Missing woman

[MyOldCaravan]

BBC News - Nicola Bulley: Partner describes perpetual hell over missing mum
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-64450243

Just been reading about this. How awful for her partner and children. Really hope she is found soon

I don’t think it’s that isolated. A lot of people walk their dogs along there and indeed a couple of people saw her and said hello. Also her dog and phone were found really quickly by another person.

I just searched her name on Twitter to see if there was any update and one of the latest tweets was a cctv picture of a man in dark jacket and hat saying the police are looking to speak to him. I can’t find anything else on the internet about this man though so don’t want to share it on here

How could someone abduct her without being seen. They would have had to force her to go with them .. how ?..and walk all the way back to a vehicle along a path where other people would see . The time frame is so tight.

Yer so scary.

Someone must have taken her.

I live in a completely different area but I literally do the exact same thing as this woman. I drop my kid off to school, which is opposite a huge secluded woods where I go to walk our dog for about an hour. Never crossed my mind to feel scared as it's in broad daylight. Maybe I should rethink this now.

Are you suggesting that her case should be looked into less? Or other cases should be investigated more? If it’s the second then it would be great if you listed some? More awareness of other unsolved cases sounds like a great thing to champion and something I think people here would care about.

We can now confirm the following timings from the morning Nicola was last seen:
8.43am – Nicola walked along the path by the River Wyre, having dropped her children off at school
8:50am (approximately) - A dog-walker – somebody who knows Nicola – saw her walking around the lower field with her dog. Their two dogs interacted briefly before the witness left the field via the river path
8.53am – She sent an email to her boss
9.01am – She logged into a Teams call
9.10am (approximately) – A witness – somebody who knows Nicola – saw her on the upper field walking her dog, Willow. Work is ongoing today to establish exactly what time this was.
9.30am – The Teams call ended but Nicola stayed logged on
9.35am (approximately) – Nicola’s mobile phone and Willow were found at a bench by the river by another dog-walker.

We continue to have specialist resources from both the police and other emergency services in the area searching a significant area of land around the river off Garstang Road. We also have divers in the area and are using underwater drones to search the full length of the River Wyre downstream. Our police dogs have also been out searching.
We are really grateful to everyone who has come forward with information so far and would continue to ask people to get in touch if they have information or concerns.

Taken from Lancashire police website

Map of area to match timeline

This has been mentioned a lot on this thread (myself included) it's good to have an answer regarding the bench area.

I think because it is so strange and completely inexplicable - she disappeared off the face of the earth in a 30 minute window in what seems like a fairly well frequented area. I agree with previous posters though, there must be something major that the police haven't mentioned publicly as to explain why they swung into action so quickly and started searching for her immediately, rather than waiting a few hours to see if she would turn up.

Sorry haven't read full thread so probably been said a few times already but something that struck me as really odd about the details is the dogs harness being on the bench and the lead was found separately on the floor. I can understand the lead being dropped if the dog was off the lead but why would the harness be off as well? We never take Ddogs harness off during a walk as, well, why would you? Only thing I can think of is that it was taken off for the dog to have a swim so that the harness wasn't soaking wet as they can be a pain to dry out but the witness said the dog was found dry so that just doesn't add up either.

Feel so sad for her little girls and family.

I think it was obvious she hadn’t just wandered off intentionally as her phone was left behind, still connected to a meeting and her dog was left behind in the middle of a walk, it’s not a usual sort of scenario for a missing person. Plus it was next to a river so would need an urgent response if it seemed likely she had ended up in it.

I hadn't heard about it until today when I saw the family on the TV. It's their choice whether they want to put an appeal out or not on the news, maybe not everyone does? Most missing people are probably found by this stage unless they've come to harm, or the family usually have some idea where the person might be which doesn't seem to be the case this time, complete mystery.

I just read in the BBC report tonight that the dog was found wandering off Garstang Road-but it also says the dog and phone were found by the bench. The map here from the BBC story looks like Garstang Road is some way off from the bench.
Can anyone who knows the area explain what that means?

