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

[Atoz]

I don't recall hearing whether cadaver dogs have been up there and I assume the SAR ones look for live people by scent. They generally are expert in either one or the other.

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Yeah I guess it's two very distinct teams when searching. Cadaver dogs can smell human bone decades after the person has deceased and can completely distinguish between human and any other animal.

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[ZaZara]

Good old DM. Shouts about the "last man to see her alive" then goes on to say the last man to see her alive was someone completely different.

Interesting that her conversation with this Spanish man, from which a couple of hinky questions arose, was conducted in French while wearing a face mask. Hardly the most reliable information exchange.

She said she was going to French town of Bagneres de Luchon and mentioned the city of Toulouse.

This story of hiking to Luchon and the on to Toulouse does not hold water IMO if you compare it with her actual situation.

She had left the campervan in Benasque, presumably at a parking lot for motorhomes. That is a paid area. You pay for the van, even if you are not there.

So what was the plan, going home to her partner and then oops... I think I forgot something ?? (and how will we get back to the camper given the curfew?)

What I think may have happened is that ED, masked, English, French not her first language, said something like on this route I can go on to Luchon and Toulouse!
And Mr Ballarin, masked, Spanish, French not his first language but in certain respects very similar to Spanish, understood that that was what she was planning to do, because in French, one would have said 'vers Luchon' meaning in the direction of. Also, in French, the conditional tense would have been used, indicating that this was not cast in concrete.

Two Brits speaking French understand each other perfectly.
I have my doubts about any other combination, masked or unmasked. Masks not helpful anyway.

This conversation happened on the 21 of November. Esther walked a trail that did not lead her to the Refuge Venasque. The next day IMO she returned from wherever she was instead of going on in the direction of Luchon. She arrived near the Salvaguardia around 3 o'clock in the afternoon, so she probably came from quite a distance. My guess is this would have been somewhere further north east from Benasque and the Salvaguardia.
This would explain why she was there so late. She might have continued to the Refuge Venasque, as planned, or she might have been on her way through the woods to the town of Benasque. Going to Benasque she would have been too late to make it that day, and she'd have needed a place for the night.

I still think, the Refuge Venasque would have been the most logical place for her to go to. I don't know what her logic was of course.

 

[Atoz]

Personally based on what exactly?

Based on what's been reported, combined with looking at social media. I don't claim to have any further knowledge than that.

 

[CoverMeCagney]

This story of hiking to Luchon and the on to Toulouse does not hold water IMO if you compare it with her actual situation.

She had left the campervan in Benasque, presumably at a parking lot for motorhomes. That is a paid area. You pay for the van, even if you are not there.

So what was the plan, going home to her partner and then oops... I think I forgot something ?? (and how will we get back to the camper given the curfew?)

What I think may have happened is that ED, masked, English, French not her first language, said something like on this route I can go on to Luchon and Toulouse!
And Mr Ballarin, masked, Spanish, French not his first language but in certain respects very similar to Spanish, understood that that was what she was planning to do, because in French, one would have said 'vers Luchon' meaning in the direction of. Also, in French, the conditional tense would have been used, indicating that this was not cast in concrete.

Two Brits speaking French understand each other perfectly.
I have my doubts about any other combination, masked or unmasked. Masks not helpful anyway.

This conversation happened on the 21 of November. Esther walked a trail that did not lead her to the Refuge Venasque. The next day IMO she returned from wherever she was instead of going on in the direction of Luchon. She arrived near the Salvaguardia around 3 o'clock in the afternoon, so she probably came from quite a distance. My guess is this would have been somewhere further north east from Benasque and the Salvaguardia.
This would explain why she was there so late. She might have continued to the Refuge Venasque, as planned, or she might have been on her way through the woods to the town of Benasque. Going to Benasque she would have been too late to make it that day, and she'd have needed a place for the night.

I still think, the Refuge Venasque would have been the most logical place for her to go to. I don't know what her logic was of course.

Yep, semantics are all important here and you've explained it perfectly. It's not the most credible or reliable source, under the difficult - and brief - circumstances.

