Missing Blogger Esther Dingley

[PeggyHenry]

Thanks for your thoughts Johara... so interesting.

Yes 20th Nov unusual ...I can imagine a scenario such as a very upsetting phone argument causing her to mope about and wonder how to resolve her problems. Maybe her posting about the kindly fellow hiker has caused a major upset/ rage. Then another call later asking for a meet-up so that they can both make up.

maybe she is asked not to mention this on social media due to the house sitting.

 

[Jackson18851964]

Been confirmed on BBC website, sadly the bones are Esthers. My heart goes out to her and her family.

 

[SummerSky]

This is the report of what the police are saying - so while it might be Dan (or another murderer I guess) it looks like an accident is higher on their list.


"the public prosecutor at Saint Gaudens where the search operation has been run, said Dingley’s body had been found high in the mountain, leading credence to the hypothesis that her death had been an accident.

“It’s not the kind of place you just come across. It is high in the mountains and difficult to access,” he said. “I have just spoken to the gendarmes who are carrying out the investigation and they tell me that their inquiries lead them to believe strongly, even almost exclusively, that it was an accident.”"


Like I say, I don't know but I do feel an accident is more likely, and while controlling partners do murder, it's not always - I just hate to jump to conclusions, where someone might always be suspected no matter what the evidence shows.

There's another article quoting the head of the French investigation (he rules the whole Occitane area vs just Gaudens, think his name is Christophe or similar) and he says very different stuff to the Gaudens guy.

You raise a great point that's hugely on my mind with the Summer Wells case too.

I understand some people wanting to treat suspicious boyfriends or parents respectfully - to not hurt their feelings etc.

At the same time why do they not accord the same respect to experts in child homicide or partner homicide who have spent their lives dealing with these crimes?

It is admittedly as arrogant for me to say I believe the Mccanns/Wells/Dan are lying as it is for their defenders to attack experienced FBI statement analysts who point out their fishy behaviour.

We're all arrogant about our beliefs/hunches etc whatever side of the fence one is on.

It's so ironic.

OK, thanks for your insight, perhaps it was necessary.
Still, why such a PR firm would allow Mr. Colegate to effectively call Ms. Laura Adomaityte a liar when she said that Ms.Dingley was having big doubts about the relationship is a mystery…

I still think the case is likely to be closed as an accident because I don’t think they’ll have enough evidence even if they suspect something else.

Forensics will rule. That's why we'll get answers.

Dem bones.

 

[petitspois]

If he did do it and and the case carries on like this with no additional leads then he would have got off remarkably easily. Surely there would be sightings from people that might have seen him on the train or at toll stations or some other electronic evidence in this day and age?

 

[BroccoliTreetops]

I'm very sorry if I've been saying all this nasty stuff about him and he's innocent, but the dead can't speak, so is there any evidence that they both went to that part of the mountain range previously? Esther has written about being there before, a year earlier (not sure if same exact places) but he says in that video about going there and realising the signal is good as though he has never been before.
Also when was she meant to climb that spot she is found dead by according to her planned route?

 

[AriaAria]

Interesting article in the Daily Mail right now. It says the police did search that area yet never found her. But he did .....
#

 

[Pippa M]

Just read the Sunday Times article, Dan looks heartbroken as he looks through the phone, he has aged years. Unless Esther has fallen into the lakes, I still believe she has voluntarily disappeared.

My fear is that someone,somewhere disappeared her....and is keeping her prisoner somewhere.

 

[Pinkblush]

I've read reports where police believe she may have plotted her disappearance. I think a lot of people who have done the world travel thing don't always want to go home or settle back down into normal life.
Reminds me if Leanne Beardon who took her own life after returning from world travel.

 

[PeggyHenry]

Yes.

Again we must go back to his book. Writing about loathing her. Animosity. All traces of romance died etc.

I think the police figured it out from his book. Inhouse profilers had an easy job.

I've had an encounter with a personality disordered man. It was terrifying and that's why I'm so interested in this topic.

They emotionally blackmail you into feeling sorry for them all while they spew venom.

This is why ED stayed. It's called Stockholm Syndrome.

They only choose strong women. We can see ED was strong. But women have a huge Achilles heel. The moment women see inside the man there is a motherless little boy who needs love, women's hearts soften way too much.

It's the maternal instinct.

Unfortunately once the woman's maternal instinct is hooked she becomes "the mother" no longer the girlfriend.

