Perhaps, but perhaps not. I never take a charger for my phone if I'm going somewhere. It's not uncommon for my phone to be on its last legs if I'm out late.
I don't buy your theory that she switched her phone off - who does that? No one unless it's very low on juice.[/QUOTE
I agree. It is very peculiar if she switched her phone of voluntarily. And it is pretty odd for her to run out of battery.
If you were at a friend's house, might you not ask them if they had a charger? People do that in bars and coffee shops all the time. Your friend would probably be very happy to help. Totally agree about your phone dying if you are out late. But is 9 pm late, when she left home at 6pm? or, for the nit-pickers, perhaps an hour earlier?
Everyone who had a non-essential job at that time, was stuck at home working all day. With their chargers, phones and plug sockets.
I do think it would be unlikely, for an organised, sensible person like SE , to be at home, working hard in a very socially present business like events, with a phone with low battery.
If she did set out with a low battery phone, CCTV suggests that she was using her phone to listen to music on the walk tp her friend's house, I find it unlikely that she would do that if her battery were about to die.
She then spent two hours at her friend's house, who presumably had plugs/chargers. I just think it is hugely unlikely that she would suddenly think: "Goodness my phone has died" after the visit. She would known that she was low on battery when she arrived and then sorted it out.
Battery life of mobile phones, and by association, access to social media and, well, normal phone stuff, was on of the only things people could have any control over in a weird world at that time, back in March 2021.