Nicola Bulley: Police ‘looking for specific missing object in river where mum died’
A forensic pathologist claims police are searching for 'a missing object' in the river near to where Nicola Bulley was found
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Police are looking for "a specific missing object" in the river where the body of the Nicola Bulley was found, a forensic pathologist has claimed.
Specialist officers have been searching the water to confirm the tragic mum's cause of death.
Divers returned to the stretch of the River Wyre in Lancashire where Nicola drowned on Tuesday, upon the request of the coroner.
Nicola's body was found on February 19 in the reeds of the river - three weeks after she vanished.
The body of Nicola Bulley was found three weeks after she vanished
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Her body was found a mile downstream from where her mobile phone, which was still connected to a work conference call, was spotted on a bench.
Lancashire Police confirmed coroners requested they re-search the river to get a "complete a picture" of how the mum died.
Forensic pathologist, Dr Richard Shepherd has claimed that there is an item missing that police are looking for.
He told the Mirror: "I'm really struggling to see what they could be looking, for now, that would affect or influence the cause of death.
"When Nicola's body was found it would have been taken to the morgue and a formal post-mortem would have been carried out where it would have looked for natural diseases, any injuries, and samples would have been taken for alcohol drugs."
He added: "They must have a reason to do it though - my guess is there is something like an artefact of some sort that they are trying to make sure to find it.
"My sense is they want to be absolutely sure that something they can't quite locate isn't still in the river.
"My feeling is they are looking for something specific.
"The last thing police want after the social media interest around this is for it to come out inquest there is something missing and then it gets randomly found by the public."
Specialist officers have been searching the the water to confirm the tragic mum's cause of death
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An inquest into her death is to be heard on Monday, June 26 at County Hall in Preston.
Nicola was deemed a "high-risk" missing person when she vanished due to a "number of specific vulnerabilities".
When asked if he thought the divers' latest search could be a possible reconstruction of events, Dr Shepherd said: "I think it's unlikely because once again rivers are so variable.
"Even if you get a model or a mannequin to put clothes on or a real person you couldn't possibly repeat what happened that day."
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