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The Nicola Bulley Disappearance (St Michael's On Wyre, Lancashire)

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ChrisBoardman

Justified & Ancient
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Has anyone been following this case, missing 5 days now?

The mystery of the mother who vanished while walking her dog: Last known movements of Nicola Bulley who was still connected to a work call when she disappeared on towpath after dropping her kids off at school​

By Dan Sales For Mailonline11:10 GMT 01 Feb 2023 , updated 11:23 GMT 02 Feb 2023

CHRONOLOGY at Link:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...alking-dog-known-movements-Nicola-Bulley.html

Her dog was found wandering and her mobile phone found on a bench:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...imeter-deserted-house-hunt-Nicola-Bulley.html
 
Awful for her family and friends. I wondered whether her dog was wet when found and it had got into difficulties in the river and she'd fallin in helping it. I now doubt this as surely she would have been found by now. I really hope she has suffered some sort of fugue episode and will turn up soon.
 
There is a rather sad case on going on here in Lancashire Nicola Bulley appears to have vanished into thin air, more than likely she fell in the river, but there are some strange things about this one

As an aside reading Social Media about this case and I never knew there were so many ghouls out there, some of the stuff people are posting and it also appears that many people watch to much police drama and forget it's not real life. it's been an eye opener for me

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-64482201
 
Yep a sad do, the river passes about 400 yards from us, but she went missing
about 14 river miles from here, search teams are about half way between the two.
Her phone was on a bench still connected to a work conference call and dog nearby,
this would be 6 days ago.
Very sad.
 
RaM said:
Yep a sad do, the river passes about 400 yards from us, but she went missing
about 14 river miles from here, search teams are about half way between the two.
Her phone was on a bench still connected to a work conference call and dog nearby,
this would be 6 days ago.
Very sad.
Click to expand...
I think many people should be applying Occam’s razor to this, the simplest and most obvious explanation is the poor woman fell into a very cold river and somehow got swept away (I don't know what the river conditions were that day) and it could be quite a while until she is found, there are several cases where people have fallen or jumped into rivers and their bodies have not been found for many weeks, it's a few years since I've been in that neck of the woods but I know the Wyre drains into the Irish Sea
 
I hope the woman is found, for the sake of her family. The river and the steep bank below the bench does seem like the most obvious explanation but I have read that the dog was completely dry. I would have expected the dog to have been in the water too (either from causing her to fall in while trying to reach it, or following her in after she had she had fallen) so that seems a bit odd.

Interestingly - or not - the tiny and obscure Lancashire village of St Michael’s On Wyre was previously at the centre of a tragedy in 1984 when 16 of its residents were killed in the Abbeystead disaster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbeystead_disaster. I clocked the name straight away when I saw it in the media coverage.
 
queenofwands said:
the sound had been muted and the camera switched off. It is very strange .
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I don't think that part is strange. She was walking the dog rather than paying attention to the meeting so of course she was going to have the camera and microphone switched off! Everything else is very strange though. I really hope they find her. It must be awful for her family not knowing.

Does anyone know how easy it is to get a dog harness off? Can they slip out of them themselves? Are dog harness owners in the habit of taking them off to let the dog run around?
 
queenofwands said:
but it seems the dogs harness had been taken off and she was in the middle of a conference call with her work. the sound had been muted and the camera switched off. It is very strange .
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It is quite odd that she had been having a conference call with work while out walking the dog.
 
I have a feeling they are talking about a lead they only mention lead in the reports I've seen.
She was well known in the area and if the time line is to be believed was seen only 5 min
before the dog and phone were found, the bank is steep and slippy round there and the
river deep. anyone trying to take her would have to be lucky not to be noticed.
 
Min Bannister said:
I don't think that part is strange. She was walking the dog rather than paying attention to the meeting so of course she was going to have the camera and microphone switched off! Everything else is very strange though. I really hope they find her. It must be awful for her family not knowing.

Does anyone know how easy it is to get a dog harness off? Can they slip out of them themselves? Are dog harness owners in the habit of taking them off to let the dog run around?
Click to expand...
well most would just unclip the lead , to led the dog run around , but ther harness would stay on .
 
Min Bannister said:
I don't think that part is strange. She was walking the dog rather than paying attention to the meeting so of course she was going to have the camera and microphone switched off! Everything else is very strange though. I really hope they find her. It must be awful for her family not knowing.

