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

Carse said:
There’s very little media coverage of these incidents though - even locally - but I think that’s because of rules around reporting of suicide.
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Apart from any other consideration there's solid evidence that reporting such tends to cause a rash of similar such events - it kind of 'gives permission' or normalizes the behavior as it were. It's and odd and sobering effect. Cialdini noted this way back in the late 1980's. It's been noted in those countries that legalize euthanasia, iirc in Holland the first legal procedures triggered a run of suicides.

I occasionally wonder if heavily publicizing other crimes can have a similar effect.
 
Coal said:
Apart from any other consideration there's solid evidence that reporting such tends to cause a rash of similar such events - it kind of 'gives permission' or normalizes the behavior as it were. It's and odd and sobering effect. Cialdini noted this way back in the late 1980's. It's been noted in those countries that legalize euthanasia, iirc in Holland the first legal procedures triggered a run of suicides...
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Reporting on cases where suicide is a factor is treated with sensitivity in the UK - both by those who do the reporting and those who provide them the information. For example, although the Independent Press Standards Organisation accepts that there is a potential public interest involved in reporting events related to suicides in certain cases, it also warns that there are very significant public health concerns involved. The IPSO recommendations are not a thing in isolation and clearly dovetail with attitudes in health and government authorities, and the police service. Even the most tabloid of tabloids clearly take this semi-embargo pretty seriously.

It’s worth reading the IPSO reasoning, which I suspect is pretty close to the attitudes of other official bodies:

A wide body of research evidence shows that media portrayals of suicide, including information published by newspapers and magazines, can influence suicidal behaviour and lead to imitative acts, particularly among vulnerable groups or young people. The research shows that overly detailed reporting does not just influence the choice of method of a suicide, but can lead to additional deaths which would otherwise not have occurred.
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I think this can put the authorities between a rock and a hard place. Because the provision of precise detail in regard to such cases is highly discouraged, implications that suicide may be involved in a case can appear – because of that apparent lack of qualifying detail - glib and simplistic. This does not completely exclude the possibility of lazy thinking, of course - but the various guidances involved mean that such a mindset is most definitely not necessarily the case.

(The actual IPSO guidance is here. Click the 'Read IPSO's guidance' tab for access to the PDF.)
 
It's almost a given: after a crime is committed, people seem to recall someone who looks suspicious or behaves in a suspicious manner.
Given the publicity of the case, I'm only surprised it's taken this long for the dodgy-looking blokes to emerge.
 
RaM said:
They keep showing the Wyre as a narrow almost a stream river, here are some pics about 4 or 5 miles further down the last one
a few miles down is were it joins the sea, when the tide is in it's quite a bit wider.

View attachment 63255View attachment 63256View attachment 63257
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Are there any road bridges in this area like that one (or maybe even that one) that sometimes flood up over the barrier? I had a particularly scary experience driving over one that had flooded once. It was many years ago, but definitely in that region.
 
If you look on google maps the second bridge up the Wyre, Cartford tole bridge is about
as far as salt water gets but it has a blocking action on the flow of the river so the river
level then rises up as far as the weir.
Knott end car park as quite a few police and coastguard vehicle's parked up and the police
helicopter as landed twice at the other end of the village
There are 3 bridges, the one in St Michael's not seen that one flooded but the village as been
many times and is why the banks of the river have been built up.
Cartford Bridge hasn't flooded as far as I know.
The one in the pick is the new Shard bridge and that to hasn't been flooded.
but the old bridge came close to it many times I have crossed it with water brushing the bottom
of the deck and you could see the bridge swaying, it was a tole bridge in those days.
This is the old bridge but I never saw it looking that straight and you could see the river through
the holes in the deck so it's a likely candidate.
Old one was opened 1864 new one 1992 they had there bobs worth out of the old one.


