The Daily Mail Timeline of January 27, Annotated
The Daily Mail timeline released during the inquest, which I return to often, is the best thing we've got going as far as an on-the-record timeline of the morning of January 27. Unfortunately, it leaves more questions than answers, but I thought I would go through it and annotate some points to try to highlight the biggest issues still lingering for me.
My main question throughout this case has been: Was Nicola even at the river that morning? We have to work backwards to get closer to an answer. But along the way, plenty of other oddities come up. But perhaps some clarity too.
All headers in bold are quotes directly from the Daily Mail's timeline, here, with my commentary in regular text beneath.
The Timeline
8.26am – Nicola Bulley is pictured on the family's Ring doorbell camera leaving her home in Inskip, Lancashire along with her two daughters and the family dog, Willow, in her black Mercedes SUV. The 3.4 mile journey to St Michael's Primary School takes around eight minutes.
This could have been any day, as the images were blurry, and weren't released until day 10 of the search. The first picture, of her rounding the corner to the car, didn't even look like Nicola, in my opinion. The video wasn't released for another five weeks after that. The video does not show the car driving away, is blurry, and (IMO) looks doctored.
It was stated by DC Keith Greenhalgh that the Fitbit recorded 1,426 steps—approximately 1.1 km—between 8:15am and 8:30am. There was no mention of iPhone data to corroborate that particular segment (though he cited both iPhone and Fitbit for later in the morning). Most of those steps would have had to come from the car moving toward St. Michael's (between 8:26am to 8:30am) because you couldn't walk 1,426 steps around your house in 15 minutes if you tried (you know I tried!), unless you were on a treadmill. The main takeaway: Fitbits can erroneously count car movement as steps. But is there more to this massive amount of steps for a 15-minute period? Maybe.
8.33:49am – Dog walker Richard Fife passes a black-clad man as he enters Allotment Lane in St Michael's-on-Wyre heading for the riverside path.
A red herring? Someone on lookout? My question is whether Fife would recognize someone local, seeing as he ordinarily lives in France. Did this person come forward, or were they ever identified? Seemingly not.
8.34:33am – Mobile phone data analysis places Ms Bulley's handset near St Michael's Primary School while her Mercedes is also seen there on a police dashcam.
Police dashcam? So no dashcam from any other of the 700+ drivers contacted, but a police officer happens to catch footage of the Mercedes? Just the Mercedes, or was Nicola seen as well? This matters.
8.34:33am-8.41:38am – Witnesses and CCTV place Ms Bulley at the school as she drops off her daughters; Mr Fife is in the fields beside the river with his Labrador.
OK, but where is the school CCTV footage? Surely this could have been released with other people blurred out. But it never has been. Are they relying on the "police dashcam" mentioned in the previous section to pinpoint her Mercedes being at the school? The school witnesses could have easily gotten their days mixed up. If you asked me today who I saw at my child's school this morning versus yesterday, I probably wouldn't be able to tell you. When were these witnesses' statements taken? Does CCTV show them there, along with Nicola?
8.41am approx – Witness David Hall passes Ms Bulley who is walking north across the road bridge over the Wyre towards the start of the riverside path, confirmed by her mobile phone data.
This witness appears out of nowhere at the inquest. Phone data I trust more than this person we'd never heard mention of until June 26. But anyhow...
8.42:50am – Mobile phone analysis shows Ms Bulley starting to walk along the riverside path in the direction of the bench.
8.46:30am – Ms Bulley's iPhone 'pings' four times near the bench beside a bend in the river to within an accuracy of up to 7.6m.
8.47am approx – Mr Fife leaves the 'lower' field, passing Ms Bulley who is walking the other way with her phone held out in front of her.
The "phone held out in front of her" detail piques my interest, because the conference call hadn't started yet. Was she just browsing on her phone, sending messages? This seems like a very specific thing for Fife to remember.
Update August 29: Going back through the live coverage from LEP and others, there was this, which I know bugged a lot of people covering the case immediately after the inquest. The Daily Mail is saying Fife left the fields entirely at 8:54, but in his statement, as reported by LEP below, he apparently saw Nicola between 9:10 and 9:20?
8.48:50am - Handset location data shows Ms Bulley's phone in the 'lower' field.
8.52:53am – Still in the 'lower' field, Ms Bulley receives a WhatsApp message from her sister Louise Cunningham regarding plans for an upcoming spa day.
This first message from LC was apparently read. No mention of whether it was ever responded to, but it seems like it wasn't. Based on the below, Nicola seemed to be focused on work and other plans as the Teams call start time approached (if it was even Nicola using her phone!)
