Missing Blogger Esther Dingley

[Lovegin]

So Dan is resuming the search for Esther when the police say she is clearly not on the mountains anymore. I feel more and more convinced now that Esther has fled from Dan, away from his control freakery and possessiveness. It is obvious now after these many months, that nothing was found that would suggest it was an accident, no debris or human remains or clothing, equipment. Esther was planning to leave Dan and quietly slipped away to Spain or France, unseen incognito. The lack of evidence or foul play suggests she voluntarily left of her own volition. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Surely if she was leaving her partner , she could’ve left word with the police to stop them spending thousands looking?

 

[Johara]

He was in BBC news in the morning back last week asking for information and I found it interesting that he said was speaking about her in the present tense then quickly corrected himself to speak about her in the past tense. It piqued my interest because he *changed* it to the past tense, like she was already dead. But then again could have been a slip of the toi he due to the high amount of stress he’s probably under.

It was BBC Breakfast 2 December. Here's the clip.


He said "I loved her for that...... " then switched to "I love her for that".
And there were some other things he said about her in the past tense.

Several men commented on this on Twitter. And women, but more so men.

He also said something odd at the end:

"I'm convinced she isn't up there".

How can one be convinced of that on December 2nd - day of this interview? Such early days.

 

[palmer85]

PeggyHenry " when I enter my house my dog only knows it’s me because he sniffs my leg. He can’t recognise my face. "

I had a large, guarding type breed many years ago and washed all my clothes in a new, smell removing washing powder. My dog didn't recognise me after and even approached me growling, I stayed calm and spoke to him but he remained suspicious. When I got my leather jacket out (obviously not washed) to take him for a walk, he grabbed it, guarded it and didn't want to let me have it. I stopped using said jacket and gradually things returned to normal. It was a bit of an eye opener.

 

[kazizzle]

I’m fascinated by this case after finding this thread yesterday. Ive been lost in a websleuths hole all day today reading the full thread on there for it
I really hope she’s ok somewhere and has voluntarily gone off the trail and is avoiding being found as I really dont want her to have come to any harm - either from a fall or from someone else. Sadly experienced hikers regularly have accidents or go missing in the hills

 

[AlanB]

======================
"And, side note, if there’s anyone (I don’t mean this thread, I just mean generally in society) who doesn’t like that, then they need to do more to stop so many women being murdered by men - both the ones they do and don’t know. There is *so much* that could be done. "
======================

So please detail what you think could be done - the sort of person that does this is hardly likely to be open to the argument "Don't murder people..."

With regard to this case, the fact that the boyfriend comes over as very controlling and attempting to shape the narrative (it is quite clear that they had relationship problems both recently and in the past but he flat out denies any recent issues) does not necessarily mean that he killed her - but it IS a 'Red Flag' that the Police have not excluded him from the suspects, it would be very easy for them to do this.

To be honest once the Johara character started talking about psychics I lost interest, I am not of the view that psychics can do what they claim - just my opinion.

 

[Johara]

In that joint video above I can see almost a pleading look in her eyes. Her smile distracts but she wants and hopes to win his love back.

In my opinion this is the classic crushed, meek codependent with the emotionally void narcissist.

The very first red flag I saw was his Facebook post when he told everyone she'd gone missing.

He wrote about her as "the person who taught me how to feel."

I'm sorry. Nobody teaches us how to feel. We either feel or have no feelings.*

Narcs are emotionally vacant ito love.
They feel anger, happiness, desire or lust etc but due to a lack of object constancy they don't feel the love bond. There's no loyalty or bond. People are just useful or not. Pleasing or not.

* Just realised I should clarify: researchers say narcs use movies, novels and song lyrics to literally teach themselves how love is supposed to be. They don't feel it organically so they use Hollywood or books to learn how they should behave/what's expected socially.

 

[judgejohndeed]

I feel that if the British police are joining the search for her there must be some evidence that she’s been attacked or something. Surely they wouldn’t need police from 3 different jurisdictions to search if they seriously thought it was an accident or whatever. I also find it very suspicious that the boyfriend is saying he thinks someone else has been involved. Yep, probably you then mate.

