Found Deceased Spain - Esther Dingley, from UK, missing in the Pyrenees, November 2020 #6

[ZaZara]

British hiker Esther Dingley 'fell 100ft to her death after losing her footing on rocky ledge' | Daily Mail Online

The prosecutor said Mr Colegate had spent weeks searching the area once the snow melted around the high peaks.

‘Dan Colegate had undertaken to search for himself, and he told us where the body was on Monday afternoon,' said the prosecutor.

‘He contacted the gendarmerie as he had direct numbers because he collaborated in the investigation.'

A police source in Bagneres de Lucon, where the search teams were based, said 38-year-old Mr Colegate had never been considered a suspect.

Police chief Jean Marc Bordinaro said Mr Colegate had been best placed to look for his girlfriend as he was familiar with her hiking abilities and had ‘paced up and down the area’ in his personal search.


BBM

 

[HongKongPhooey]

British hiker Esther Dingley 'fell 100ft to her death after losing her footing on rocky ledge' | Daily Mail Online


British hiker Esther Dingley fell almost 100ft to her death after losing her footing on a rocky ledge close to the peak of a mountain in the Pyrenees, according to French investigators.

They believe she plunged down a steep rock-strewn slope near to the 2,300ft summit of the Pic de la Glere which straddles the French-Spanish border.

Items from her rucksack, including her phone were found scattered on a rocky ledge spread close to remains of her body that were discovered earlier this week by her boyfriend Dan Colegate.


BBM

The Public Prosecutor in this article is also quoted as saying DC was never a suspect.

Really good they recovered her phone too, although he says so far it hasnt provided any additional info hopefully the last photos will be helpful.

 

[DFR3217]

Latest update British hiker Esther Dingley 'fell 100ft to her death after losing her footing on rocky ledge' | Daily Mail Online

Very sad, poor Esther, and poor Dan.

 

[pineapple23]

Poor Esther. Hopefully it was quick if not instant.

 

[mrjitty]

If this scenario is correct, I think she would have succumbed to hypothermia quite quickly despite all her gear, and if she had broken her legs, and had no medical treatment, I would assume her body would have gone into shock. Basically I don't think she would have been suffering for a couple of weeks. I wonder if there was a reason that SAR spread their search wider than DC's information would have suggested. I think there are a lot of things about this case that haven't been made public for whatever reason - I doubt SAR would have spread their finite resources so thin for no good reason. I really dislike this narrative that is forming in the press that SAR carried out an incompetent search.

I agree.

The latest report indicates that the body could not be seen from the air. So from SARS point of view, it is unlikely on that face uphill from the path

Once you find the piece of skull moved by an animal, that tells you the body is close by, and likely uphill. It hugely reduces the area you need to search, and also tells you the body is obscured by the terrain somehow.

 

[mrjitty]

Items from her rucksack, including her phone were found scattered on a rocky ledge spread close to remains of her body that were discovered earlier this week by her boyfriend Dan Colegate.

RSBM - sounds like her pack broke apart / opened up in the fall

 

[Grouse]

BBM

Here you go @Grouse. It was posted by @pineapple23 up thread and I called out the yellow mat (below). I believe other media outlets have reported this... whether it is true or not we cannot yet know. But there is a lot of data surrounding this case that we do not fully know are true or not. For now I find this tidbit a very intriguing consideration.

Police blame the WEATHER for not finding Esther Dingley's body in area they had already searched | Daily Mail Online

Thanks @RedHaus, but I was talking about a "sit mat" (I have one of these - it's a small foam mat about 12 inches square to sit on when the ground is damp) that was specifically referred to by Investigator, but never substantiated, not the yellow sleeping mat.

I raise this as the presence (or not) of a sit mat could be significant IMO as it could indicate Esther specifically chose to sit at a spot, maybe to rest, eat or admire a view.

ETA: On reading the DM article about the 100 foot fall, this may now be less significant, but I'd still be interested to see the link to the source.

 

[Grouse]

British hiker Esther Dingley 'fell 100ft to her death after losing her footing on rocky ledge' | Daily Mail Online

The prosecutor said Mr Colegate had spent weeks searching the area once the snow melted around the high peaks.

‘Dan Colegate had undertaken to search for himself, and he told us where the body was on Monday afternoon,' said the prosecutor.

‘He contacted the gendarmerie as he had direct numbers because he collaborated in the investigation.'

A police source in Bagneres de Lucon, where the search teams were based, said 38-year-old Mr Colegate had never been considered a suspect.

Police chief Jean Marc Bordinaro said Mr Colegate had been best placed to look for his girlfriend as he was familiar with her hiking abilities and had ‘paced up and down the area’ in his personal search.


BBM

I know it's the DM, and some of their maps/diagrams have been inaccurate on this in the past, but if correct it does say "while walking along the path along the mountain ridge". This seems hard to explain unless she did indeed take the so called ridge route that we've largely agreed was unfeasible.

 

[Grouse]

RSBM - sounds like her pack broke apart / opened up in the fall

While it does sound like quite a fall that still surprises me a little. I wonder she'd stopped for a rest and the pack was open when she fell?

 

[OEJ-JEO]

I know it's the DM, and some of their maps/diagrams have been inaccurate on this in the past, but if correct it does say "while walking along the path along the mountain ridge". This seems hard to explain unless she did indeed take the so called ridge route that we've largely agreed was unfeasible.

The ridge in question might be the lower spur NW of the summit that Federico_A has been suggesting. It doesn't imply that she reached that point along the border ridge from east. I'm convinced that's impossible. The positions of the body and skull fragment suggested by the Mail are still completely implausible though, and I'm surprised to learn from their photo caption that "her boyfriend Mr Copeland" was involved in locating her remains...

