Loading player
British police said Monday that the body found the day before in a river is that of Nicola Bulley, a financial adviser and mother of two girls who went missing last month. Her case had sparked a debate about trust in the police and brought a number of amateur detectives to the internet-based village in north-west England where she had disappeared.
Bulley, 45, had disappeared on the morning of January 27 after taking her daughters to school and walking her dog along the river. “Unfortunately we can now confirm that we found the body of Nicola Bulley yesterday in the River Wyre,” Lancashire Police Peter Lawson said at a news conference on Monday evening.
Bulley’s disappearance had captured public attention and inspired speculation about possible conspiracies; groups of people had visited the place where she was last seen and the surroundings of the village to conduct their research. Police had complained about “people on Tik Tok playing private detectives”, asking them to leave and stop making videos for social media around private property. Bulley’s body was found on Sunday by two people walking their dogs along the river, less than 2 kilometers from where she had disappeared.
Lancashire County Police had been much criticized when, after a three-week search, they had released a statement explaining that the case of Bulley’s disappearance had been classified as very worrying as Bulley “had serious drinking problems caused by his malaise for the condition of menopause”.
Police had said they released these details to “avoid further speculation”, but many criticized the statements as a gross violation of their privacy and questioned whether a man’s reproductive status would be shared in the same way. The case comes at a time when women’s trust in the police is at a very low level, after a series of scandals such as those of an officer convicted of rape and another for the murder of Sarah Everard, a 33 year old girl.
Lancashire Police had speculated that Bulley had fallen into the river nearby, but after initial searches had turned up nothing, social media influencers had flocked to St. Michael’s on Wyre to look for traces. Michael Vincent, a local authority, told the Washington Post that his town of 600 inhabitants had begun to feel like a “theme park where people came to play detective”. Residents had hired a private security company to patrol the streets after being spooked by people who spied on them from windows, tried to open front doors and entered an abandoned house.
Bulley’s family had denounced some press organs for the invasion of their privacy, saying they were forced to explain to their two daughters, aged 9 and 6, that “the press and public opinion accuse their father of wrongdoing and attack friends and family.” The family’s statement, which was posted on Twitter by the police, also spoke of Bulley: “We will never forget Nikki, how could we, she was at the center of our world, she was the one who made our lives so special and nothing can be said about this.” cast a shadow”.
Sadly, we are now able to confirm that yesterday we recovered Nicola Bulley from the River Wyre.
Nicola’s family have been informed and are of course devastated. Our thoughts are with them at this time as well as with all her loved ones and the wider community. pic.twitter.com/7L522NiHHS
— Lancashire Police (@LancsPolice) February 20, 2023
© 2023, The Washington Post
Subscribe to The Washington Post
(translation by Emilia Dreams)