Nicola Bulley, also known as Nikki, was living in St Michael’s on Wyre in Lancashire with her family that included her partner, 44-year-old Paul Ansell & their two children. She was 45-years-old & worked as a mortgage advisor for Love Homes in Garstang. Paul described Nikki as fun, loving, an exceptional mom & the most loyal friend you could ever have. He said that she enjoyed the simple side of life & was a private person who kept herself to herself. She focused on the important things & did the right thing by everyone. She was well respected by all who knew her. Her friend, Nadia agreed that she was an amazing mother & was always involved with anything that was needed within her kid’s school. Her father, Ernest said that as a child, she was a ballerina, always dancing around in a tutu, she was great, she was lovely.
On Friday, January 27, 2023 Nikki headed to the River Wyre in Lancashire to walk her springer spaniel, Willow, at approximately 8:43 am after she’d dropped her six & nine-year-old daughters off at their school in the village. She was seen at 8:50 am in the lower field along the river by a dog walker who knew her; their dogs briefly interacted & this witness then left the field through the river path. At 8:53 am she sent an email to her boss & logged into a work call at 9:01 am; her microphone was muted & her camera was off. At 9:10 am, another witness saw Nikki on the upper field along the river, walking with Willow. The work meeting ended at 9:30 am though Nikki remained logged into the call. At 9:35 am, another dog walker found Nikki’s phone near a bench overlooking the river & Willow wandering nearby, her phone still logged into the Microsoft Teams call. Willow’s harness was found on the grass between the bench & the river’s edge. That morning, Paul texted Nikki at 10:30 am when she hadn’t come home at her usual time of 10 am. She had a meeting scheduled for 11 am & needed to get through paperwork for another meeting that afternoon so he became concerned & texted “Have you got lost?”
A woman named Penny who runs a nearby campsite is the person who found Nikki’s phone as well as Willow; she called her friend, Susan at 10 am, telling her about what she found. Penny’s daughter-in-law, Anne-Marie recognized the picture of Nikki & her family on the phone’s lock screen & called Nikki’s children’s school who ultimately got in contact with Paul at 10:50 am. Penny described Willow as acting “giddy” when she found her, but not frantic. The iPhone showed no sign of water damage & was found “intact.” Her last text was sent at 8:59 am when she was planning a playdate for her daughter for the next day; Nikki replied, confirming the time & included a smiley face emoji.
A nurse named Helen O’Neill was in the garden of her house on Allotment Lane not far from the path that leads to the bench where Nikki disappeared. At the time that Nikki vanished, she heard a scream; she said it wasn’t an alarming noise & it lasted just a couple of seconds. She heard no further sounds that caused her to become concerned. She imagined in her head that two women were walking along the path & one jumped out at the other. Another woman, Veronica Claesen, said at the time, she was getting ready to get into her car when she also heard a scream. It was very short & her initial thought was that it was one of someone having fun at the back of the graveyard. She described the sound as an “inhale scream” like a sharp intake of breath.
An extensive search began that day, divers entering the river at 4 pm on January 27, drones, helicopters & specialist search teams utilized. The manhunt captured the attention of the nation. Any suspicious circumstances were explored; there were reports of a red van in the area at the time Nikki went missing. There was a run down house across the river that was searched three times, a glove was found in the location that didn’t belong to Nikki though on January 30, police indicated that they were not treating Nikki’s disappearance as suspicious. Her parents, Ernest & Dot spoke to the media about the horror they faced over the possibility of never seeing their daughter again & how they would possibly deal with never finding her for the rest of their lives. The family shared pictures of Nikki that were taken from her doorbell camera on the morning she went missing; she was wearing a long, black quilted coat, black jeans, a pale blue Fitbit, a necklace, ankle boots & her blond hair was pulled into a ponytail.
Nikki’s daughters continued to ask where their mommy was after she didn’t come home that evening. The family wanted to keep things as normal as possible for them, making the decision to continue with pre-planned events like attending a disco night at school that evening. The police’s main working hypothesis was that Nikki had fallen into the river during the 10 minute window she was unaccounted for, but her family felt that there was absolutely no evidence behind this & felt it was based on limited vs. factual evidence. They stressed that a life shouldn’t be based on a hypothesis. Nikki’s sister Louise shared a Facebook post urging people to keep an open mind & continue to search.
