Nicola Bulley’s partner said the online fixation and obsession with her disappearance was a “monster” that got out of control.
Paul Ansell said his family initially welcomed the huge public interest after the mother-of-two vanished in Lancashire.
But her disappearance soon attracted a wave of amateur social media “sleuths” posting hurtful and wildly misleading claims about the case – with the family receiving online hate.
“I think anything like that is a double-edged sword,” Mr Ansell told the BBC.
“That’s the problem. You’re poking a monster.”
Nicola Bulley vanished in January 2023 (Dave Nelson/PA)
Ms Bulley, 45, vanished on January 27 2023 while walking her dog beside the River Wyre in St Michael’s on Wyre, shortly after dropping her two daughters off at school.
Her body was found in the river on February 19 and an inquest in June last year found she had died due to accidental drowning.
A BBC documentary, called The Search For Nicola Bulley, explores the media coverage and the impact of amateur internet sleuths conducting their own investigations, as well as hearing from Lancashire Police and Ms Bulley’s family.
The documentary hears the turmoil the family went through as the search for Ms Bulley intensified – as well as the impact it had on Nicola and Paul’s young children.
“The nights were the hardest,” Mr Ansell said.
“In the morning the hope would be strong. It used to go dark at like 4pm.
“It used to get to about 3pm and then I’d start panicking that I knew it would start going dark in an hour. So we had an hour to find her.
“And then obviously I’d have the girls. The first they’d do when they came out of school was run over and say: ‘Have we found mummy?’”
Ms Bulley’s body was found in the River Wyre (Peter Byrne/PA)
The ongoing search prompted frenzied speculation and multiple conspiracy theories online, with amateur detectives travelling to Lancashire to “help” police.
“I was getting direct messages from people that I’ve never met – they don’t know me, they don’t know us, they don’t know Nikki,” Mr Ansell said.
He was also told: “You can’t hide,” and: “We know what you did.”
Mr Ansell added: “On top of the trauma of the nightmare that we’re in, to then think that all these horrendous things are being said about me towards Nikki – everyone has a limit.”
At a news conference days before she was found, Lancashire Police made public that Ms Bulley had “significant issues” with alcohol brought on by her ongoing struggles with the menopause.
The family said she had stopped taking her HRT over that period and began drinking to deal with it.
“It was literally (a) normal, weird blip. That’s the most honest answer I can give you,” Louise Cunningham, Ms Bulley’s sister, told the documentary.
Mr Ansell said he still sees Nicola in the faces of the couple’s two daughters.
“I see her in the girls every single day. I see all these little mannerisms in them and I’m like: ‘That was Mummy, you know?’ And that is worth everything, I think.”
Last year, a coroner recorded Ms Bulley’s death as accidental, saying she had fallen into the river and suffered “cold water shock”, and that there was “no evidence” to suggest suicide.
The case prompted intense media speculation (PA)
Police accused people on TikTok of “playing private detectives” in the area, and said they had been “inundated with false information, accusations and rumours” relating to the case.
The release of personal information about Ms Bulley’s health struggles was “avoidable and unnecessary”, and police and media need to rebuild trust, a report into the case concluded.
The independent College of Policing report found in policing terms the missing persons investigation was well handled, but that the force had lost control of the public narrative at an early stage.
Senior officers failed to brief mainstream accredited reporters because trust between police and media had broken down – leading to an information vacuum and unchecked speculation.
The Search For Nicola Bulley will be broadcast on BBC One on October 3 at 9pm BST and on will be available on BBC iPlayer.