In my opinion in 2013 the wedding was cancelled because he no longer had a need to ensure she stayed with him. He'd almost died and she was devoted to him then like a mother.

The pattern with PD is they try rush you up the aisle or get you pregnant to ensure you stay.

ED was hooked by his near death in 2013.

And now he wanted them to stop travelling and stay home. Lockdown must have been hell for her.

Thus her FB posts about needing to clear her head.

My hypothesis - opinion only - is that he left his phone in Arreau, used cash to catch a bus or other transport, got to the Luchon area in about 60 minutes, and met her at the top.

He hiked up from the French side. She from the Spanish side.

The reason she hiked up Pic de Sauvegarde so late in the day - which is not what experienced hikers like herself usually do - was because he'd asked her to meet him.

The reason she hiked up the identical peak was because he asked her to.

He then disposed of her somewhere in the mountain, took her pack and returned home at night.

It only takes an hour to get from Luchon to Arreau.

The French opened a criminal investigation because Luchon is a location of interest.

I agree that it seems highly likely that she hiked up there that day in order to meet somebody. Your observations seem very spot on to me.

Johara,

Do you think he met her in a panicky state and it all got out of hand. Perhaps she didn't say the right thing which triggered an explosive action? Perhaps she wasn't able to give him the reassurance he needed. I find it hard to contemplate that he went up there with premeditated intent to do something terrible...

 

[PeggyHenry]

Yes - I see what you mean. It did have to be premeditated

My bowel incontinence journey: growing through adversity | ERIC

I was reading this earlier and shows how he learnt from early on to plan, be meticulous, solve problems..

 

[NightCircus]

I think there’s something here. When they can rule out the partner straight away they always do. Remember Jo Yeates in Bristol? Her partner was never brought up.

Hadn't thought of that.

The longer it goes on with the same reporting style, the more suspicion they will raise and they'd know this. Would they risk it without feeling they really were on the right track?

 

[palmer85]

A

And why has it taken so long for this new sighting to come to light

I think this is old news from the French woman that saw Esther a while ago when she was asking for food, I got the impression that others thought the french woman was being harsh on Esther. The Sun journalists (not that they really are) don't care what they say, who they hurt, they just want to sell papers to.......



The Sun article starts as it means to go, with total crap. They claim, she gave her food HOURS before she was last seen and that she was going up the mountain with only 2.5 hours left before sunset. This is totally contradictory, she was seen at 15:00 by the Spanish olympic skier, at THAT time there was about 2.5 hours left before sunset, so the woman can't have seen her hours before the last sighting. It's just tosh to sell papers, like the well know Portuguese case. As with all the crap they produce there are no names, just sources.

 

[BroccoliTreetops]

She said "I think I can see you" twice.

New thought occurred to me now.

What if... considering she made every excuse under the sun to keep extending her time away from him for weeks...

What if she feared him and that phrase publicly posted was to warn him off coming to her? Because it would be too incriminatory if violence occurred to her that week?

I know this is a horrible thought and it creeps me out right now but I've become more aware of victims' instinctive defence tactics even when they aren't consciously aware what they're doing. Because they're stuck inside denial.

Someone wide awake would say f.o and tell her family & get help. But it never works like that.

Maybe they were due to meet, or maybe he had said something like "one day I will surprise you" and so she was always half expecting to see him.

 

[Merpedy]

So I'm reading through the Wikipedia and one thing I don't understand is that they had cancelled their wedding (as I understand this was for health reasons), then there just seems to be a struggle in the relationship

Colegate had written of their relationship and impending marriage: “what was supposed to be a chance to rediscover our love of one another did, at times, seem to have transformed into a festering pit of mutual loathing”

Obviously, that explains why Esther would not be sure on the relationship, but also... with some objective eyes there were clearly issues. Obviously, it could also just be that he's in a bad mental state and unable to do that, plus it seems like he did want the relationship to work out

Three days later, on 25 Nov, Dingley was reported missing by Colegate, who said this was the day Dingley was due to return to the gite in Gascony from her solo trip. Colegate has not confirmed the reason for his confidence about her return following the many extensions of her solo trip.