During a news conference on the day that Nikki vanished, Superintendent Sally Riley said that there may have been an issue with the dog that led Nikki to the water’s edge & she may have fallen in after placing her phone on the bench. There was speculation that Nikki may have tried to retrieve a tennis ball from the river while playing with Willow that caused her to fall in, but Nikki’s friend dismissed this idea, indicating Nikki hadn’t brought a ball with her on their walks since last year because as much as Willow loved the ball, it disturbed their walks. Nikki’s friends described her as an incredibly strong swimmer though Superintendent Riley noted that Nikki was wearing another coat under her puffer coat as well as ankle-length wellingtons that could have filled with water & become heavy. No footprints or signs of someone slipping were found on the riverbank.
The public was urged to look for any items of clothing along the river that Nikki had been wearing that morning. Detectives analyzed all area CCTV footage & dashcams & urged members of the public with any helpful footage to come forward. On Monday, February 6, private underwater search experts from Specialist Group International (SGI) offered their services free of charge & began searching the River Wyre using specialized sonar equipment. After searching three or four miles of the river, the group’s leader, Peter Faulding, believed that Nikki was not in the river. He felt that the slow moving water would have meant that she wouldn’t have moved much & said it was the most baffling case he’d ever worked on.
On Tuesday, February 7, a larger area of the river was searched by police who continued to be surprised that her body had yet to be located. The theory that Nikki had fallen into the river was maintained though police continued to investigate all potential leads. 700 vehicles drove through the village at the time of Nikki’s disappearance & all were being looked into, thousands of pieces of information had been received from the public & a team of 40 detectives were investigating about 500 different lines of inquiry. Police were open-minded to the idea that Nikki could have left the area with someone but there were no sightings to believe this was the case. There was one path not covered by CCTV cameras though every single suspicion or criminal suggestion had thus far been discounted. Police remained confident that she hadn’t left along that route at the time she disappeared. A friend of Nikki’s claimed that one of the cameras that would have ‘seen everything’ wasn’t working the day she disappeared & there was speculation that it had been tampered with by a potential attacker.
Search teams from Lancashire Police & the Coastguard extended their search to Lancashire coast, 10 miles downstream from the bench where Nikki’s phone was found. Faulding, leader of the underwater search team, continued to believe that Nikki hadn’t fallen into the river & said he had video proof with a clip of the River Wyre being slow-moving, saying that her body would have sunk very quickly & remained nearby had she fallen in. Faulding shared a video of the river at the location Nikki was suspected to have fallen in, the water was still & showed a log that stayed in a fixed point for twenty minutes; when it did move, it spiraled & went up six feet, only to come back to the same location. He said that on January 27, when Nikki went missing, the river was about a foot higher & had she slipped down the river bank, she would have landed in about 2 feet of water & onto rocks & could have stood up. It was Faulding’s professional opinion that her body would have been seen if it had floated any further downstream the day she disappeared, “If Nicola was in that river, I would have found her. She’s not there.”
Faulding spoke with Paul who at that point, also agreed that she hadn’t gone into the river. This raised the family’s hopes that she could still be alive & after their conversation, Paul was very emotional & in tears. He was shocked at how shallow the river was at the point she would have gone in & like Faulding, believed she would have just tumbled on to some rocks & would have been able to stand up. It was noted that beyond the wall of rocks, the river drops to about 13 feet deep. This gave the family confidence in their belief that she wasn’t in the river which then raised the prospect of a third party involvement.
Faulding explained that when someone drowns, they aren’t seen floating on the surface like you might find in many movies, instead, they’re typically found a couple of days later & they’re almost always found on the bottom of the water. He felt at this point, the search should be wider, extending to land, focusing on outbuildings & sheds since his team’s sonar scans & searches failed to find any proof of her body in the river. Faulding called off his search on Wednesday, February 8 after use of advanced sonar equipment found no trace of Nikki.
