley (and probably her neighbours too) will rue the day they courted the media, who will now never leave them alone and will hound them and create a circus of this for plenty of time to come. And then drop it because the news cycle moves on. Until there’s a slow news day or anniversary, when they’ll be back again raking it all up.

Hundreds of people go missing every day in the UK. A very small minority confound all logic and expectation and just up sticks and go, mothers and fathers amongst them. A proportion of them go and step further and commit suicide. There’s loads of stats on it - missing person investigations focus their resources on the most likely outcomes. For example, the police search advisor might say that, statistically speaking, the most likely means by which a woman of a certain age will commit suicide is X. I bet it’s water in this instance, not that the police will go on record saying that. That will then have an effect on how and where the police search. It’s simply not practical to tape off everywhere someone has or might have been - plus the forensic opportunities are slim. They’re hardly going to run DNA on every fag butt or scoop up every stray button for a murder investigation, let alone a missing person investigation.

I do think the one bit Lancashire Police have been amateur with themselves is their own media strategy. They lost control of the narrative way too early and in a rush to reassure locals they didn’t clock the danger of publicly talking in terms of statistical probability. I’d be amazed if behind closed doors that has affected the open mindedness of the senior detectives, who will simply go where the evidence leads and will have thrown lots of resources at CCTV trawls, ANPR data (hence they know 700 vehicles were in the town around the material time), mobile cell mast data etc. No guarantees but I’d say there’s better than evens odds they’ve already identified the ‘tatty red van’ from ANPR data - really wouldn’t take long.

I reserve my biggest contempt for the true crime oddballs who’ve been turning up and spreading libellous poison online. I’m sure a Venn diagram would show a big correlation between those people and the types who joined ‘Alfie’s Army’ last summer and buy Princess Diana figurines.

tl;dr - who knows but sadly the circus is only just opening for business.

 

On the harness point, I very much doubt it.

@UEA_Hornet is right about the circus but it’s quite understandable that a baffled family would use any avenue available to try to find an answer. And yes, I am sure hundreds of people go missing each day but in how many cases does 2 weeks of extensive police activity seemingly yield nothing at all?

 

Leaving a teams call on the go is surely something thousands of people do every day to make it look like they're listening and paying attention while making a cup of tea or hanging the washing out.

I'm not surprised that weirdos, attention seekers and speculators have turned up in numbers. I despise them, but they are fascinating - what sort of upbringing did they have that makes them think them being there is a good idea or remotely helpful? How dense do you have to be to believe conspiracy theories enough to get in a car and drive hours to get there?

 

Not followed this closely as am away and no internet until last night. Could someone who wanted to take her been concerned that the dog collar could have one of these dog trackers ? Therefore they made sure she left phone and dog collar just in case the dog followed her and whoever took her ?

 

Indeed, which makes it all the more puzzling that the police were so convinced that she had fallen in the river.

 

It’s obvious. The police dunnit.

 

I get what you’re saying but I’d dispute that it’s yielded nothing. At the very least the police have significantly narrowed the timeframe in which she disappeared and eliminated people, methods of crime and locations from their enquiries. Evidence can be the absence of something too.

 

I suppose so, but it comes across to a layperson more as if they had eliminated certain possibilities at the start and are now having to reopen them because their theories haven’t been proved correct.

 

It does, absolutely.

 

After beating up 5 random passers-by to ‘jog their memories’.

 

It’s also been mentioned that when they found the phone and dog, the latter was frantically running back & forwards between the bench and a field nearby. Seems strange the police ruled out 3rd party involvement so quickly.