 

[AlanB]

This would make sense to me too. It also explains (to me, at least) why he was so adamant that she was abducted right from the start…if there is a third party to blame, he could convince himself that it wasn’t his fault that she was out hiking in dangerous conditions etc.
His behaviour has been bizarre throughout the whole saga but it seems to me more like he is trying to convince himself that their relationship issues had nothing to do with how she ended up, otherwise the guilt would be just too much to deal with.
It’s like how people say “never go to bed angry with someone you love just in case it’s the last time you see them”.
If I were in his position (and didn’t have anything to do with her disappearance), I can imagine that I would also be out there searching for her every day and trying to convince myself that there was another explanation instead of her taking risks on the mountain because of her not being in the right headspace.
The lockdown measures mentioned make it seem implausible that he somehow managed to jog up a mountain, kill her, hide her body, then get back home without being seen by anyone, just in time to get some cell phone activity, to as not arouse suspicion. I also don’t think he’s the type to hire a third party - definitely too paranoid/narcissistic for that.
I think he’s just a bellend, but I don’t think he’s a killer.

I agree with this, I don't think he killed her for all the reasons given above and one other factor, to turn his phone off or leave it behind he would have had to go knowing that murder was at least a possibility. I suspect that he's the sort of person that would just expect her to bend to his will once they were face to face - it seems that he's done it every time before or she just hasn't been mentally strong enough to resist.

I do think though that this time was different and the relationship was coming to an end, the evidence for me is very strong and shows that during this continually elongated hiking trip she had come to a decision and was looking to let Mr. Colegate down as gently as possible at the end of it. Obviously this would be difficult for her, partly because I doubt that he would have taken such news well, and the emotions she was processing may have affected her judgement on safety resulting in the accident.

I doubt we will ever know for sure what happened, it could be suicide but the Police have her phone and they are not indicating anything like that, there are a few loose ends to tie up (where are the missing bits of her kit ?) but I will be surprised if the case is not closed as an accident.

Hopefully the bell-end that is Mr. Colegate will not try to profit from her tragic death - but I fear he will...

 

[The_Investigator]

Hi I'm new to the form, I've joined because right from the start I had serious misgivings about the true nature of these events. Today I've read the 23 page dossier that DC has so diligently put together....It absolutely reeks of someone trying to get their story straight and seems like a handy reference guide so he remembers what he's said before about communication and routes etc. Criminology is one of my hobbies and I'm afraid to say we've seen it all before too many times. The bit that jumped out at me was ED saying ' maybe I can see you' when conversing with DC. I think it means that he went up that mountain to surprise her. I don't know about red flags but you could clothe an army with the amount of material you'd need to make all the flags

oh I just realised, she wasn’t saying perhaps she could spot him, was she asking if she could meet up with him,.. did he banish her from the house,… apparently he used to get very angry when they lived in the uk ,…he got signed off work apparently with depression, and anger was his biggest problem at that time.

 

[The_Investigator]

This odd but if he was indeed paranoid of her with someone else?
Could if he set up an fake person and used them to meet her then when she went off he knew she was looking elsewhere was drove him to jealously and maybe more....

Yes, over on web slews they are discussing this. They had split, again apparently, and she didn’t think they would get back together. It sounds like, from her Facebook that she was the injured party, perhaps he,DC was seeing someone else. Reading her past posts, it may have happened last time she took off on her own. Perhaps he cheats? All the crying over sad songs she wrote about, sound like me when I was comtemplating forgiving my partner yet again for yet another fling. Stress she mentions, emotional, so yes, another development. And don’t forget, in the dossier, DC doesn’t reveal all the text to her from him. Probably all the usual, forgive me yet again and come home. All seems to fit now. She may have been very distraught and had an accident from that. .. or taken her own life.

 

[SvenS]

I don’t know much about tech - if they retrieve her phone, will they be able to see where she was when she phoned Dan? I know they have his phone so they should have access to how long/when their calls were.
No idea if it will make any difference to the case, but maybe it could give some insight as to her movements. (I understand these things are usually based off nearby satellites/cell towers, so maybe it’s impossible to get exact locations on a mountain).

The phone is likely to contain location information that is accurate (unless this has been explicitly disabled). Even in airplane mode, the GPS chip can log location, as it only needs to receive a signal.

(If you have an iphone, open the settings app, then Privacy>Location Services>(scroll right down)System Services>Significant Locations>Home - prepare to be horrified!!)