8.53:36am – Ms Bulley sends an email to her boss, Ben Pociecha at Exclusively Mortgages, regarding a mortgage client – she is still in the lower field.
Minor quibble, but do we know if this email was sent from her phone, rather than a different device? If it did come from the phone, would it be so hard for someone else to send the email, if it was not Nicola using the phone at this time?
8.54:27am – Mr Fife is caught on CCTV as he walks back up Allotment Lane, seeing to his surprise that the black-clad man is still on the corner by the main road.
Fife sees this man twice, which is significant. It gives him a second chance to remember identifying details, think about whether he recognizes the person as local or not. Also, 21 minutes is quite a long time to be "waiting for a ride," if that was actually what the man in black was doing.
It's also worth saying that after this, the man in black could have walked along Blackpool Lane toward the bridge and gone to the bench via the towpath and no one would be any the wiser due to the lack of CCTV, or people, in that area.
8.55am approx – Claire Chesham, another school run mother walking her dog, reaches the 'lower' field and can see Ms Bulley with Willow approaching the hedgerow dividing it from the 'upper' field.
There is no mention in this timeline or at the inquest (to my knowledge) of where Chesham entered the fields: Via the bridge/towpath entrance, where there is no CCTV, or Allotment Lane? It is also deeply bizarre (too perfect?) that she arrives about a minute after Fife leaves via Allotment Lane. Fife sees Christine Bowman, but he apparently doesn't see Claire Chesham as she's arriving. Did Claire Chesham see him?
8.55:16am – Phone data places Ms Bulley's handset in the south eastern corner of the 'lower' field near the river.
8:59:38am – Now in the 'upper' field, Ms Bulley sends a Facebook message to another mother, Lucie Musella, arranging a kids play date for the following afternoon. The message simply consists of a suggested time and a smiley face emoji.
So if it is indeed Nicola in the field with her phone, she's messaging some people, but apparently not her sister. My take from this (a point made by others on Twitter too) is that things might have still been tense between them and the spa day was a kind of peace offering after what happened on January 10. But who really knows what the dynamic was like at that time, only that Nicola was prioritizing other messages and plans that morning.
9.01:05am – Ms Bulley joins a work Teams call on her phone, remaining on mute as it proceeds.
Apparently at least some of the other participants had their video on; Nicola did not. That allows for a lot of suspicion as to whether it was even her operating the phone at this point. But it was cold (2-3C) and windy, so I can see keeping the video and audio off, especially if you're not actively participating in any part of the call.
Then my question is: You're walking through a field listening to a video call on a moderately windy, 2-3C day and you're not wearing gloves or a hat? (Neither were mentioned in the police description of her, as we know.) Did Fife see her wearing gloves or a hat? He remembers the phone out in front of her long before the call had even started...how about her outfit?
9.05-9.10am approx – Mrs Chesham sees Ms Bulley walking in a loop around the 'upper' field. It is the last confirmed sighting of her alive as Mrs Chesham returns back up the riverside path.
As Evonne on Twitter pointed out to me this morning, Chesham arrives after Nicola but leaves before. This is a very quick walk for Chesham. She's only in the field for 10 to 15 minutes. Chesham leaves via Allotment Lane and is captured on CCTV at the corner of Allotment and Blackpool Lanes at 9:20am. Again, there does not appear to be CCTV of Chesham entering Allotment Lane at 8:55. So did she enter via the towpath (where there's no CCTV)? Not a major point but still a mysterious one.
9.18:01am and 9.18:11am - Volume and side buttons are used on Ms Bulley's phone.
To my mind, 10 seconds is a long gap if you're trying to use the emergency function. On my iPhone, holding the top volume button and side button briefly lets you take a screenshot (as with previous models). Holding it for longer lets you 1) Power off, 2) Access Medical ID, or 3) Place an emergency call.
My suspicion from this piece of data is that she'd possibly encountered someone (not Penny, mind you!) and was turning the volume down to have a conversation with them. But it's very hard to speculate.
This also could have been someone taking the phone out of her hand, lowering the volume, turning the screen off, or trying to turn the phone off. It is completely impossible to know whether this was Nicola operating her phone or someone else, seeing as Fife had left nearly 30 minutes before, Chesham had left a mere three minutes before, Barlow hadn't left his house yet, and Penny hadn't left her house yet.
