The police have deployed divers in their extensive search for missing mother-of-two Nicola Bulley.
As previously reported, Bulley had dropped her two daughters off at school on Friday morning, before taking the family dog named Willow for a walk in Lancashire.
The alarm was first raised after a passerby found the springer spaniel running alone beside the River Wyre in the village of St Michael’s on Wyre at around 10:30 AM.
The onlooker also found the dog's lead, harness, and the 45-year-old's phone - which was still connected to an active conference call - on a bench and identified her from the family photo on her lock screen.
Extensive search parties involving drones, helicopters, and dogs have been carried out since Friday. The Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service have also been assisting by returning to the river bank by the bench with a 20-foot-long probe attached to an underwater camera.
According to The Mirror, a specialist underwater unit carrying oxygen tanks and long yellow cables dressed in black had arrived at around 10:40AM in the 18 feet-deep water.
A police source 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."
Nicola's 72-year-old mother, Dot, revealed that her daughter had spent the night at her parents' house before her disappearance.
Dot said that Nicola made plans for the future such as preparing a spa trip with her sister Louise and intended to buy tickets to watch her six and nine-year-old daughters perform in the choir and gymnastics shows.
Speaking to The Mirror, her mother along with her father Ernest, 73, noted that they were looking after Nicola's daughters while she was on a client conference call.
Recalling their last conversation, Ernest shared: "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."
The parents also added 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, 44-year-old Paul Ansell, had previously said that the couple's daughters - Harriet and Sophia - had "cried their eyes out" after being told that their mom was "lost" and are hoping for her safe return.
In new developments, police have now identified a woman who was captured on surveillance cameras at about 8:50AM on Allotment Lane - close to where Nicola was last seen - who might have information to help the investigation, per BBC News.
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