The housemate of the missing Brazilian psychologist who vanished from Essex three weeks ago has urged police to stage a reconstruction of the events leading up to her 'highly strange and mysterious' disappearance.
Essex Police had been searching the waters around Brightlingsea Harbour after CCTV led them to believe Vitoria Barreto, 30, may have taken a boat out to sea when she went missing on March 3.
On Friday, the force announced their physical searches were ending to instead pursue 'a number of investigative avenues' alongside 'international partners'.
Vitoria's friend and fellow psychologist Fernanda Silvestre, who she lives with in the city of Fortaleza in north-eastern Brazil, viewed the move in a 'positive light' and thinks the police are 'giving it the importance it should have from the beginning'.
Speaking to Brazilian news outlet g1, Fernanda pointed out the theory Vitoria had a mental health episode is not the only one being considered.
She believes staging a reconstruction of events is 'important' as it will help establish whether or not something else happened, such as Vitoria being forced to flee from some kind of danger, ingesting something that altered her state of mind or even being kidnapped or trafficked.
A Brazilian court last week gave Essex Police approval to view Vitoria's bank activity which could provide vital information for their investigation.
Vitoria Figueiredo Barreto, 30, had been in the UK visiting her friend Liliane Silva and staying at her home in Southend, Essex, when she went missing on March 3.
Two CCTV stills show Vitoria got on the number 87 bus in Boundary Road just after 1pm on March 3 and got off 30 minutes later in Bellfield Avenue, Brightlingsea.
Vitoria is a clinical psychologist from Fortaleza, Brazil, who works for the 4 Varas Project - an initiative focused on mental health care in the Grande Pirambu neighbourhood of Fortaleza.
Posts on her Instagram page show her travelling to different parts of Brazil in January before heading to Morocco for a conference on psychology and mental health.
After the conference, she headed to the UK, arriving on March 1, where she stayed with her friend and fellow psychologist Lilian Silva and her boyfriend at their home in Southend, Essex.
On March 2, she and Liliane spent the day at the University of Essex Colchester campus in Wivenhoe Park where Liliane works as a lecturer in clinical psychology.
The pair were working on a project about mental health services in the UK and Brazil which they planned to present to the NHS. Liliane said Vitoria was working really hard to help her translate documents.
Vitoria had been exploring the possibility of doing a doctorate degree at the University of Essex.
The following day, they returned to the university to continue their work.
Whilst taking a break together by the pond on campus, Liliane asked the usually very 'talkative' Vitoria what was wrong after noticing she had been 'quiet, upset' and acting 'airy and confused'.
But Vitoria refused to open up, telling her friend they would talk later instead - a reaction friends and family say was very out of character for her.
'I said "Sometimes it's too late V, lets talk", but she said "Observe the ducks" - which was not like her, she was not that contemplative person,' Liliane said during a press conference with Essex Police last week.
When Liliane left the campus at around 1pm, Vitoria told her she was going back to the library to continue working on their project about mental health services and that she would see her later.
However, for reasons yet to be discovered, Vitoria did not return to the library and instead was seen on CCTV boarding the 87 bus on Boundary Road just outside the campus.
She stayed on it for 30 minutes and got off on Bellfield Avenue in Brightlingsea - an area her friend said she had never been to.
Liliane said search history on Vitoria’s Google account led her to believe she had been trying to get the 87 bus going the other way to Colchester, but accidentally got on the wrong one on the other side of the road, forgetting cars drive on the left in the UK.
Vitoria had been wearing a dark coat, a blue turtleneck jumper, light blue jeans and dark trainers with white soles on the day she went missing.
The last person thought to have seen her in person is Justin Francis and his partner who were walking their dog along Bellfield Avenue when a woman matching her description approached them and introduced herself as Vitoria.
Justin said she asked if she could come into their home, but did not explain why.
He said they now feel 'a little bit guilty' for being the last people to see her and speak to her.
Blurry CCTV footage showed a person who police believe to be Vitoria walking alone along the waterfront after climbing over a metal fence into a boatyard on Brightlingsea pontoon at 12.16am.
When Liliane left the campus at around 1pm, Vitoria (pictured) told her she was going back to the library to continue working on their project about mental health services and that she would see her later.
Liliane (pictured right with Vitoria’s mother) said the last time she saw Vitoria she tried to ask what was wrong and why she appeared ‘upset, airy and confused’.
‘If we had known at the time she was missing, we would have brought her back to our house and got her a cup of tea,’ he told the BBC.
She was then spotted on doorbell footage in the Hurst Green area of Brightlingsea shortly after 2.30pm.
Her tote bag - which had the words 'people over profit' adorned on it - was found nearly a week later on March 9 just off Copperas Road, in Brightlingsea. Her laptop was also found in Brightlingsea on March 14.
After a press conference with Essex Police on March 11, Liliane and her boyfriend and Vitoria’s mother and partner found her travel coffee cup with a used teabag inside in the green are where her bag was found.
Blurry CCTV footage showed a person who police believe to be Vitoria walking alone along the waterfront after climbing over a metal fence into a boatyard on Brightlingsea pontoon at 12.16am.
She was not seen on CCTV for the next 20 minutes, with police believing she may have been the person who during that time unmoored and potentially boarded a boat which went missing from a pontoon that night.
Police said the 'vessel does not appear to have had its engine started and, over the next few hours, began drifting out of the harbour before ultimately coming to rest close to Bradwell-on-Sea later in morning'.
At around midday on March 4, the boat was found a drift in the water close to Bradwell-on-Sea with the lifesaving buoyancy aid used to help passengers float in the water during emergencies missing.
In their latest update, Essex Police said: 'At this stage, there is still no clear and visible footage to conclusively state it was the 30-year-old Brazilian who unmoored the boat.
'However, we know Vitoria was seen walking alone in the waterfront area at 12.16am, having climbed over a nearby metal fence, which is close to where the boat was unmoored.'
Fernandes also told Brazilian press that she had received an emergency alert from Vitoria's phone with a location pointing to the sea near Brightlingsea Harbour at around 3am UK time.
Speaking at a press conference with Essex Police last week about her friend's mental state, Liliane said: 'We know that she is probably not in a good place, she is probably out of her mind, upset, struggling. We don't know why and we don't want to judge it now, we just want her with us.
'She needs to feel protected, she needs to feel loved. It was never her behaviour, that's why we are so scared since the first second.'