There is also this evidence given by Penny, which suggests that the volume-down button had been used at 9:18 ("There was no sound"). Source is LEP:
This part is important: If the man in black was a lookout guy, or the sole perp, somewhere around 9:15 is where they'd think, "All clear," as they may have observed Chesham leave the field via Allotment Lane starting around 9:15 (she is seen on CCTV exiting at Blackpool Lane at 9:20). At that point, there was (allegedly) nobody else but Nicola in the field until Penny left her home at 9:23am and Barlow left his house around 9:35am. Also recall that Fife said when he drove past the area where he'd seen the man in black standing, he was gone. Gone where? Perhaps down the road to the towpath entrance...
And what about the towpath? A curving and then tree-lined path, infamously with no CCTV. Could someone have waited there until they knew there was no one else in the field, and then approached the bench via the "Huws" field before Penny was there? Yes, they absolutely could. The man in black? A co-conspirator? A perp completely unrelated to the man in black?
9.18:41am – Ms Bulley receives a WhatsApp message about the spa day from 'Tosh' – her sister, Louise Cunningham. It reads: 'The difference of £22 I will cover for the dress mum got you at Christmas that you didn't keep and I had x.' She did not receive blue ticks to say her sister had read the message.
It's easy to deduce from this and the previous volume/side button detail that Nicola was in distress by this point, or the phone was operated in a way to make it seem as such (or was snatched away from her).
9.20:36am – Mrs Chesham is pictured on CCTV leaving the top of Allotment Lane onto Blackpool Road.
Again, that is a really short walk by Chesham. Unfortunate, but I don't think anything more than unfortunate.
9.20:39am-9.20:42am – Three further handset pings place Ms Bulley around the bench close to which Willow would later be found. Unusually, it is the last handset data for ten minutes.
We can infer from this that the phone didn't move or try to ping any towers during this ten-minute window. It was either on the bench, or the ground (recollections vary!)
9.22am – Heart rate data gathered by Ms Bulley's Fitbit peaks at around 100BPM.
In my view, 100 BPM is very low for someone who's fallen in 3C water. I think this heart rate information is more indicative of distress, on land. A struggle, an argument, etc. (Not with Penny, ffs.)
9.23:05am – Penny Fletcher is caught on her home CCTV leaving Wyreside Caravan Park at the bottom of Allotment Lane and walking through an area of scrub downstream from the bench.
So Penny couldn't have seen much at this point, but did she hear anything?
There is also the note in the DM timeline that Penny was heard calling to her dog Tess at 9:23. No images were provided of Penny leaving her home at this time.
9.33am approx – Mrs Fletcher finds a spaniel – which turns out to be Willow - near the river with an iPhone with its screen lit up on the bench.
At the inquest, Penny tells us that she enters over the stile by the "Huws" field after doing a walk of that field with her dog. That's 11 minutes after the 100 BPM arguable sign of distress recorded on the Fitbit. Plenty of time for an abduction, in my opinion.
9.35:08am – Keith Barlow is caught on CCTV walking his dog from Rowanwater caravan park next to the upper field; he spots and later speaks to Mrs Fletcher by the bench.
Barlow is just a little too late to see or hear anything, it seems.
9.36am-9.55am – In the garden of her home on Allotment Lane, Helen O'Neill hears a scream coming from the direction of the riverside path.
Even 9:36am, the earliest estimate for this scream by O'Neill, seems late given what all might have gone on between 9:18 and 9:33, when Penny arrived at the bench. But was that scream an abduction in progress? Nicola being taken in a van somewhere near Allotment Lane? It's possible. Especially since a white van was spotted around there that morning.
9.45:32am – Having tied Willow to the bench with string and tried to memorise the number on her collar tag, Penny Fletcher is caught on CCTV walking back to the caravan park. She calls the number but has taken it down wrongly so tries a local vet's, without success, then calls friend Susan Jones to pass on a message to her husband Roger – who is walking his own dog – about the mystery spaniel.
Sure, whatever.
9.50am approx – Veronica Claesen at the village tennis club near the primary school hears a scream coming from the direction of the riverside path.
I can see why this was dismissed if it was estimated to be at 9:50am. But was she pressured to say a later time? Who knows. The scream (if that late) seems like a red herring for me, at least at this moment in time.
10.04am – Mrs Fletcher calls her daughter-in-law Anne-Marie in the hope of identifying the spaniel's owner.
I have a huge issue with this part. Because according to LancsLive's coverage of the inquest, Penny states that when she called Anne Marie, Anne Marie said, "Oh no, it’s Nikki’s dog and Nikki has gone missing."