In the meantime, as the media attention grew, police warned that any ‘amateur detectives’ would be arrested if found interfering in the investigation as buildings along the river had been broken into by members of the public who were carrying out their own searches. Social media such as TikTok was saturated with videos from people interested in the case & self-appointed experts speculated what could have happened to Nikki.
Family could not think of anyone that would have a motive to harm Nikki. Some people speculated that Paul could have been involved in Nikki’s disappearance though he was quickly cleared by police; he had been working from home on the day that Nikki vanished & CCTV footage & other information quickly proved this to be true.
On February 15, the Lancashire Police held a press conference about the case & indicated that Nikki was immediately classified as a “high risk” missing person when she disappeared following information that Paul provided to the police. Later that day, the team disclosed that Nikki had recently been struggling with alcohol & perimenopause. They faced immediate backlash & were accused of “victim blaming.” The next day, Nikki’s family asked that the speculation & rumors into her private life stop since they were only a distraction from finding Nikki. They indicated that the police had attended to an incident that happened several weeks before she’d gone missing; they agreed for police to share the information since people were aware of the situation & had been threatening to sell stories to the media.
The public learned that a mental health emergency response vehicle staffed by both police & mental health professionals were called by Nikki’s sister, Louise on January 10 due to concerns regarding Nikki’s alcohol use & the impression that she didn’t want to be there. They arrived at the property at 7:30 pm & when the clinician assessed Nikki, she was described as appropriately dressed though she had been drinking but showed no signs of depression. Nikki told her that she had lost weight as a result of her increase in drinking. She said she was tired & wanted to go to bed & was advised to see her physician the following day though she didn’t, indicating she was unable to because she was sorting her mortgage out. Louise last saw her sister on Friday, January 13 after staying with her for a few days after the ambulance had been called.
Paul described this as a “blip period” over the Christmas holiday when she increased her alcohol intakes & Louise felt that this was the wake-up call she needed & was soon back to “Nikki being Nikki ” & no longer drinking. She was back on her HRT medication & looking forward to the future & everything was looking up. Louise indicated that on the morning of Nikki’s disappearance, they had been planning to use a giftcard that Nikki’s daughters had given her for a spa day on March 18. Louise last texted Nikki at 8:52 am, telling her that she’d booked their spa day. She signed off the text with one of their nicknames, ‘Tosher’. Nikki was Clacker & Louise was Tosh.
There was no indication or belief that Nikki willingly went into the water that day to harm herself. Louise said that Nikki never confided in her about any suicidal thoughts & that she would never have willingly left Willow unattended. Paul said that she’d had an important & successful work meeting the day before she vanished & she had been in amazing spirits in the days leading up to January 27. The day before Nikki vanished, her mom, Dot had picked the girls up from school & watched over them while Nikki attended a Zoom meeting & she said that everything was normal.
A receptionist at Nikki’s children’s school had spoken to her just after 8:30 am the morning she disappeared during school drop off & noted nothing concerning Nikki’s demeanor or behavior, saying they chatted about her dog, Willow. She said she didn’t seem happy though many don’t during the chaos of dropoff. She didn’t seem sad, she seemed just how she normally knew her.
On February 17, the police announced that an internal review was being conducted to review the handling of Nikki’s disappearance & the Information Commissioner said he would ask questions about the disclosure of personal information. On February 18, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak voiced his concern about the private information that was released into the public domain & overall, the situation was considered a “dreadful error.” When posing the question if the case would have been treated the same had Nikki been a man, many felt the answer was no. Former victims’ commissioner Dame Vera Baird felt it was a sexist error & had “Nicholas” disappeared, police would not have said that Nicholas had been tied down by alcohol because he was suffering from erectile dysfunction for the last few weeks.
Lancashire Police referred itself to the police watchdog due to the contact that had with Nikki prior to her disappearance. The IOPC or Independent Office for Police Conduct oversees the police complaints system in England & Wales & investigates the most serious matters, including deaths following police contact & sets standards by which the police should handle complaints. Nikki’s family asked that people stop making up wild theories about her private life & issued a direct plea for her to return saying, “Your girls want to cuddle.”
