Hi all. First post. Been following the case and these threads for a few days. My hypothesis, attempting to accomodate many of the points and questions being endlessly debated....
Nicola & Willow are walking back along the river, lower field, towards the bench, taking the same route we know (strava history) she typically followed.
Something in the water attracts her attention. Something odd floating past? Maybe an animal in distress? Could be anything, we don't know. Probably not the ball everyone seems fixated with, but could be that too. Whatever. Let's say she is compelled towards the water for...some reason. We have all done this.
She doesn't want Willow in the water. Doesn't want the dog near...whatever it is. Or just doesn't want the hassle of wet dog in the car. So tells Willow "NO.. STAY." Dog obeys, of course.
Bank is too steep for N to be holding her phone, or even have it in her pocket, she foresees possibility she could slip and end up in the water. So places the phone on the bench. For me this point is telling. If abduction, way more likely perp would want her phone in the water asap imo. Harness is left close by too, either bench or ground, less important.
Internal phone accelerometer will show to the second when the device was placed on bench and stopped moving after that i.e. the last time N touched it. Police seemed certain on these timings. Gyro may also rule out if the phone had suffered any sort of impact drop earlier (i.e if N had been attacked) or indicate if the phone movement that morning remained natural and consistent with her usual walk. GPS data will confirm if she was following her normal path, and also show what other phones were close by to her in the field or not at the time. Fitbit had reportedly not synched for days so useless until they recover the physical unit.
So N picks her way down bank. Gets to water's edge, reaches for something and... falls into water. Or trips and stumbles in before this. Or vertigo after bending down and loses balance. I wouldn't expect to see obvious signs of a slip, recent photos of the bank show it to be way more grassy/weedy than I originally assumed). She is incapacitated. Instant cold water shock, instinctive gasp for air and inhales a lungful of water, no scream. Or maybe sudden cardiac arrest. Or hits head and knocked out. Her clothes hamper her in the water, esp the long wraparound gilet and wellies which would seriously restrict leg movement. Possibly even contributed to her fall. She would not have to drift far to be unsighted from the bank, as it happens there are tight bends in the river at just this spot. We know the water is deep here too (warning signs around the bench, anglers map posted in any earlier thread), and therefore usually faster flowing.
Dog remains in the field as instructed but becomes agitated as N does not come back up. If dog heads towards gate (unclear from reporting) this is probably because this is where the usual walk with N would go, and also where they came in 30-40 mins earlier, so N's scent would still be there. Phone is found on bench. Teams call still connected, N may even still have been listening on airpods as she slipped under....
The ONLY 'evidence' missing from this type of sceanario is the body has not yet been recovered. Which is NOT AT ALL unusual for persons falling into rivers. In MANY cases it is weeks or sometimes months for the water to give up the body, indeed this is normal/expected.
If, on the other hand, we are to speculate third party involvement, then (caveat- all "as far as we know", so far): cctv/dashcam trawls and appeals have drawn a blank; no eyewitness reports of any suspicious individual or vehicle in the area have been reported; no screams heard at the time; no dog barking; no blood found; no torn/discarded clothing or signs of sexual assault found; nothing (perp dna/fingerprints) found on phone; no motive against N in her personal life; any phones in the area from gps likely traced/eliminated.... Etc etc etc. There's literally nothing. You'd have thought there would have to be... something. It just seems so unbelievably strange that there would be zero evidence at all if this was the case.
TLDR: Person goes missing next to a dangerous body of water, circumstances consistent with accident, zero evidence for a more complex/third party explanation, Occam's razor. I am with Team Police at this point.
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