I've swayed back towards accident while off track, but I'm still very interested in finding Mystery Hiker. Seems odd that he hasn't turned up either. Even if he's not a news junkie, you'd think one of his hiking pals would have at least mentioned Esther, knowing he'd been in the area. I do wonder if that hotel by the nearer carpark (Llanos del Hospital) has been searched, and all the guests accounted for. If he wasn't staying there or anywhere else nearby, he must have been fairly local, in which case he'd definitely know about the case.

 

[ZaZara]

Yep, semantics are all important here and you've explained it perfectly. It's not the most credible or reliable source, under the difficult - and brief - circumstances.

I've swayed back towards accident while off track, but I'm still very interested in finding Mystery Hiker. Seems odd that he hasn't turned up either. Even if he's not a news junkie, you'd think one of his hiking pals would have at least mentioned Esther, knowing he'd been in the area. I do wonder if that hotel by the nearer carpark (Llamos de Hospital (sp?)) has been searched, and all the guests accounted for. If he wasn't staying there or anywhere else nearby, he must have been fairly local, in which case he'd definitely know about the case.

IMO the hotel is a ski resort and it was probably not open in November. (COVID) I think the resorts will open next week given that there is enough snow on the slopes, and under many COVID restrictions.

 

[CoverMeCagney]

IMO the hotel is a ski resort and it was probably not open in November. (COVID) I think the resorts will open next week given that there is enough snow on the slopes, and under many COVID restrictions.

What's your gut feeling on where Mystery Hiker was staying/going on the 19th? Day tripper?

Hotel Hospital de Benasque y Estación de esquí nórdico Llanos del Hospital - Hotel - appears to be open, it let me start making a booking (obvs I had to stop before I paid lol!)

 

[10ofRods]

Missing Esther Dingley's secrets, by the last man to see her alive | Daily Mail Online

Thank you - that actually contains some informative maps and helps me understand that she was, up until the day she disappeared, apparently doing day hikes. Also, being on top of Salvoguardia (sp?) doesn't look to be as difficult a position as some of the other peaks.

The "event" took place on the 2 dec, it was reported a couple of days ago, why couldn't Dan simply call the police and ask (aren't they giving him support and updates?) instead they now have a spokesperson and splash it all over the paper, how come the new spokesperson with all their various "contacts" didn't find this out before going public?

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Language difficulties, maybe? LE surely doesn't report to Dan on each aspect of their investigation. Perhaps an investigator thought of something new to check - seems that LE must still be in possession of the van.

Perhaps they got some forensic analysis back and wanted more samples and from new places in the van.

 

[ZaZara]

What's your gut feeling on where Mystery Hiker was staying/going on the 19th? Day tripper?

Hotel Hospital de Benasque y Estación de esquí nórdico Llanos del Hospital - Hotel - appears to be open, it let me start making a booking (obvs I had to stop before I paid lol!)

Not from Benasque, that is all I can say. He would have noticed the helicopter, would have been hard to miss.

 

[10ofRods]

British hiker Esther Dingley ‘may have deliberately gone missing to retain nomadic lifestyle’ | News | The Times

Police searching for Esther Dingley, the British hiker who vanished in the Pyrenees, are concentrating on the theory that she has deliberately gone missing because she feared her nomadic lifestyle was about to end.

French and Spanish officers are focusing their investigations on a “voluntary disappearance” as heavy snowfall means they have had to cancel searches of mountains where she was last seen three weeks ago.

They have discovered that Ms Dingley, 37, was concerned that her partner, Daniel Colegate, was considering settling down following their six years roaming Europe in a camper van that began when they abandoned their high-flying academic careers.

She went hiking alone at the end of October and was last seen on November 22.

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Yet it's very strange if she really headed up toward Toulouse - perhaps leaving the van behind for Dan?

If he was wanting to settle down, was the idea that he could sell the van and get someplace to live (other than their apartment, which MSM reports they are renting out back in England).

 

[CoverMeCagney]

Hope this works, map with the relevant locations marked:

Google Maps

 

[10ofRods]

You can see words missing, words jumbled up, put together in what seems a haste and not corrected etc. Different to her other posts.

Well, we don't know her edit history. Many people post in haste and correct at leisure.

Can you say which date you mean? Nov 19? Or later?

