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LONDON — British police said on Monday that a body found in a river the day before was that of Nicola Bulley, a mother of two who went missing last month. Her high-profile case fueled a debate about trust in the police and prompted a wave of internet sleuths to descend on a small village in north-west England.
Bulley, 45, a mortgage advisor, went missing on the morning of January 27 after taking her daughters to school and taking her dog for a walk along the riverbank.
“Unfortunately we can now confirm that we recovered Nicola Bulley from the River Wyre yesterday,” Lancashire Police Deputy Chief Constable Peter Lawson said at a news conference Monday night. The case is now being processed by a coroner.
Bulley’s disappearance captured the public imagination, and large numbers of people visited the place where she was last seen and the nearby village to conduct their own investigations. Conspiracy theories flourished. Police complained about “TikTokers playing private detectives” and issued orders and warnings to people making videos for social media near private properties.
Bulley’s body was discovered Sunday by two people walking their dogs by the river, less than a mile from where she disappeared.
The disappearance of a British woman sparks a wave of amateur TikTok detectives
Lancashire Police faced backlash over their handling of the case when they released a statement almost three weeks into the investigation that Bulley had been classified as a high-risk missing person because she “was suffering from some significant drinking problems, caused by her ongoing struggles with menopause.”
Police said they released those details to “avoid further speculation,” but critics claimed it was an egregious invasion of privacy and questioned whether details about a man’s reproductive status would have been released in the same way .
The case comes at a time when women’s trust in the police is on the wane following a spate of police scandals, including a police officer jailed for serial rape and another jailed for the murder of 33-year-old Sarah Everard.
Lancashire Police said early on that their working theory was that Bulley had fallen into the nearby river, but after initial searches by divers turned up nothing, some social media influencers arrived at St Michael’s on Wyre and went in search of clues .
Michael Vincent, the chairman of the Wyre Council, told the Washington Post that his village of 600 people has started to feel like “a theme park where people come to play detective”. He said residents had hired a private security firm to help patrol the streets after fearing people peering in windows, trying door handles and visiting a derelict house.
A statement from Bulley’s family called on certain media outlets to invade her privacy. They also said they had to tell Bulley’s daughters, ages 9 and 6, that “the press and public have accused their father of wrongdoing, misquoted friends and family and slandered it.”
Your statement, which was published in a Twitter thread from the police, also recognized Bulley: “We will never forget Nikki, how could we, she was the center of our world, she was the one who made our lives so special and nothing will cast a shadow over it.”
Unfortunately we can now confirm that we recovered Nicola Bulley from the River Wyre yesterday.
Nicola’s family has been informed and is of course devastated. Our thoughts are with her, all her loved ones and the community at this time. pic.twitter.com/7L522NiHHS
— Lancashire Police (@LancsPolice) February 20, 2023