They will already have location data from the cell tower records - but this will be a very rough estimate in a rural area.

What is likely to be of interest too, is the movement data from the phone. Most phones will have an accelerometer to log your step count etc. If the phone was on, but in airplane mode, then this data will still have been captured. It could give them the exact time she stopped moving and provide strong evidence of her reaching the refuge if there is a period of no activity that would correlate with sleeping.

 

[Tilly3]

Definitely. I do a lot of walking here in Scotland with my partner and would really love to try some of the trails and hikes in Europe that Esther and Dan have done so I think that’s why i find it extra interesting!

Just don’t go on your own

 

[kev1974]

What's the deal with all the new posters in this thread that only ever look and comment/react on this thread, and never any others?

Are they Dan, or employees of LBT Global, getting ready to steer the narrative?

 

[Lovely]

Dan seems to think everything is ok and he’s out of the woods. I don’t think he is yet. It’s all very strange and I don’t usually pick up on things like this. The three days with no contact baffles me. If you lived someone that much you would contact them.

Indeed...it's like he's wrapping it all up with the thanking of rescue teams and authorities. Like he's ready for it to be over so he can move on with his life. I'm sure Esther would like to be moving on with her life too.

 

[Pippa M]

Now the winter seems to be mostly over,I hope the search continues very soon.
The fact that the police dropped the search seems strange to me,as they know how time and weather change evidence. So,I am afraid to think of what might have happened but feel sure the police know more than they publically admit to.

 

[AriaAria]

The recent Daily Mail article states that the mountain police, soldiers supported by aircraft, and sniffer dogs failed to find her even though they searched that area. French police also searched that exact area in December and never found her. Hmm .... Screenshots attached.
#

 

[mickeycat]

Just to say that the French verb 'exploiter' can also mean to use or operate. Going by the context of the original article he's talking about investigating her use (or operation) of her mobile phone.
It will be interesting to see what comes from this.

Here's the French prosecutor's plan:

"Despite the conclusions of the autopsy, the investigations will continue, notably around the exploitation of the mobile phone found on Monday. A scan of Esther Dingley's skull is also due to be carried out."

Note also:

"public prosecutor, Christophe Amunzateguy, told La Dépêche du Midi.

The doctors noted fractures which led to the immediate death of the person. The accidental cause of death is now the most likely explanation."

1. They are not stating they've bought the narrative.

2. They accept 2 fractures caused immediate death. From what there's NO certainty. Most likely is not certainty.

3. Despite autopsy their investigations will continue.
Vive la France /Long live the French.

4. The translator is a bright non-murder camp person so that word exploitation must be as they intended it. Hmmmm.

Randonneuse britannique disparue dans les Pyrénées : ce que révèle l'autopsie d'Esther Dingley

L'autopsie du corps d'Esther Dingley révèle qu'elle est décédée immédiatement après une chute.

www.ladepeche.fr

 

[TwooTwooTwitTwitTwoo]

Is anyone getting manic vibes in this thread? Interesting but a bit cray cray.

Carrie's wall in Homeland is what comes to mind.

 

[Johara]

For me personally, what stood out to me on the joint Facebook account was how he was updating everyone often asking people to help search for her etc.. but then all of a sudden he announced that he’s been advised not to make any more updates. Very bizarre. I think the media as well as the cops need to re direct their attention and focus it back onto him.

It's possible, as a strategy, the French police are playing cat and mouse. They may also be dribbling trivia to the media to turn pressure up and down.

Why? It's a form of mental torture.

Imagine there's a murderer scouring the news.
One day they're getting filthy looks from everyone because the media raises suspicion.
The next day the media reports bears or lakes may be the cause of a lady vanishing.
The next day stories point to a mystery hiker.
Then we hear someone's been spotted in her camper van
Then suddenly police arrive in a tiny village unexpectedly.
The heat is turned up again. More public suspicion.

I've noticed a pattern. It's like Good Cop Bad Cop. You're safe. You're not. Next week will be interesting.

I think Captain Bordinaro is switched on.

 

[openbook1]

It looks like Dan has found Esther and her equipment.

How...convenient that he finds her body and equipment just as the police say it is likely murder. Sorry but I think he's involved.