Does anyone know how easy it is to get a dog harness off? Can they slip out of them themselves? Are dog harness owners in the habit of taking them off to let the dog run around?
Click to expand...
There is this image online of her with the dog and the harness is still on. 435742ED-4260-4588-9B06-9E39816CE8DC.jpeg
 
The dog was found without a harness on, and was dry.
It was apparently acting as if it has been startled or upset.

Dog harnesses take a bit of practice to put on and off, and you need both hands to do so.
Takes about 30 seconds if your dog stands still and you are practiced.

Very unusual to take one off in the middle of a walk.

If the dog had rolled around in something, it might have been that Nichola took the harness of and went to wash it in the river?
But the river is said to be slow flowing where she walked, and she is therefore unlikely to have been swept away.

A phone conference call with sound and vision off is not unusual at all....many companies started to use these type of meetings during the pandemic using Zoom or Teams or G Chat software.

It is obligatory to sign in by a certain time, but the fact that she usually walked her dog during these meetings showed she logged in to comply with company policy but regarded the meetings as something to just listen in to, if at all, then start her working day after.

There could have been upwards of 50 people on the call, and as long as she was logged in she had done what she contractually obliged to do.

The dog with the harness off, and it's startled state, is what stands out to me, from what has been publicly revealed so far.

Whilst there are open fields on one side of the river, it is not a desolate location. There are a mobile home park and a caravan park nearby...I'd guess the police have checked the CCTV of both if they have it and asked residents if they had seen anything unusual and checked if any residents of them and the village had any previous for sexual offences?
@maximus otter

Sadly I think she was abducted.
 
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The river bank in that area is very high and steep due to being built up to stop flooding,
the river carries a lot of water run off from the Boland fells and we had a lot of
rain in the week before, that river carries more water than it looks and even that far
inland is affected by tides some over 10 mtrs in the last week, the water would be
very cold and it can shut you down in seconds if you go in.

This is a link to The Wyre News for anyone interested.
https://www.lancs.live/all-about/wyre
 
I think people are looking at the river and thinking it's not much of a river, but it's misleading as RaM has said it's subject tidal effects and does flood quite often given it's catchment area. It could be a few weeks until a body turns up although on first view there are some strange aspects but they can easily be explained, she must have had ear phones on to listen to the meeting, my guess is she was sat on the bench throwing something for the dog, maybe a ball the ball got lost she went to get it and fell in, and got swept away, if the dog did like to swim she might have taken the harness off, some are very easy to take on off

I've read loads of people on Social Media saying people don't just disappear, yes they do and it's more common than many people realize
 
Robbrent said:
I think people are looking at the river and thinking it's not much of a river, but it's misleading as RaM has said it's subject tidal effects and does flood quite often given it's catchment area. It could be a few weeks until a body turns up although on first view there are some strange aspects but they can easily be explained, she must have had ear phones on to listen to the meeting, my guess is she was sat on the bench throwing something for the dog, maybe a ball the ball got lost she went to get it and fell in, and got swept away, if the dog did like to swim she might have taken the harness off, some are very easy to take on off

I've read loads of people on Social Media saying people don't just disappear, yes they do and it's more common than many people realize
Click to expand...
Yes, absolutely true that many people have disappeared in inexplicable circumstances , as though they just vanished into thin air. Bizarre
 
Robbrent said:
I think people are looking at the river and thinking it's not much of a river, but it's misleading as RaM has said it's subject tidal effects and does flood quite often given it's catchment area. It could be a few weeks until a body turns up although on first view there are some strange aspects but they can easily be explained, she must have had ear phones on to listen to the meeting, my guess is she was sat on the bench throwing something for the dog, maybe a ball the ball got lost she went to get it and fell in, and got swept away, if the dog did like to swim she might have taken the harness off, some are very easy to take on off

I've read loads of people on Social Media saying people don't just disappear, yes they do and it's more common than many people realize
Click to expand...
A few years ago (and on more than one occasion) I was out with the dog and walked into a marshy bit of ground and sunk right in up to my knees. I'm 6'2'' and even I struggled to get out. Add in wellies full of water/mud and it really was difficult to pull myself out.
I'm not saying that's what happened here, but just to show how easily things can go wrong.

(It didn't help that the dog tried to 'assist' me by standing on me).
 
ChrisBoardman said:
Had she gone into the river I would expect people would have heard screams.
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More than likely she would have shouted for help. Reports say she was a good swimmer and I saw a pic of her at the same location , at an earlier time, with the dog , clearly wet. It's likely that had she gone in the river , the dog would have followed her in. It is a spaniel and that breed loves water
 
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