For what benefit? They were able to do what was needed without closing off the entire area, the outcome would have been the same. A full closure for weeks on end would be a massive waste of resources.
The disappearance of Nicola Bulley
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For what benefit? They were able to do what was needed without closing off the entire area, the outcome would have been the same. A full closure for weeks on end would be a massive waste of resources.
Commissario
Not if it's in the water, from one picture i've seen it suggests they may be looking in the water near the edge of the river with a lot of reeds in it.
That would mean the sonar probably couldn't have got a good "look" (potentially at a sharp angle from one side), and very cluttered for a visual look.
As I and several others have said, we're aware of cases near us where the police have searched water, that in some cases was far "easier" to check than this river looks to be, and they've missed a body that's then turned up weeks later due to things like changing conditions in the water.
On land you can miss a body in a wooded area by inches if you aren't doing a fingertip search (which isn't practical over very large areas) and sometimes even if you've done one, in the water you've got all the issues you have on land with regards to potential stuff around the body, but combined with what can be zero visibility, the cold/pressure of the water (especially if it's flowing at any reasonable rate), and other issues, and you're basically only able to do a "fingertip search" which is a magnitude of difficulty (or more) harder to do in water than on land.
Soldato
But there wouldn't be a lot of evidence before you actually go about looking for it. The absence of evidence to begin with can't have amounted to much more than not seeing a trail of footsteps leading away since there was no CCTV at one entrance and they certainly hadn't had time at that stage to collect dash cam footage etc especially from the right areas.
Ground would have been pretty hard that time of year, frosts etc. doubt there would be any foot prints and the bank looked like thick grass
Caporegime
My shock is immeasurable. Then again it’s definitely not her because sonar guy and the husband were 100% sure she’s not in the river.
This whole thing has been a circus and honestly the people who have come out of this the least poorly might be the police somehow.
This whole thing has been a circus and honestly the people who have come out of this the least poorly might be the police somehow.
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Soldato
Exactly, so quite a stretch to assume someone had drowned in the river. I think they just relied upon a guess and maybe with a 50:50 chance got lucky perhaps in getting it right.
Commissario
It's a mile, in flowing water with zero visibility, flowing water, and all sorts also in there.
There are only two ways to search such water, one is sonar which as Dis has said has severe limitations, or by getting in the water and trying to feel for it, and the manual process is extremely slow, manpower intensive and likely to miss things because in flowing water you can't be sure you've touched every bit of the bottom, and by the time you say reach a couple of hundred yards down stream (potentially a day or two at least after the missing report*) there is a good chance the body is going to have started to get covered in other debris so you're no longer feeling a nicely outlined body, but potentially something that has a thin layer of sediment and things like dead plant materials.
*Not because you're not trying, but because it takes time to get the necessary teams together to do the search (the police don't have that many underwater search teams), they can only work for so long safely (you don't want to end up with a drowned or hypothermic diver), and it simply takes time to do a methodical search.
If someone goes missing near a river, odds are they're in the river, especially if they're never seen anywhere else again. Do also keep in mind that police had information relating to prior concerns for her welfare, and will undoubtedly have more information they haven't released. Their hypothesis was based on experience and all this information, not on a coin-flip.
Caporegime
I guess we will never know if she topped herself or fell in.
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Commissario
Also having seen a video of the bench and the ground around it, I can very much believe that someone very easy could have fallen down it, all it would take is one missed step/minor error to put you off balanced and you'd potentially be in the water before you got the chance to recover.
The bank is similar to the one I used to scramble up and down as a kid to get into our local brook, and we stumbled/slipped uncountable times, but we were actively trying to climb down so were prepared for it, and the water was only a few inches deep as we never went near the edge when it was high.
I can see why the bench is where it is from an aesthetic point of view, but at the same time it's not a great spot from the point of view of someone who may be unsteady getting up out of it.
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Caporegime
We have the technology to see the beginning of the universe but we are unable to see into a murky Lancashire river.
If, after all this time in the water, they can work out whether any injuries were inflicted pre or post death, then you would think if she fell in there would be scratches etc from trying to recover from falling in.
I suspect though that the police were on the right track all along and she went in voluntarily. All the evidence they had at the time pointed to that and it now appears they may well have been right.
Soldato
Someone correct me if im wrong but havent the police just been searching the same 300m of river over and over with sonar and divers and hadnt looked further downstream?
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I’m sure if someone spent the same billions spent on Hubble and the new one that escapes me on sonar technology to look into murky rivers we’d be able to see everything.
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They been searching all over.
You see it on social media all the time, middle aged ladies talking endlessly about wine, they’re all menopausal at that age too. A bottle day, yes, an alcoholic with issues, two bottles a week, spaced out or a bottle lasting 2-3 days? Relatively normal for thousands of people.Especially as she was a drunk and menopausal
Soldato
Have they? I'm pretty sure i've seen a few search crew on camera say the police had been focusing on a small area and not taking into account she could be downstream over the Weir and further down the river.... where it seems shes been found
Commissario
Yes. That's quite a silly statement.
It's odd how different things pose different problems, and how a multi hundred million pound, extremely specialist tool for pure science use might be able to do something, whilst a completely different tool under extremely different condititions can't do something.
Sonar is not massively "precise" and highly dependent on the angles at which it works.
It doesn't work like say "low light" camera*, it works by trying to pick up a returning sound signal and building a rough image of what it is "seeing" and what it is "seeing" can be at an extreme angle and obscured by all sorts of things.
*And early versions of those used by the military were at times almost worse than just trying to see in the dark without the "assistance"