Found Deceased Spain - Esther Dingley, from UK, missing in the Pyrenees, November 2020 #1

[PeggyHenry]

I am new to this forum but have been following this story closely - so sad!
You seem to have missed the very important new information in the Daily Mail yesterday 09th December.
Apart from the comment by Jean-Marc Bordinaro the Esther and Dan’s lives were not as happy as social media suggests, he also said the following - quote:
‘An expert hiker, Antonio Bellarin, 70, has told of giving her a lift higher into the mountains to start her walk on Nov 21st, a day before she last contacted Mr Colegate. Mr Ballarin who was with his grandson said Miss Dingley suggested she was planning to go all the way to Toulouse under her own steam, possibly by catching a train’.
Whilst I have seen disparaging remarks about the Daily Mail on this forum, I don’t believe they can have made such a detailed statement up!
It gives us a lot more information. It fills the gap about what Esther did on Nov 21st. It tells us she is comfortable about accepting lifts ( not unusual especially among hikers looking to start / end a walk and I don’t read anything negative into it). But also it suggests her plans were not nearly so certain as we might have believed until now. Why Toulouse? Maybe she knows someone there.
For what it’s worth I believe it is most likely she has committed suicide or met with an unusual accident (unusual only in that the search revealed no trace).
She is an intelligent woman and if she wished to commit suicide without leaving Dan and relatives with the knowledge it was suicide then she could plan to make it look as though it could have been an accident - so we are likely to never know the truth. Certainly if there was a suicide note then we would have heard by now.
We can’t ask him but I would be very keen to know whether the last call to her father before her final walk was unusual. Was it part of a pattern of ringing him or did he regard it as out of the blue and at an unusual time. It may have been her way for saying goodbye and leaving him with a positive. No doubt the police have asked him about the call in detail.

Interesting! Thanks for posting this. I have just searched via Google to try and find this but can't find any trace. Maybe it has been withdrawn for some reason.

 

[Grouse]

I am new to this forum but have been following this story closely - so sad!
You seem to have missed the very important new information in the Daily Mail yesterday 09th December.
Apart from the comment by Jean-Marc Bordinaro the Esther and Dan’s lives were not as happy as social media suggests, he also said the following - quote:
‘An expert hiker, Antonio Bellarin, 70, has told of giving her a lift higher into the mountains to start her walk on Nov 21st, a day before she last contacted Mr Colegate. Mr Ballarin who was with his grandson said Miss Dingley suggested she was planning to go all the way to Toulouse under her own steam, possibly by catching a train’.
Whilst I have seen disparaging remarks about the Daily Mail on this forum, I don’t believe they can have made such a detailed statement up!
It gives us a lot more information. It fills the gap about what Esther did on Nov 21st. It tells us she is comfortable about accepting lifts ( not unusual especially among hikers looking to start / end a walk and I don’t read anything negative into it). But also it suggests her plans were not nearly so certain as we might have believed until now. Why Toulouse? Maybe she knows someone there.
For what it’s worth I believe it is most likely she has committed suicide or met with an unusual accident (unusual only in that the search revealed no trace).
She is an intelligent woman and if she wished to commit suicide without leaving Dan and relatives with the knowledge it was suicide then she could plan to make it look as though it could have been an accident - so we are likely to never know the truth. Certainly if there was a suicide note then we would have heard by now.
We can’t ask him but I would be very keen to know whether the last call to her father before her final walk was unusual. Was it part of a pattern of ringing him or did he regard it as out of the blue and at an unusual time. It may have been her way for saying goodbye and leaving him with a positive. No doubt the police have asked him about the call in detail.

Hi, just to echo what @Sjm_qc said, could you post a link to that article please? I've also not been able to find it, or anything similar via google searches.

A thought that occurs to me is that something may have got lost in translation in that conversation. It has been reported that Esther didn't speak Spanish (the incident in the shop) so depending on Mr Bellarin's fluency in English, it may have been that she was telling him that she would be returning to Toulouse after her trip. The farmhouse where Dan was house-sitting was I believe in the region of Gers, near Toulouse.