Seems reasonable that you expect your partner to return or to tell you that they're going to not return rather than just drop off the face of the earth. It's a bit weird if he tried to contact her and she didn't contact him back though, especially if it was a daily thing

But idk, I think a lot of the time when a situation like this occurs a lot of people just suspect the boyfriend/husband and anything that points to a less than ideal relationship is used to support that

 

[Koko17]

Interested to know which bits of the FB posts people found odd? I had a look just now and nothing jumped out to me as being obviously weird or worded strangely - maybe the bit about him going out walking...? There was also typo in one of them, but that’s about all I could see! The publishing of the media advisory note was a bit strange I guess but I’m not sure whether that was a common thing to do in high profile missing persons cases.

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.

 

[Shutterbug99]

That’s because she’s at a woman’s refuge in Spain. The refuge is not allowed to divulge the names of women who seek their safety. That’s why it’s gone quite. They family have been informed though, hence no need to keep it in the public domain.

Is this speculation or fact? I've been following this case but haven't seen anything reported in a while...

 

[Bettyboo2475]

Couple of thoughts

Could DC of written Esther's supposed posts on instagram, they shared an instagram account and a Facebook one? He seems talented per se in writing. The photo's could be old and it could be used as a distraction for what has actually happened.

From what the lady who saw the man sleeping in Esther's van said, it was well know that Esther was there, so the fact she was a lone female could of attracted anyone with a sinster motive.

She was fiesty, given the cctv from the shop when she was having trouble buying chia seeds, and a fellow English speaker had to intervene and help

If DC was so possessive of her, would he of let her out on solo trips

If she was an experienced hiker, she would of taken GPS equipment etc, so she was safe, but maybe DC is the only one that knew she had this. If so, has he disposed of it somehow.

Her mother describes her as an open book, so whatever she was planning would of been obvious.

I suspect something sinister has happened to her unfortunately - she's decided she couldn't carry on and has jumped from the mountain herself, she has encountered someone else who has pushed her or she is hiding somewhere.

I was also curious as to where the original posters of this thread are, they have disappeared

Also what is a B12 warning??? I've got one and I don't know why and I can't find anywhere on this site to tell me.

Thanks

 

[BroccoliTreetops]

The opposite direction. The one that matched Esther's text. Head to Port da Glere.

The mountain experts tied themselves up in knots for months trying to figure out why she'd go that way (wrong route) and (misdirectedly) where she could be.

Has everyone read DC's personal statement in the dossier?! I read it far more slowly last night and was horrified.

 

[simonsays]

Now a bone has been confirmed as Esther, we know now, tragically, she's dead. But beyond that nothing's changed. Dan still doesn't have any kind of alibi (the cops don't have his phone or computer); he could easily have cycled, hitched, caught a bus (which goes through the village) or had access to a vehicle. He has no coherent explanation for why he waited 3 DAYS to report her missing! He denies Esther had left him, when Esther made this clear to a walker who's now given 3 police forces a statement. He's never produced any evidence for why he was so confident she would return on 25th when he also says she'd repeatedly delayed returning. He's always denied she left in a hurry when they'd just finished a very long trip and she'd had no plan to leave that day; and she slept in a lay-by an hour from him, then drove another hour the next day and stayed at a caravan site on her own for a whole week. He's said she was super-competent in the hills and could not have got lost while the local Search and Rescue folk have made it clear that her movements on the hill made no sense and that's why they don't know where to look for a body. If she had an accident, it was obviously because she got lost and out of her depth; the background is her wandering aimlessly, beyond her abilities, to stay away from the boyfriend she'd just left (and was hounding her to come back?). The few texts Dan has released are highly selective. If she had an accident then on scree she likely survived the fall and lay dying while Dan waited 3 days to raise the alarm. OR, she didn't have an accident and a single bone has just appeared on a well-used track as if by magic.

I think a few of your points are misleading or untrue. You seem to have read up on this case so I can't comment on the other details.

1. The statement that the walker gave to the police didn't say that she had left Dan. It said that she wasn't sure what was going to happen in their relationship. There was no definite break-up mentioned.

2. The route that Esther took was actually recommended by another hiker a few days earlier. She was following a route that had been recommended to her and not wandering around aimlessly.

 

[SummerSky]

I read the “I think I can see you” message as meaning the general area he was in, from a long distance?

It could be so.

But it could indicate he'd joked he was coming to see her. There was debate about it on Tattle.

I now think it was the latter & thus she was evasive about her locations.

After all... He is the stalkery controlling type who wrote about loathing her.

And she as someone noted a few pages ago ... spent nights in trailer parks near their housesit rather than with him.