For three weeks, the family of Nicola Bulley lived through a kind of purgatory: hoping against hope she was still alive but fearing the worst.
Today (Monday) Lancashire Police confirmed the body found in a river yesterday about a mile from where she went missing is that of Nicola. The 45-year-old mother-of-two went missing on January 27 after she had dropped her two daughters at school and took her springer spaniel for her usual walk in the Lancashire village of St Michael's on Wyre.
Police said at the time they believed she had gone into the water but did not reveal the personal turmoil in her life that had informed that view. Her phone was found face up on a bench beside the Wyre, the spot where it is believed she had gone into the water. A mortgage advisor, the device was still connected to a work call at the time she disappeared.
Although it was being treated officially as an 'unexplained death', Lancashire Police strongly suspected she had gone into the water on her own and nobody else was involved in her disappearance. Lots of people go missing every year, cases that are regularly reported by the Manchester Evening News and other media, but this was a story that particularly captured people's attentions.
Many saw in Nicola a little of themselves. The bench where she went missing and the bridge over the Wyre were festooned with yellow ribbons, daffodils and messages of support from friends and well-wishers.
The search for Nicola was painstaking by the police and well-wishers who joined the search. In the three week vacuum of proper information, with no body being found, the village became a magnet for amateur sleuths, as well as the mainstream media, who posted theories about the case, speculation which upset the family.
It was in this three-week hiatus that Nicola's family suffered a cruel trauma the rest of us hope we'll never experience: the disappearance of a loved one in curious, uncertain circumstances. Then a breakthrough: a body was discovered under a fallen tree in the River Wyre about a mile downstream from where Nicola had gone missing.
Today (Friday) Lancashire Police confirmed that body was Nicola's, and finally the torture of not knowing what happened to her came to an end. In a statement, her heartbroken family said: “We will never be able to comprehend what Nikki had gone through in her last moments and that will never leave us.
"We will never forget Nikki, how could we? She was the centre of our world, she was the one who made our lives so special and nothing will cast a shadow over that."
They added: "Nikki, you are no longer a missing person. You have been found and we can let you rest now. We love you. We always have and always will.”
In the statement, Nicola's family took aim at some of the media coverage surrounding the investigation and slammed members of the public who had accused her partner Paul Ansell of 'wrongdoing'. "It saddens us to think that one day we will have to explain to them that the press and members of the public accused their dad of wrongdoing, misquoted and vilified friends and family," they continued.
"This is absolutely appalling, they have to be held accountable this cannot happen to another family. We tried last night to take in what we had been told in the day, only to have Sky News and ITV making contact with us directly when we expressly asked for privacy.
"They again, have taken it upon themselves to run stories about us to sell papers and increase their own profiles. It is shameful they have acted in this way. Leave us alone now.
"Do the press and other media channels and so called professionals not know when to stop? These are our lives and our children's lives."
During a press conference, Assistant Chief Constable Peter Lawson also read a statement on behalf of Lancashire Police. He said: "We recognise the huge impact that Nicola’s disappearance has had on her family and friends, but also on the people of St Michael’s.
"We would like to thank all of those who have helped during what has been a hugely complex and highly emotional investigation. Today’s development is not the outcome any of us would have wanted, but we hope that it can at least start to provide some answers for Nicola’s loved ones, who remain foremost in our thoughts. The case is now being handled by HM Coroner."
Read more of today's top stories here
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