Essex Police Find Laptop of Missing Vitoria Barreto

Essex Police have located a laptop believed to belong to Vitoria Figueiredo Barreto, a 30-year-old Brazilian psychologist missing from the coastal town of Brightlingsea since early March, as the search for her enters its second week.

Barreto was last seen on March 3 at the University of Essex campus near Wivenhoe, where she met a friend. That afternoon, she boarded a bus for the 30-minute journey to Brightlingsea, arriving around 2:30 p.m. She was reported missing the following day by the friend she had been staying with. Authorities believe she was wearing a dark coat, blue turtleneck jumper, light blue jeans and black trainers at the time.

CCTV footage captured a person matching Barreto's description jumping over a fence into a nearby boatyard shortly after midnight on March 4. A white tote bag owned by Barreto was discovered on March 9 near Copperas Road, close to the boatyard. Investigators have focused on the possibility that she unmoored a small boat from a pontoon in Brightlingsea in the early hours of March 4. The vessel was later found adrift in waters near Bradwell-on-Sea, and police noted that a horseshoe-shaped buoyancy aid appeared to be missing from it.