 

[Sjm_qc]

It's not me comparing the posts Sjm_qc. It's one or two fellow sleuthers that have noticed differences between some of her posts. I haven't read any of Esther's FB posts until today. I think I should have said I wonder IF it could be the post from 19/11/2020 as quite a few spelling mistakes, and, lack of punctuation

Thanks again . I agree that it’s the 19/11/2020 post which appears to be causing concern. I’m just curious which post(s) are being compared to it to cause that concern.

Both Esther & Dan contribute to their jointly held social media pages (and the blog which hasn’t been updated for a while) and have distinct “writing voices” even when they don’t specifically sign-off by name.

ETA: Forgot to add, as I mentioned above, that family members (& particularly Dan) would be very familiar with how she expresses herself & immediately pick up on a difference of style/writing “voice”.

 

[PeggyHenry]

Missing Durham hiker Esther Dingley's boyfriend interviewed as witness after disappearance - Chronicle Live

Here is a report that refers to Antonio Ballarin who met her the day before her trek - the only one I can find so far but will keep looking!

 

[Sjm_qc]

Missing Durham hiker Esther Dingley's boyfriend interviewed as witness after disappearance - Chronicle Live

Here is a report that refers to Antonio Ballarin who met her the day before her trek - the only one I can find so far but will keep looking!

Thank you Peggy!

 

[CoverMeCagney]

Welcome to WS! Do you have a link to this new report? Please and thank you.

ETA: I’m looking for this myself and can’t find it in the Daily Mail? Or anywhere, in fact.

I’ve found it on Pressreader but it seems to have been pulled from the DM

PressReader.com - Your favorite newspapers and magazines.

 

[Grouse]

DBM (@CoverMeCagney beat me to it Peggy's post gave us the correct spelling Ballarin)

 

[Lilibet]

Yes, several. Including some very high profile cases.

ETA: I can also think of a few where a missing person turns up safe later even in cases where nothing nefarious happened but families, WSers, LE were convinced of or suspected foul play.

Yes, we do remember a case like that @Sjm_qc. Hooks up. Nice to see you!

 

[Sjm_qc]

Yes, we do remember a case like that @Sjm_qc. Hooks up. Nice to see you!

. Nice to see you too!

(For others reading along: “Hooks Up” as featured in my sig and referred to by Lilibet, comes from a missing person case years back which had a very happy ending, after months of desperate sleuthing and untold hours spent on all sorts of theories, speculations, red herrings and minutious poring over every single tiny detail, which -in the end- were irrelevant).

 

[Sjm_qc]

I’ve found it on Pressreader but it seems to have been pulled from the DM

PressReader.com - Your favorite newspapers and magazines.

Thank you very much for finding this!

Even with my not great Spanish skills, I can see exactly how there could be a “lost in translation” moment as suggested by @Grouse, as well as seeing why the Mail may have edited this out.

 

[Grouse]

Thank you very much for finding this!

Even with my not great Spanish skills, I can see exactly how there could be a “lost in translation” moment as suggested by @Grouse, as well as seeing why the Mail may have this edited out.

Possibly the reason they removed it. Or maybe they had just got it wrong - if they are quoting Mr Ballarin literally in the article, I would say his English seems pretty fluent.

 

[Sjm_qc]

Possibly the reason they removed it. Or maybe they had just got it wrong - if they are quoting Mr Ballarin literally in the article, I would say his English seems pretty fluent.

It’s also possible that the “lost in translation” aspect comes from whoever “interviewed” Senor Ballarin to get the quote, or whoever translated his quote/remarks.

I’m going to see if I can find anything in the Spanish press from him; don’t hold your breath, it’ll take a while .

 

[Kaykedi]

Thank you guys for the link to the Press Reader article. So, is the mystery hiker who gave Esther a lift Mr Ballarin?

 

[Sjm_qc]

Thank you guys for the link to the Press Reader article. So, is the mystery hiker who gave Esther a lift Mr Ballarin?