76710685_3223872661213894_1422261291740823552_o.jpg
 
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RaM said:
If you look on google maps the second bridge up the Wyre, Cartford tole bridge is about
as far as salt water gets but it has a blocking action on the flow of the river so the river
level then rises up as far as the weir.
Knott end car park as quite a few police and coastguard vehicle's parked up and the police
helicopter as landed twice at the other end of the village
There are 3 bridges, the one in St Michael's not seen that one flooded but the village as been
many times and is why the banks of the river have been built up.
Cartford Bridge hasn't flooded as far as I know.
The one in the pick is the new Shard bridge and that to hasn't been flooded.
but the old bridge came close to it many times I have crossed it with water brushing the bottom
of the deck and you could see the bridge swaying, it was a tole bridge in those days.
This is the old bridge but I never saw it looking that straight and you could see the river through
the holes in the deck so it's a likely candidate.



View attachment 63310
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Right. Cheers for that.
Now I think about it, having looked a bit more at the map, it was more likely in the Whitehaven/Ulverston area. It was around 1998 ish.

Great photo of the old bridge though.
 
Tempest63 said:
It is likely not a case of disinterest, most people on a conference call will mute their device to prevent unnecessary background noise and if the signal is bad you turn off the camera to stop jumping and freezing.
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Plus if there's no graphics etc at which you have to look, you can pocket a mobile and participate whilst moving about via headset. Have done so myself a few times walking to work.
 
I have no idea of what may have happened, but do think it may be accident related.

While there are comments here relating to possible fall into water, the other possibility is that she slipped, somewhere on land because of the wet weather (iirc, rainfall was mentioned upthread) and sodden land, hit her head and because of head injury, wandered away somewhere. If she wandered in the direction/area in which the cctv camera was not working, none of this would be definitely known, but possible.

Yes, she could have even tripped over her dog and fallen.

People with head injuries do not always appear injured, but can just wander with no one realizing that anything is wrong.
 
Tempest63 said:
It is likely not a case of disinterest, most people on a conference call will mute their device to prevent unnecessary background noise and if the signal is bad you turn off the camera to stop jumping and freezing.
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She sent a social text message to a friend just before the conference call.
Which suggests to me she was signed in but not fully focussed on it, because if she sent a message she'd likely be waiting for a reply.

The relevance to the case is that she was using her phone around the time she was last seen, making plans for future social events.

Not the typical behaviour of someone was was suicidal or about to run off, unless she was taking elaborate steps to disguise that?
 
escargot said:
I bet that's a former Post Office van. They are sold off after service. The logos are removed but you can usually still see them faintly.
I see loads on the roads round'ere.
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The roads in our neck of the woods are filled with dodgy looking vans. It would take the entire Police force working 24/7 to investigate every one. St Michaels is on the main road between the A6 and Blackpool (the dodgiest place on the planet) so inevitably these vans will be seen in that area.
 
PeteS said:
The roads in our neck of the woods are filled with dodgy looking vans. It would take the entire Police force working 24/7 to investigate every one. St Michaels is on the main road between the A6 and Blackpool (the dodgiest place on the planet) so inevitably these vans will be seen in that area.
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True, there are plenty of dodgy vans around. Most commercial vans are either white, with or without a display of the company details, or in full company livery like DHL.

But tatty plain red ones are usually ex Post Office. I noticed this long ago and am in the habit of casually spotting them. ;)
Maybe this is because I had a job where I had to look out for Post Office vehicles and learned that the colour was the giveaway even at a distance.
 
You dont see many red high top tranys round here but oddly one passed our house
yesterday, it's like when you have a car that you think there are not many about
but when you start driving one you see hundreds.
:omr:
 
Whilst speculation is to be expected, if a little distasteful on social media, I really do think it's Occams Razor; if someone goes missing next either a body of, or flowing water the likelihood is high that they're in there somewhere.

Given currents, flows, and the sorts of things that you can find at the bottom of them which could trap a body, it's really not that much of a mystery to imagine why they've not yet recovered the body as yet.
After all, with the advent of Google earth, how many "mysterious" missing persons cases have been solved when someone's noticed something odd in the water via their computer (granted it's generally lakes, but you get my point).
 