 

[OEJ-JEO]

The Times is reporting "Esther Dingley slipped in worn shoes and fell 30 metres to her death in a mountain accident in the Pyrenees, French investigators believe."

Esther Dingley ‘slipped in worn shoes and fell 30m to her death’ | News | The Times

The article's behind a paywall.

 

[OEJ-JEO]

And an update from Actu:Toulouse

Pyrénées. Mort d'Esther Dingley : la blogueuse anglaise a très certainement été victime d'un accident | Actu Toulouse

"The location of the discovery and the configuration of the site direct us very clearly towards the accidental thesis. The body was discovered below a kind of rocky peak, objects belonging to the victim were found along the rock face, which very clearly suggests a fall ".

...

There remains the autopsy of the bones of Esther Dingley, and the "investigations" carried out by the forensic pathologists will prove "extremely complicated on a very damaged body", found more than eight months after her disappearance. Consequently, “we will probably never know the concrete circumstances of the accident” and “we will undoubtedly remain at the stage of the hypothesis” in this case. "There is no longer any mystery for us", adds Christophe Amunzateguy, who concludes: "The research section of Toulouse will close this file soon".

 

[RickshawFan]

I'm not the poster but I believe the X is to represent the point where ED could have fallen, (so not where the body is nor the skull) the arrow is the path up to that point.

IMO that photo is entirely confusing because the labels are incorrect. There are those little red marks, but since the Google Earth view seems to be all mixed up, there’s no making sense of them.

 

[RickshawFan]

If this scenario is correct, I think she would have succumbed to hypothermia quite quickly despite all her gear, and if she had broken her legs, and had no medical treatment, I would assume her body would have gone into shock. Basically I don't think she would have been suffering for a couple of weeks. I wonder if there was a reason that SAR spread their search wider than DC's information would have suggested. I think there are a lot of things about this case that haven't been made public for whatever reason - I doubt SAR would have spread their finite resources so thin for no good reason. I really dislike this narrative that is forming in the press that SAR carried out an incompetent search.

SAR went waaaay above and beyond. They even kept looking MONTHS after this was a recovery mission, and even though mountains often keep their dead.

 

[Grouse]

And an update from Actu:Toulouse

Pyrénées. Mort d'Esther Dingley : la blogueuse anglaise a très certainement été victime d'un accident | Actu Toulouse

"The location of the discovery and the configuration of the site direct us very clearly towards the accidental thesis. The body was discovered below a kind of rocky peak, objects belonging to the victim were found along the rock face, which very clearly suggests a fall ".

...

There remains the autopsy of the bones of Esther Dingley, and the "investigations" carried out by the forensic pathologists will prove "extremely complicated on a very damaged body", found more than eight months after her disappearance. Consequently, “we will probably never know the concrete circumstances of the accident” and “we will undoubtedly remain at the stage of the hypothesis” in this case. "There is no longer any mystery for us", adds Christophe Amunzateguy, who concludes: "The research section of Toulouse will close this file soon".

Thanks for this. I ran it through google translate and initially was a bit confused by "objects belonging to the victim were found along the wall", wondering if they meant the ridge at the top, but on further checking I see that in the context of a mountain, the word "paroi" means "face" as in the rock face.

 

[RickshawFan]

Thanks for this. I ran it through google translate and initially was a bit confused by "objects belonging to the victim were found along the wall", wondering if they meant the ridge at the top, but on further checking I see that in the context of a mountain, the word "paroi" means "rock face".

As in “climbing wall” at the gym or “wall of the Eiger” in English. They go pretty much straight up.

 

[Grouse]

As in “climbing wall” at the gym or “wall of the Eiger” in English. They go pretty much straight up.

Yes, so consistent with a fall, with all her kit, as opposed to some of it left up on the ridge was my thinking after clarifying the translation.

 

[OEJ-JEO]

IMO that photo is entirely confusing because the labels are incorrect. There are those little red marks, but since the Google Earth view seems to be all mixed up, there’s no making sense of them.

The Google Earth view shows the area around the Port, looking down across the NW spur of the Pic de la Glère, across the border into France:
https://www.websleuths.com/forums/attachments/upload_2021-8-12_23-52-48-png.308672/
The summit of Pic de la Glère is out of sight to the right.

Federico_A's suggestion is that Esther climbed the steep, grassy slope marked by the red arrow to get a better view, then fell at the point marked X into the craggy area below the ridge on the French side.

Here's a different view of the same ridge: Google Maps

France is on the left, Spain on the right. You can see the steep grassy slopes rising from the main path towards the precipice

 

[RickshawFan]

I agree.

The latest report indicates that the body could not be seen from the air. So from SARS point of view, it is unlikely on that face uphill from the path

Once you find the piece of skull moved by an animal, that tells you the body is close by, and likely uphill. It hugely reduces the area you need to search, and also tells you the body is obscured by the terrain somehow.

The whole body may have been in a different, more concealed, spot above and then it rolled to its current location. With freezing and thaw, ice and rain, the remains will have had a different configuration before the winter, and simply toppled. See @RedHaus comments upthread. There are many reasons SAR might not have found it in their searches.

 

[Grouse]

Here's a different view of the same ridge: Google Maps

France is on the left, Spain on the right. You can see the steep grassy slopes rising from the main path towards the precipice

RSBM - it's interesting to see from that angle. Though those slopes look be a bit too steep for me, I can see how a young and very fit Esther might have thought, after ascending to the port from the French side, might as well bag one last peak before descending back down to the campervan.

ETA: have marked a possible way up that looks maybe feasible, depend on how it goes beyond the top of my yellow line, might loop back left and be not too steep?