It took 3 weeks for British police to find the body of Nicola Polley, an English mum who went missing while walking her dog, in a case that has generated such interest that it has recruited a large number of investigative enthusiasts on social networks.

Although the phenomenon is known in the United States, an individual incident in Britain rarely attracts such attention from a large number of obscure people who document their searches on TikTok or Instagram, which increases the distress of the victim's relatives and security forces.

Nicola Polley, a 45-year-old property consultant, was last spotted alive on the banks of Lake Wyre on January 27 in northwest England when she was taking her dog for a walk after dropping her two daughters off to school, and her phone was still connected to a webinar I had. Find it on a bench.

And the police found her body after 3 weeks in the lake, which ruled out from the beginning that a murder had occurred, focusing on the hypothesis that Polly had accidentally fallen in the place, which sparked a lot of criticism.

The case made headlines, and some news channels did extended live coverage from the scene, with an attempt to retrieve Polly's last track before her loss.

As the divers' searches continued, a hashtag called "Nicolas Poly" was used millions of times on social networks by users who shared their hypotheses about the incident, exacerbating the confusion experienced by the forty-year-old.

Even a TikTok user posted a video clip in which he appeared digging in the ground in search of the body, and he also shared a clip showing the moment he found it and took it out of the water.


Successful series

David Schmid, a professor of English at the University of Buffalo, USA, says, "People are trying to devote more time to these cases by installing themselves as investigators and by trying to investigate and provide a different view of the crime," noting that this trend already exists in the United States.

Schmid points out that the phenomenon has grown with the boom in documentaries and series centered on criminal investigations, including, for example, the "Serial" series, which achieved wide international success, as well as the "Making a Murder" documentary series.

He also pointed out that the success of these soap operas "revealed a new type of public interest in crime-related cases, specifically related to working on pending cases or intervening in cases that people consider the judiciary to have wrongly dealt with."

And last year, the US judiciary stopped the prosecution of an American who had spent 23 years in prison for a murder he had repeatedly asserted his innocence after the series “Serial” shed light on the case.

However, according to David Schmid, documentaries related to criminal investigations may easily fall into the trap of showcasing aimed at attracting viewers. Last year, the series "The Beast ... The Story of Jeffrey Dahmer", which was broadcast by Netflix and deals with the famous butcher, was criticized by relatives of the victims.

Eric Perry, a relative of one of Jeffrey Dahmer's victims, said, "The worst day of your life becomes the theme of your neighborhood's favorite soap opera."


"Disappointment"

The entry of amateurs into the investigation line - which has become possible thanks to new technologies and online databases - raises questions about the possibility of destroying evidence or harming falsely suspected witnesses.

As part of the searches for Nicola Poly, the local police had to issue a "dispersal order" for the two present, in light of the spread of a large number of investigators who were roaming the area's forests in search of the body.

"We watch many police series, in which we get carried away and find pleasure in thinking about and resolving issues, but there is a real divergence between television programs and personalities on the ground," said Amanda Keeler, a specialist in media affairs at the University of Wisconsin.

In the case of Nicola Poly, Schmid expresses concern about a "semi-perceptible sense of disappointment" among some, and asks, "Where have we come as a society (...) to feel something like disappointment, because the case was not a murder?"