Police were called around 11:35 am on Sunday, February 19 due to reports of a body found in the river close to Rawcliffe Road, a mile from the bench where Nikki’s phone was located & twenty three days after she’d gone missing. Tragically, the next day, the body was confirmed as Nikki. A set of car keys belonging to a Mercedes was recovered from her body. Nikki’s Fitbit was attached to her wrist at the time she went missing & was believed to have lost power on February 4, eight days later, as no further data had been obtained beyond that point. When the Fitbit had been recovered & placed on a charger, it also displayed the date of February 4. On January 27, the day Nikki went missing, her Fitbit recorded 4,548 steps between 8 am & 9:30 am. After this time, no further steps were recorded by the device. The device recorded a significant spike in her heart rate at 9:22 am. The device did continue to provide sporadic heart rate output until it lost power on February 4 which could have been a result of the movement of water passing between the device & Nikki’s wrist. It’s believed that Nikki went into the water between 9:18 & 9:30 am. An inquest of her iPhone & Fitbit data suggest that it’s very possible that she specifically entered the water at 9:22 am on January 27.
Expert diver, Faulding faced criticism & was accused of spreading misinformation. He explained that he didn’t locate Nikki’s body because it was found in the reeds which the sonar equipment does not penetrate. He indicates he had searched the area for four hours on their first day where she was ultimately found but they hadn’t seen her since she was found in the reeds at the side of the river. Faulding said that a riverbank & wade search would have been the only way to search this area & they were not involved or tasked with that search.
A hearing was held on Tuesday, June 27, 2023 & lasted two days. Nikki’s physician, Dr Rebecca Gray was the first witness to give evidence on the second & final day of the inquest & indicated that Nikki had previously spoken about anxiety & had been prescribed antidepressants & beta-blockers. In January of 2022 Nikki started a new job & was experiencing increased levels of anxiety but there was absolutely no evidence to suggest that she had been suicidal. Dr Gray said that in February of 2022 Nikki had complained of issues sleeping due to work stresses & feeling like her brain was overloaded.
The police were highly criticized for releasing personal details about Nikki while she was missing since it was felt that this information served no benefit to assist in finding her & that discussion of her health issues & hormone status was a serious invasion of her privacy.
An autopsy was done two days after Nikki was found & three weeks after she had disappeared. There were no findings of a brain bleed or any other natural diseases. Toxicology reports showed normal therapeutic levels of medication within her system. A low level of alcohol was consistent with the natural process of decomposition & there was no alcohol found in her bloodstream. Some bruising was found on Nikki’s body but none of these would have contributed to her death & were consistent with a fall; the pathologist indicated there was no evidence of third-party involvement, denying that she had been assaulted or harmed in any way. There were findings of dirt in Nikki’s throat & 200mL of watery fluid in her lungs & 100mL in her stomach which concluded that her cause of death was drowning & indicated that she had been alive when she’d gone into the water.
Experts indicated that they had attended a number of deaths where the water is only chest deep, the bottom is flat & there is no flow to the water. Drowning could be avoided by keeping calm & standing up though this often doesn’t happen when suddenly entering cold water. At the time Nikki would have fallen in, the river was as cold as 37 degrees fahrenheit or 3 degrees celsius & would likely have caused her to gasp when entering the water which would have caused the inhalation of water thus resulting in drowning within seconds. A cold water expert indicated that these cold temperatures cause the heart rate & blood pressure to go excessively high. At the hearing, it was said that only seconds could have passed before she may have lost consciousness, in as little as 20-30 seconds.The contents of water within her lungs & stomach are consistent with a “gasp response” under water which is seen in two-thirds of drowning victims. As little as two breaths of water could have been considered a “lethal dose” of about one to two liters for someone her size. An underwater diver said the area where Nikki was believed to have gone into the water has a steep slope & when she would have fallen in, the water was so cold that her muscles would have likely seized, making swimming very difficult. Professor Michael Tipton, a world expert in drowning, agreed with the pathologist’s findings. It was also concluded that the witness accounts of hearing screams would have been unrelated to this as Nikki was already presumed dead by that point.
