The search for Nicola Bulley,45,has riveted Britain since she went missing on January 27 while walking her dog along the River Wyre. It also generated a circus of sorts in the tiny community of St Michael’s on Wyre as speculation on social media spurred unofficial searches and attracted amateur sleuths.
The search for missing woman Nicola Bulley attracted widespread attention on social media.Getty Images
Would-be rescuers broke into derelict buildings despite police assurances that exhaustive searches were taking place. Some launched nighttime patrols,challenging locals who came face-to-face with strangers rattling their gates and prowling through their front gardens.
Confidence in the police plummeted amid criticism that police had botched the search for Bulley,a mortgage adviser who was last seen shortly after taking her daughters,ages 6 and 9,to school on a Friday morning.
The Lancashire police department,which dedicated 40 detectives to the investigation,came under increasing criticism the longer the case went unsolved.
The River Wyre near the village of St Michael’s on Wyre,England,where police divers recovered a body.Getty Images
In an apparent effort to respond,police said Bulley was classified as a “high-risk” missing person “based on a number of specific vulnerabilities”. It later revealed she had struggled with alcohol and perimenopause before she vanished.
The disclosure prompted a further backlash,with senior members of the government,opposition leaders and victims rights advocates decrying the release of such personal information.
The police department said on Friday that it would conduct an internal review of the investigation. The department has also referred itself to Britain’s independent police watchdog over a contact officers had with Bulley before her disappearance.
Police give a timeline of Nicola Bulley's movements and the final known witness sighting of her on the day she was reported missing.
London’sThe Telegraph reported that Lancashire Police were alerted to the body on Sunday after it was spotted by two walkers about 1.6 kilometres downstream from where Bulley’s phone was discovered on January 27.
Police investigators had previously searched the river bed near where her phone and dog were found. The search had continued downstream towards Morecambe Bay,where the river meets the sea.
Bulley’s partner Paul Ansell,44,later commented on the discovery,telling Sky News of his “agony”.
“No words right now,just agony,” he said. “We’re all together,we have to be strong.”
AP
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