Yes. I also wondered whether the video chat near the summit was his call to her. Seems like an awfully short conversation given that she could fully re-charge her phone 5 times during the 3 day hike.
She vanished after the Pic de Sauvegaurde conversation(s) and cannot be found by SAR. That doesn't mean she was kidnapped. It could mean that she is voluntarily missing.
The Dossier suggests that her partner is the only person she contacted on Nov 22. Is that true - is he the only person she had any contact with from the summit Sauvegarde?
I wonder whether she contacted other family members. Obviously he would have included all information about her last hours in her "dossier" (the author-less dossier).
Yes, She did contact other family members from the Pic.
I am thinking more and more about signs she has gone voluntarily missing or - and I hate to say this - ended her life.
My thoughts are...
1. DC comments about how joyful and happy she was, and indeed she states this in her messages, along with lots of reassuring “I love you’s”. IME suicide victims often feel elated and happy just before they end their lives, because they have made a decision to end their mental pain. Families are often therefore hugely shocked and have not seen the signs.
2. ED returned to the Pic de Sauvegarde where she had already been the day before. DC says it was because she liked it and that the trip wasn’t about “peak bagging”. ED seems to have spent a good half hour talking to her family members and DC from here. Again, it was apparently the norm to regularly chat to her family and DC, but did she want to return to a beautiful place and say her goodbyes?
3. She alludes several times to not having signal and that she will message when she can. We know that had she followed the proposed route, she would have had signal the following day. Could she have been trying to stop them worrying about not hearing from her to give herself a head start before they alerted SAR?
4. One of her last comments to DC is that she hopes the refuge de Vénasque has a winter room. A) This appears to suggest a lack of planning to stay there and B) although we can’t be sure, it looks like she never arrived there. It wasn’t very far away so this would mean a very quick change of mind after telling DC her plans.
5. A big red flag for me is her post on her personal FB page on 19th October - a couple of days before she set off on her solo trip. She mentions having recently been going through a difficult time and having to do some “deep soul searching”. She mentions Alex Boye and the lyrics from his song “I’m still breathing”. She cries when out running and talks of realising she’s not alone.
On You Tube the song has the hashtag #suicideprevention.
6. SAR have been unable to locate ED in a large area around her possible routes, despite intensive searching.
So what are the conclusions?
If ED had decided to end her life, she could have gone anywhere. She could have taken any mountain route far away from the one she stated she was going on, to avoid being found. She had at least three days start before SAR were called.
I really hate even writing these thoughts because Esther seems to be the most delightful, kind, generous, happy lady and I just want to see her safely home with DC who IMO adores her and always has her happiness and very best interests at heart.
Yet, I have the feeling she is a tortured soul and battles with life and its challenges.