Awful screen shot image sorry-here's the link to the BBC page. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-64501150

I'm assuming just poor journalism. The dog was by the bench by all accounts on the grass

@biscuiteer the dog was found twice. First by a woman who works locally and took the dog to the bench, then tied her up. She tied her up because she couldn't do anymore with her as she was in a rush for an appointment. She let her daughter know about the dog and the daughter recognised it as Nicolas, called the partner Paul to let him know the dog was found alone and was at the bench.

In between that phone call and the husband arriving at the bench another two dog walkers came past and found willow again, she wasn't tied up anymore and the lead and harness was on the floor by the bench along with the phone which a dog Walker picked up and checked the screen saver recognising Nicola. The husband arrived whilst they were there, saw the dog alone, saw the phone still logged onto a teams call and called 999

The dog harness thing is odd.

Makes you wonder if the dog was off lead sniffing around doing dog stuff, while Nicola was focused on listening to her meeting, could have been out of her sightline for a minute or two, someone tried to grab the dog to get it out of the way by grabbing its harness but it slipped out of it while they were doing so. Nicola heard it yelping and clearly in distress so ran towards the sound dropping her phone in panic. God only knows what happened then but Nicola disappeared.

Dog picked up its harness in mouth and went back to where they had last been hoping she'd come back. Dropped it on ground.

I assume the police would have looked at possibilities that she left the area in a car so checked for accessible areas close by that a car could have driven in to and left tyre tracks if off road.

@madeyemoody yes, but not near garstang road

@itsnote you've said yourself poor journalism. The dog has consistently been reported to be found by the bench.

I hope police have more idea and are keeping info back for a reason because otherwise it looks hopeless. If it was a tragic accident to not have any evidence in a week is bizarre really. It's not that easy to disappear without a trace whilst with a dog and on a work call.

I don't know whether this is strange or normal but her partner wasn't on the appeal and isn't mentioned in passing. I have no idea if he is involved or not but Nicola is 45 and has children so why are her mum, dad and sister doing the appeal - why not him? Where was her partner last Friday morning has anyone asked?

@Dotcomma theres been no explanation as to where he was but was obviously able to come quickly when phoned. I noticed her dad did mention his name once in the interview. I’d imagine they’ll do it in stages and he will do an appeal himself after it passes the week mark today

I have a horrible feeling that she was throwing the ball for the dog and stepped accidentally backwards off the edge, into the water. It would explain the dog not seeing where she went / not being wet. Phone put down to walk around if she had earbuds in. Falling backwards you’d likely bang your head.

As to why he didn't do the interview - I wonder if he was caring for his daughters. Their mum has just gone missing without explanation; I doubt they want to let their dad our of their sight.

I have a working cocker, who looks similar in breed to Nicolas dog Willow. He can slip his harness if it isn't on tight enough. I wonder if that's what's happened and she's gone to fetch the dog, slipped, gone into the water. Problrm with that theory is, the river doesn't look deep or fast enough to carry her body away? Maybe she had headphones in so she left the phone to save it getting wet whilst she got the dog?

I know people keep focusing on the dog being dry - my dog dries fairly quickly. Especially if it's windy and he's running around. Dog could potentially have gone in the water closer to 9 am and then had 35 mins of running around, possibly distressed, until she was found.

I think the idea of her going missing herself seems unlikely. I know people can do unusual things when acutely distressed, but there has been no indication that she had any mental health issues, seems odd she would have let the family pet off, connected to a teams call and just walked off half way through? If that was the case, she would surely have had to use a credit or debit card by now?

Things that I'd be interested to know are:

Did she usually let the dog off it's harness or did it have a habit of slipping it
Did she usually listen to her calls on headphones and if so where are they
How can they be certain there are no slip marks into the water - it looks to be a big steep river bank - I'm not convinced they can rule that out?
There are reports that the first dog walker found the dog and tied it up but the second dog walker found it running loose again - was that because it had slipped the harness again? Are those reports accurate?

I pray for a happy ending to this case for the family. Failing that, I pray that they get answers and closure.