The French prosecutor investigating her disappearance said that the British hiker Esther Dingley fell to his death from nearly 100 feet (30 meters) while crossing the Pyrenees alone, adding that the evidence showed She died accidentally.
Dingley’s partner Dan Colegate found her body more than 8 months after she disappeared on the border between Spain and France. Colegate, 38, found the 37-year-old body on Monday. She reported her disappearance in November because she did not check in at the previously agreed time.
Christophe Amunzateguy, the French prosecutor who led the investigation Tell the guardian The police “strongly, even almost completely” believed her death was an accident, based on where her body was found.
Authorities believe that Dingley was an experienced hiker who slipped and fell on a steep slope near the 2,300-foot peak of Pic de la Glère. The assumption that the hiker’s death was accidental is supported by the fact that Dingley’s body was found on the mountain.
Amunzateguy told MailOnline: “The accidental theory is not only powerful now, because the body was found directly under a kind of rocky mountain.” “We believe Esther will fall because we found her belongings along this wall. , And they ended up at the bottom. We estimate the height of the fall to be about 20 or even 30 meters.”
He said that “the exact circumstances of the death” will never be known because “physical conditions make the investigation very complicated.” An autopsy is being conducted on Ding Li’s body.
On November 22, the hiker was seen alive for the last time in the Luchonais area in the southwest FranceThe last time she contacted Colegate was on the same day, she posted a selfie taken at the top of Pic de Sauvegarde.
Fragments of the hiker’s bones were found further down the mountain last month, Leading investigators to believe that her body may have been dragged away by wild animals.
After confirming her death, Colgate continued to search for the body of his 20-year-old partner. Last month, he said he had walked 700 miles to find the answer.
In a joint statement confirming her death, Dingley’s mother Rhea Bryant and Colgate said: “For months, we all know that we have the opportunity to embrace our beloved Esther again and feel her warmth. Holding hands in our hands, it is very small to see her smiling beautifully and watching the room light up again every time she arrives, but with this confirmation, the little hope has now disappeared. This is unusable The destructiveness of language.”