Pardon? If this is true, this realization happens 46 minutes before Anne Marie calls the school. Is Penny misremembering that phone call with AM? Because the timeline tells us that Anne Marie didn't know whose dog it was until she arrived at the caravan park area, closer to 11am.
10.10am approx – Roger Jones reaches the bench and finds Willow tied to it along with the phone. He calls his wife who informs him about what Penny Fletcher has told her about finding the dog running loose, then continues his own walk.
"Penny had rung my wife, my wife was trying to ring me..." 😵💫
10.20am approx – At Allotment Lane, Norma Kershaw sees Susan Jones coming to assist her husband.
Sorry Eddy, but Jones wasn't conspiring with Penny to cover up a "towpath rage" murder.
10.30am approx – Mr and Mrs Jones plus Ms Kershaw congregate at the bench.
10.32:13am - The number of location readings on Ms Bulley's mobile phone increases, indicating the device is being handled and moved.
Did they take the phone with them when they walked back to the caravan park at 10:40am (below)? Because that's the time that PA starts calling the phone, and apparently none of them hear it, or try to answer any of the six times, or try to identify the caller. That is extremely odd to me. If they left it on the bench when they went to the caravan park, that would make more sense, but then the timing of when PA starts to call the phone would be almost too perfect to be believed, like he somehow knew that the phone had been abandoned on the bench. Just my opinion!
10.40am approx – The group place Willow on her harness and walk her back to the caravan park.
10.40:26am – Paul Ansell, who is working from home, makes the first of six phone calls in seven minutes to his partner's mobile, none of which is answered.
Ugh.
10.47:30am – Mr and Mrs Jones plus Ms Kershaw are pictured arriving back at Allotment Lane with Willow.
10.48:06am – Mr Ansell sends a WhatsApp message reading 'Have you got lost?' to Ms Bulley.
10.50am approx – Anne-Marie Fletcher recognises Willow as Ms Bulley's dog and calls her children's school.
Again, did she know this when Penny called her 46 minutes earlier, as Penny seemed to claim at the inquest? Because if so, why did it take 46 minutes to contact PA or the school? Surely if Anne Marie knew at 10:04am, she would be able to quickly find a way to contact PA or the school. Or Emma. Or Heather. Or anyone.
Given this discrepancy, I wonder (and have always wondered!), did anyone try to contact PA earlier than 10:54am and he just ignored the calls/texts?
10.54:15am – Staff at St Michael's Primary School call Mr Ansell.
10.56am approx – Ring doorbell from the family home in Inskip shows Mr Ansell setting off for St Michael's.
10.57:25am – Mr Ansell calls Ann-Marie Fletcher and – according to Mrs Jones' evidence – says: 'She's struggling.'
I believe he did say this, and obviously find it very problematic. I also find the timing problematic, and have Irish Eyes to thank for that because she did some incredibly detailed analysis of this in her post-inquest video series. Why is PA calling Anne Marie before police? Maybe because he doesn't think it's a big deal yet? Or is he trying to plant some sort of seed with the "She's struggling" comment? Is it important for him to set the narrative with the locals before calling the police? Hmm.
11.00:39am – Mr Ansell dials 999 to report his wife missing.
While driving? Does he look for Nicola while he's on the phone with them, or afterward?
11.10am approx – Mr Ansell reaches the bench where he meets Anne-Marie Fletcher plus Mr and Mrs Jones who have Willow and his partner's phone.
As Irish Eyes pointed out in her videos, it is strange that he either doesn't spend time looking for Nicola at the bench area, or decides he can't because police have told him to go home. As many of us have said for months, I'd stay there and look, no matter what police told me to do. PA gets home to meet the police at the house at "twenty-five past" 11am (Channel 5 interview). Did the police beat him there? Regardless, this basically means he went to the bench and turned right around and went home.
+ + +
So that's a wrap on the timeline. I do believe after going through all this again that Nicola was likely in that field that morning, but I also believe, given this timeline, that it would be very easy for one person, or two, to abduct her during a 5- to 10-minute period when no one was exactly around, or when they were close enough to hear/see something that they dismissed, or weren't sure about, and didn't bother mentioning at the inquest.
This scenario is slightly more likely to me than the scenario that she was impersonated in the field by an accomplice, or that the actual perp carried her phone and walked Willow from the start of the Teams call (and then some). But is it possible for Fife, Chesham, and the school witnesses to have all gotten their days wrong, or seen someone else beside Nicola in the field? Yes, because anything is possible in this case.
Your thoughts?