BaronHardacre said:
Whilst speculation is to be expected, if a little distasteful on social media, I really do think it's Occams Razor; if someone goes missing next either a body of, or flowing water the likelihood is high that they're in there somewhere.

Given currents, flows, and the sorts of things that you can find at the bottom of them which could trap a body, it's really not that much of a mystery to imagine why they've not yet recovered the body as yet.
After all, with the advent of Google earth, how many "mysterious" missing persons cases have been solved when someone's noticed something odd in the water via their computer (granted it's generally lakes, but you get my point).
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You could be right , but given the fact that the river has been searched three times and considering the conditions of the river at the time. It was so shallow , Nicola could have stood up in it, There was no fast or forceful current, So if she had gone in , its difficult to understand why she wasn't found . A body would not move more than a couple of meters , in those river conditions . If it had been raining heavily at the time, it might be possible for the body to have moved to another area, but it had not been raining . I think its highly unlikely she's in there , but it is possible that she is , and somehow just was missed . Its also possible , although highly unlikely, that she did fall in and banged her head , but managed to get out. She may be wandering around somewhere , suffering from amnesia , not knowing who she is . Something like this did happen , a few years ago, to Danny Filipides , who went skiing in the Adirondack mountains . He vanished , and searches found no trace of him . A few weeks later , he called his wife from Sacramento , California , Where he's turned up , still in his skiing gear, with no memory of how or why he'd got there. He eventually regained enough memory to reveal he'd had an accident , hit his head , and had taken a ride from a lorry driver , to Sacramento. It took several days for him to be able to remember his wife's phone number . A highly unlikely possibility , but something like that could have happened , if wherever she is , she's laying low , and has not been seen by many members of the public
 
queenofwands said:
…if she had gone in , its difficult to understand why she wasn't found . A body would not move more than a couple of meters , in those river conditions . If it had been raining heavily at the time, it might be possible for the body to have moved to another area, but it had not been raining . I think its highly unlikely she's in there , but it is possible that she is , and somehow just was missed .
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“…clothing that Ms Bulley was last seen wearing, including an ankle-length black quilted gilet jacket, a black Engelbert Strauss waist-length coat, tight-fitting black jeans, long green walking socks, ankle-length green Next wellies…”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ashire-police-lancashire-willow-b2275308.html

Not kit conducive to survival after falling into bitterly-cold water.

As to her not having been found, there are too many imponderables in water searches. Adults have drowned in 4” of bathwater before now; and dark clothing, poor visibility, currents, eddies, underwater obstacles and crevices all contribute to the difficulty.

maximus otter
 
ChrisBoardman said:
The latest talk in the news is the two fishermen the day before who seemed to be hiding their faces.
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“The local said the pair were carrying fishing rods and appeared to be wearing hats or hoods, which obscured their faces.”

- Which, several column-inches of filler later, becomes:

“But I remembered that they seemed to want to hide their faces, which struck me as odd.”

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/21363097/nicola-bulley-witness-hooded-men/

Hats. In February. Well, l never.

He states that he didn’t see their faces, but recognised one of them when he saw him again another day. And he’s aggrieved that it took the police nine days to call him back, despite this potentially crucial input.

Hmmm…

maximus otter
 
ChrisBoardman said:
The latest talk in the news is the two fishermen the day before who seemed to be hiding their faces.
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P
maximus otter said:
“The local said the pair were carrying fishing rods and appeared to be wearing hats or hoods, which obscured their faces.”

- Which, several column-inches of filler later, becomes:

“But I remembered that they seemed to want to hide their faces, which struck me as odd.”

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/21363097/nicola-bulley-witness-hooded-men/

Hats. In February. Well, l never.

He states that he didn’t see their faces, but recognised one of them when he saw him again another day. And he’s aggrieved that it took the police nine days to call him back, despite this potentially crucial input.

Hmmm…

maximus otter
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probably just a couple of poachers
 
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