A friend of Nicola Bulley has now revealed that they were sent a text message minutes before the mother-of-two vanished.
On Friday (January 27), the 45-year-old mortgage broker dropped her two daughters off at school in St Michaels on Wyre, Lancashire, before going on a walk with the family dog.
Nicola had taken the springer spaniel named Willow along a nearby towpath next to the River Wyre from around 8:45AM while being signed into a work conference call around 9:00AM.
A passerby later found the dog wandering alone and agitated, with her harness on the floor. Meanwhile the mother's phone had been left on a bench and still logged into the call. They recognized Nicola from the picture on her device's background.
The police have deployed extensive search teams for Nicola during the past few days and have been assisted with the help of the Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service to scour the river bank by the bench with a 20-foot-long probe attached to an underwater camera.
The specialist underwater unit bore oxygen tanks and long yellow cables dressed in black, and arrived on the scene around 10:40AM in the 18 feet deep water, per The Mirror.
Speaking about the diver, an authority told the Daily Mail: "The underwater teams are performing what's known as an arc search, whereby they monitor the riverbed by moving in a side-to-side motion from bank to bank."
"As of yet nothing of significance has been found but it'll be a long, thorough process," they added.
In new developments, it has been revealed that minutes before the conference meeting - during which Nicola had switched off her camera and microphone - she texted a friend about meeting up sometime in the week with her kids.
According to the publication, a close friend of the missing woman who lives in the village said: "She booked a playdate, 8.57, she sent a text message to a friend whose mortgage she had just recently signed off on to arrange for the girls to go for tea this week."
The friend - who did not wish to be named - suggested that the message indicates that the mother-of-two had no intention of voluntarily disappearing and added: "You wouldn’t have done that if you were going to get up and go missing."
The outlet shared that the critical information was disclosed during a meeting at the village hall on Sunday (January 29) morning at around 10:30AM, before residents went their first mass organized search.
Nicola's 44-year-old partner Paul Ansell is understood to have been at the meeting.
This information also comes after Nicola's 72-year-old mother Dot told the same outlet that prior to her daughter's sudden disappearance, she had also been making plans for a spa break with her sister Louise.
"Louise had just booked Ribby Hall because they both had spa vouchers, she had just sent Nicola the night before the treatments," she said. "Louise booked it on Friday morning and sent it to Nicola but she never got back to her. They are very close."
Nicola's 73-year-old dad Ernest added she was happy with her job and had a meeting with an important client before she went missing.
"I said we better go now and Nicola came to the front door, and I gave her a kiss and told her I loved her and that was the last conversation I had with her," he shared.
The parents have said that their daughter's disappearance was out of character and disclosed that they asked police if "there is any chance" she has been abducted.
The mother-of-two's partner had previously said that the couple's six and nine-year-old daughters had "cried their eyes out" after being told that their mom was "lost" and are hoping for her safe return.
Yesterday (February 2) law enforcement identified the woman named Christine Bowman, 67, who was captured on surveillance cameras at about 8:50AM on Allotment Lane - close to where Nicola was last seen, per BBC News.
They hoped that the woman would have information to help the investigation, however, she had already spoken to officers and "doesn’t know anything," as reported by The Guardian.
