Found Deceased UK - Nicola Bulley Last Seen Walking Dog Near River - St Michaels on Wyre (Lancashire) #4

[Taskforce88]

Feb 4 2023

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'Nicola Bulley friend: 'No evidence' she fell in river and 'definitely no tennis ball' on dog walk'​

This guy should be brought in to help search the river

 

[Edinlass]

This guy should be brought in to help search the river

Agreed, he sounds like he is full of common sense. IMO

 

[pineapple23]

I think the business with the nonexistent ball is a bit of a red herring <modsnip - rude>. Willow could have been preoccupied at the edge for any number of reasons - maybe spotted some wildlife? Nicola could have dashed up to grab her and for one reason or another she tripped. If she did fall, she didn't necessarily slide and slither leaving convenient traces. I had a dramatic accident a while back where I tripped and somehow managed to launch myself spectacularly though the air ....

 

[Taskforce88]

Agreed, he sounds like he is full of common sense. IMO

And the sonar equipment that his team uses is the best in the world for this type of operation.

 

[Edinlass]

Hi all, does anyone local know where the dog poo bin is located nearby. Am just thinking if Willow did their business near the bench NB would ask them to stay there rather than putting the harness back on to go to the bin, say through the gate? JMO

We wrote the exact same thing. I wonder if we can find out if there is a bin.

 

[Cuko]

This guy should be brought in to help search the river

Heard the interview and think exactly the same.

 

[sriraaacha]

I think the business with the nonexistent ball is a bit of a red herring <modsnip - rude>. Willow could have been preoccupied at the edge for any number of reasons - maybe spotted some wildlife? Nicola could have dashed up to grab her and for one reason another she tripped. If she did fall, she didn't necessarily slide and slither leaving convenient traces. I had a dramatic accident a while back where I tripped and somehow managed to launch myself spectacularly though the air ....

Yeah I don't think the ball (or lack of) is a major factor in any of this. Even if they did have the ball, I don't see her going down to the river to try and retrieve it regardless. Nicola may have fallen into the river because of some other reason completely unrelated to Willow.

 

[ginnyw]

Yeah I don't think the ball (or lack of) is a major factor in any of this. Even if they did have the ball, I don't see her going down to the river to try and retrieve it regardless. Nicola may have fallen into the river because of some other reason completely unrelated to Willow.

Yes. I'm starting to think this way too. Not necessarily to do with Willow.

 

[Firstsnow4]

I still have suspicions over witness number two who saw her at 9.10 - described as a ‘witness’ by police not a ‘dog walker’ - and there was some confusion over the time, which as far as I know has still not been established. IMO.

 

[DFR3217]

This isn't great. Supt Sally Riley tells us all to stop speculating to avoid distressing the family, and then the family start asking everyone to keep an open mind about what happened.

Police seeking ‘key witness’ in search for missing Nicola Bulley

A woman pushing pram near where dog walker went missing was captured on CCTV

www.theguardian.com

 

[Normal Norm]

I find that to be abnormal for the size of the place.

I wouldn't read too much into it. I have just looked at the corresponding crime statistics for violent/sexual offences for the area in which I live. They are of a very similar magnitude to those you have shown, yet my local area is absolutely not a crime hot-spot (and not one in which people are at all fearful of crime).

 

[Firstsnow4]

This isn't great. Supt Sally Riley tells us all to stop speculating to avoid distressing the family, and then the family start asking everyone to keep an open mind about what happened.

Police seeking ‘key witness’ in search for missing Nicola Bulley

A woman pushing pram near where dog walker went missing was captured on CCTV

www.theguardian.com

I find that odd too - I wonder if there has been a breakdown in relations between the police and the family. JMO.

 

[Sarahlou]

This isn't great. Supt Sally Riley tells us all to stop speculating to avoid distressing the family, and then the family start asking everyone to keep an open mind about what happened.

Police seeking ‘key witness’ in search for missing Nicola Bulley

A woman pushing pram near where dog walker went missing was captured on CCTV

www.theguardian.com

I think Sally was probably referring to the speculation about someone close to Nicola being involved, which would obviously distress the family.

 

[Officer Dibble]

Paperwork? Letter? Document?