Well, as far as I can see, the pulled “quote” from Sr Ballarin says he gave her a lift on the 21st.

Mystery Hiker’s lift was supposedly 19th, according to other reports/social media.

Anything is possible, IMO, when reading or relying on UK redtop reporting. They’re not particularly well known for accuracy... .

 

[Alyce]

Here's another link with info re Antonio Ballarin, but interestingly they are only reporting his comment re falling into a lake, nothing being said about him giving her a lift on the 21st.
I am not doubting the other reports, just find it interesting that the crucial info has been omitted here.



A local hiker who saw Esther on the day before she started her trek has suggested she could have fallen into a lake.

Antonio Ballarin, 70, said: “The water in those lakes is quite deep and not transparent at all in a lot of parts. She could have slipped and lost her footing and ended in the water. I doubt they will have sent divers into the lakes.

“Once you lose your footing and start falling down the mountains here, there’s nothing to stop you.”


Missing Durham hiker's boyfriend interviewed as witness after disappearance

 

[PeggyHenry]

Well, as far as I can see, the pulled “quote” from Sr Ballarin says he gave her a lift on the 21st.

Mystery Hiker’s lift was supposedly 19th, according to other reports/social media.

Anything is possible, IMO, when reading or relying on UK redtop reporting. They’re not particularly well known for accuracy... .

Yes, looking at Esther's FB entry, :
"She wrote: 'It was the first time I'd seen anyone else for almost two days and as this kind fellow hiker took some photos the weather blew in...
'I had the option of staying at a great caban, even had a mattress, but it was only 2pm or going down with my fellow hiker and getting a lift.
'He'd take me further up the valley so I could continue my planned tour to another refuge, or back to the camper."

She says he would take her down and then further UP the valley (which does not exactly tie in with Ballarin's wording about a lift going higher in the mountain - although I guess depends how you interpret it!) but wouldn't she have referred to something like ' a lovely fellow hiker with his grandson' or at least alluded to there being two of them. Also, as has been said, the dates don't match..

Is it strange that she met two fellow hikers who offered / gave her lifts though? I dont know as I'm not at all familiar with the mountain hiking environment..

 

[PeggyHenry]

I'm trying to also look through Spanish news sites to find reference to Ballarin - it doesnt help that there is a high profile sports person called Antonio Ballarin.

Anyway - did find something which is not really of much use but:
Benasque: La misteriosa desaparición de la montañera Esther Maria Dingley (antena3.com)
La última vez que fue vista vestía una camiseta de manga corta, mallas negras y botas de montaña.

Basically translates as: The last time she was seen she was wearing a short sleeved shirt, black leggings (tights) and mountain boots

 

[Sjm_qc]

Is it strange that she met two fellow hikers who offered / gave her lifts though? I dont know as I'm not at all familiar with the mountain hiking environment..

RSBM for focus.

IMO, it’s not *at all* strange. IMO as well as IME it’s very, very common.

 

[Blondiexoxo]

Esther’s final post on the Ester & Dan fb page has several photos attached. On one there is clearly a person in the bottom right corner wearing a cap looking like they are taking a picture on their phone, there is also a figure at the top of mountain in the distance. The next photo shows this figure is wearing a red coat/jacket and dark coloured trousers, standing hand on hip at the top of the mountain. Both of these people need to be identified and questioned. I wonder if they’ve come forward yet?

 

[Blondiexoxo]

Why do I just feel like the 19th was really the last time anyone physically heard from Esther. The 19th sticks out to me because it’s the date she posted about the hiker, the post also details her doubts about the conditions she’s been hiking in.

The refuges she’s been staying at to me look extremely basic and barely habitable. I wouldn’t want to sleep on any of the mattresses. The rooms look cold, dirty and not secure imo, I’m not experienced with mountain hiking accommodation though, maybe it’s not unusual. I can’t imagine why she would rather stay in some of those places than her camper. Once it got dark I bet it was a scary place to be even for an experienced hiker.