 

[CoverMeCagney]

Not from Benasque, that is all I can say. He would have noticed the helicopter, would have been hard to miss.

Unless, of course, he doesn't want to be identified for some reason.

 

[kittythehare]

French gendarmerie captain Jean-Marc Bordinaro’s frustration was palpable. “Normally at the beginning of an inquiry we have something to go on, but we have nothing,” he said by phone. “Absolutely nothing.”

Was it possible the British hiker had an accident in the mountains? Did she meet someone who had done her harm? Had she chosen to disappear? Bordinaro said nothing was ruled out, but so far he had no answers.

“We have searched a very large area – 28 sq km in all – with specialist mountain teams, with dogs, with helicopters all along the route she said she was taking, and there is nothing. It’s not a particularly difficult route and at the time she was on the mountain the weather was good,” he said.
'We have nothing': police stumped by disappearance of Briton in Pyrenees

 

[Satchie]

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IMO, no reputable police source would **speculate** to any newspaper in that kind of open-ended matter: 'Oh, maybe she did this, maybe she did that..." IMO, serious LE officers do not "speculate", at all. They go in search of facts, that can either provide evidence, or show that there is no evidence of a scenario, so it shouldn't be followed up further, unless new evidence appears.

Possibly they might have checked Esthers bank records, looked for mysterious withdrawls, looked at her call history, looked at her routines of contact with people in her life, interviewed people.

Same thing with police looking at the van. Forensics know what to look for, evidence of blood stains or a weapon, evidence of things missing that should have been there (passport, for example). This doesn't take days and days to do.

To me, all of this is probably just routine stuff from the checklist of what to do when you have a missing person.. It's doesn't need to involve numerous LE huddling together, speculating like people do on websleuths. They get on and do their job, which is gathering facts, not pulling theories out of thin air and sharing them with the news media.

 

[kristina1709]

Well, we don't know her edit history. Many people post in haste and correct at leisure.

Can you say which date you mean? Nov 19? Or later?

19th, the instagram post. It says edited and is just different to her other posts.

 

[kristina1709]

Well, we don't know her edit history. Many people post in haste and correct at leisure.

Can you say which date you mean? Nov 19? Or later?

But whilst that post is unusual, I am not 100% convinced we have foul play. Maybe, but an accident seems very likely too. Just not enough definitive evidence either way. I just feel for her family.

 

[Bethan]

Not quite. It's over 100 miles from Arreau to Toulouse.

Esther mentioning Toulouse as her ultimate destination makes perfect sense to me, from personal experience.

We have a family member who lives in S France, in a rural area about 100 miles from Toulouse.

When describing where he lives, particularly to people who don’t know France well, we describe it as ‘near Toulouse’ this being a large city that many people are familiar with, and also being the airport one would fly to/from when visiting him.

 

[Bethan]

Just popping this in here as there's been discussion around lakes. I recently found out that cadaver dogs can sometimes pick up a scent from a body that has been submerged at the bottom of a lake. Even if they've been there for some time.

I just found that interesting. Personally I don't think she's in a lake.

Ive also been wondering the same thing....having learned previously on Webseluths that there are cadaver dogs specifically trained to pick up scent in water.

This would be a far safer option than sending divers into a lake, particularly at this time of year. However I presume that such highly specialised search dogs/teams are perhaps few & far between?

 

[talby66]

Ive also been wondering the same thing....having learned previously on Webseluths that there are cadaver dogs specifically trained to pick up scent in water.

This would be a far safer option than sending divers into a lake, particularly at this time of year. However I presume that such highly specialised search dogs/teams are perhaps few & far between?

They'd have to be able to get them there with all the necessary support required.

 

[Grouse]

Not quite. It's over 100 miles from Arreau to Toulouse.

The report I read (in the Guardian not the Daily Fail) said it was in the Gers region, which is much closer to Toulouse. 'We have nothing': police stumped by disappearance of Briton in Pyrenees

If it was indeed Arreau then mention of Toulouse makes less sense.

Edit: from the original BBC lifestyle article about the couple it says "The couple are currently several hundred miles apart" Van life: Durham couple's six years on the road (and counting)

Arreau looks much closer to the locations Esther was visiting so I'd say more likely to be Gers region, near to Toulouse.