Another good point. Hadn't thought of this. thanks. JMO

 

[Officer Dibble]

Someone mentioned up thread about any bins in the vicinity of the bench/gate, maybe the dog was roaming free, she picked up and bagged its business and IF the bin is before the gate left the phone and nipped to the bin. Could be why the dog was between the bench and gate. From then i have no idea obv...

Whoever suggested this makes a good point. Can any locals tell us if this is the situation? Would make sense why dog was between bench and gate. JMO Honestly you've really made me open my mind by mentioning this. Thanks. JMO MOO

 

[Edinlass]

Shared this late lastnight but some may have missed it, gives a feel for the area. I looked over it again but cannot see a bin at the bench but he doesn't show the gate or the path leading to the gate -

TikTok - Make Your Day

 

[shadwell]

Don’t use a Fitbit myself, so looked it up (see below) - if the device was on the surface or out of the water and within range (battery life permitting), it appears that it should be possible to manually sync it to a phone - albeit it would be a slow process going down the river repeatedly attempting a manual sync.

As best I can tell however, if the device was underwater its potential detection range would be limited to a few inches.

Image source: How do Fitbit devices sync their data?


View attachment 400098

Further to this - it appears all Fitbit wearables (trackers and watches) connect via Bluetooth LE (range up to 100m in outdoor open areas *) and are “always on.” On this basis it would appear that if a Fitbit device was currently not underwater and still had battery life, it would be detectable from any mobile phone as an “available device” or “other device” under Bluetooth in settings:

On Android: Settings > Bluetooth > Pair new device (brings up a list of Bluetooth “available devices” within range).

On IOS: Settings > Bluetooth (shows a list of ‘other devices’ available to pair).

NB (and FWIW): a quick experiment suggests Android is much quicker at detecting bluetooth devices than IOS.

BLE range source:

Bluetooth Low Energy - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics

www.sciencedirect.com

Suggestion also there that because of very low power consumption, BLE devices could remain operational for a considerable amount of time (even years).

 

[EvaP]

If NB did fall in the water as the Police are suggesting how would they know if this was accidental? What if NB had got into some altercation with someone and she was pushed? For instance it says dogs must be on leads at all times, some people can be annoyed by people who then let their dogs run free. There are sheep, free range chickens on the farm etc. Just looking at it from all angles.

Lol I get annoyed with people and dogs off lead bounding round my on lead dog at times but they’ve never ended up in a canal and I’d like to think anyone would do the decent thing I’d someone ended up in the river

 

[Tanzanite]

There are so many difficult considerations to make when searching water with such poor visibility.

Yes. When swimming in a nearby river lake, my youngest was complaining about the amount of safety stuff she had to wear. We did a couple of 'experiments' with dropping something into the water, and trying to find it again in murky, silty water. I was trying to explain to her that if she went under the surface even for a moment, she'd vanish from sight very easily.

Obviously, the divers will be using cutting-edge equipment and high-powered flashlights and so on, but the river at that point, with fairly close proximity to the weir, I think could be very murky with low visibility even with those lights. Also, NB is head to toe in black and green clothing.

 

[MntnHiker]

Sorry if I've missed this and it's been stated somewhere. I'm assuming police have talked with everyone from her work that was on that Teams call? While she was likely muted on the call, I'm curious if there were ever questions or statements directed to her to which she did not respond. Or on the flip side, at what times was she responding, either verbally or by chat, and if verbally, did she sound distracted or out of breath at all (like she was running after her dog, struggling with something etc)? Could narrow down an even tighter timeline or give a clue as to what happened. Example: at X time, this coworker asked her a question directly and she didn't respond.
Of course, I will have some meetings, if they are pretty large, where I really just have to listen in and never speak and the participants would have no idea if I was there or not.

Could be that she was mindlessly pacing while listening to the call. My husband and I both work from home. He does this ALL the time while on work calls. He just randomly paces our entire upper floor. I know when you are listening or concentrating hard on something, sometimes you aren't as aware of your surroundings as you should be. Was she mindlessly wandering about while listening in, didn't pay attention that she was too close to the edge/slope and then went in? MOO