Nikki’s family broke down in tears after hearing how she died, her mom & sister crying in court as the pathologist evidence was read though felt comforted in knowing that her death would have been fast. Nikki had increased the volume on her work call at 9:18 am & Paul believes at that point she likely set her phone down on the bench & bent down to put a harness on Willow when she fell into the water. He explained that they normally took the harness off before going through the gate because the dog is a springer, she’s very erratic & runs into bushes which her harness could snag.
After she fell into the water, her body floated downstream; on January 27, there was a steady flow downstream & it’s estimated she would have floated a “meter a second” downstream. The river was at high tide when Nikki went missing.
A statement on behalf of Nikki’s family was read outside County Hall, “The last few months have been extremely tough to process for our family. The emotional impact will stay long in our hearts & whilst we will never forget the loss of our Nikki, we will forever remember her as a brilliant mum, partner, daughter & sister that we all knew & loved so very much.” The family went on to express appreciation for the help & support they have received but also addressed the issue of social media & the upsetting negative messages they also received. They said that they will never be able to comprehend what she went through in her last moments & those thoughts will never leave them. They will never forget her as she was the center of their world, the one who made their lives so special & nothing will cast a shadow over that. It saddens them that they will one day have to explain to Nikki’s daughters that the press & certain members of the public accused their father of wrongdoing, misquoted & vilified friends & family; they find all of this appalling & feel they should be held accountable so that this doesn’t happen to another family. The family indicated that they continued to receive negative targeted messages as well as wildly inaccurate speculation on social media months after her death.
Nikki’s case drew immense attention & many believe it’s because the vast majority of adults who go missing in Britain are found within 48 hours & only 5% are missing for longer than a week, according to Missing Persons, a charity in the UK that reunites missing children & adults with loved ones. Others feel it’s due to the fact that she would be considered what is described as an “ideal victim” which is a white, middle class female.
References:
- Independent: What happened to Nicola Bulley? All we know about the Lancashire mother-of-two’s death
- Mirror: Nicola Bulley’s Fitbit gave a heart output for eight days after she drowned
- Mirror: Nicola Bulley’s partner’s heartbreaking words after hearing her phone was found on bench
- Mirror: Nicola Bulley inquest – 10 things we learned from ‘screams’ to mum’s final movements
- BBC News: Nicola Bulley: Mother a high-risk missing person, police say
- The Guardian: Nicola Bulley: MPs criticize police over release of personal details
- The Guardian: Nicola Bulley was in ‘amazing spirits’ before disappearance, inquest told
- Sky News: Nicola Bulley: Family & friends insist there was ‘no evidence’ behind the police theory dog walker fell in
- Yahoo News: Nicola Bulley: First images released of dog walker on day she vanished – as private underwater rescue team joins search
- Yahoo News: Expert diver says video is ‘proof’ Nicola Bulley didn’t fall in river
- IOPC
- Yahoo News: PM ‘concerned’ about release of Nicola Bulley’s personal information
- Yahoo News: When did Nicola Bulley go missing? Full timeline as divers return to river
- Mirror: Nicola Bulley’s family hit out at ‘amateur views’ after coroner rules death an accident
- Grazia: The speculation around Nicola Bulley’s death has to stop
- Daily Mail: The opposing theories of Nicola Bulley explained
- Mirror: Nicola Bulley’s partner sobs as he says he sent mum four-word text on tragic day
- Daily Mail: Now police looking for Nicola Bulley issue blanket 48-hour dispersal order in village where mother went missing after amateur sleuths started searching abandoned house along river at center of mystery
- Mirror: Nicola Bulley forensic dive expert explains why he didn’t find body in river search
- NBC News: Police ID Nicola Bulley’s body after disappearance that fueled media circus & national debate in Britain
- Manchester Evening News: Nicola Bulley inquest is read her last text before she fell in river
