Australia Samantha Murphy, 51, last seen leaving her property to go for a run in the Canadian State Forest, Ballarat 100km NW of Melbourne, 4 Feb 2024 #7

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Toowong(s) said:
BBM

Trooper, I agree with most of what you say - except the opening line, what you say re no knowledge of SMs schedule may indeed be true, probably the likely case - but IMO there is a chance the accused had stalked SM for some period before, knew SMs usual running route, planned this out, even gone on a bender to rev himself up for the act.

Beyond that the response was so swift, the accused had no time to twiddle his thumbs. AirWing was in the air searching for SM (and a suspect?) by mid-afternoon on the day SMs disappeared. I assume police attempt ground searches for a few hours before calling in an expensive air search. And I assume MM and family searched for an hour or two before calling police. So by my estimation MMs likely driving the possible jogging routes from 9-11am, police from 11am to say 1pm then escalation to involve AirWing. I wonder also was AirWing searching for SM or searching for a suspicious vehicle, suspicious activity (I guess both…). Scary that a 22yo has pulled this off in such a short window and (nearly) got away with it IMO.
Click to expand...

Will be interesting with further CCTV and phone pings, If the accused has been hanging around SM house leading into the days of her disappearance

I have a feeling, the accused has been stalking SM for some time and knew her routine in a premeditated attack

I think he has done something with her body so physically it can't be brought back or identified

If the police knew SM was still in there somewhere, the place would be saturated, including other areas

I am sure the police know everything that has taken place now

The neighbours would also see him ride his motorbike in an army uniform, which is a bit odd
as only reason you wear a camouflage outfit into the bush, so you can't be seen

It remains unclear what evidence police uncovered which led to their decision to charge the 22-year-old with Ms Murphy's murder.

According to the Herald Sun officers had been tracking Mr Stephenson for as many as two weeks before his arrest, but had avoided acting immediately so as not to tip him off.

His girlfriend could be the big breakthrough for the police in the accused murder allegations








 
There are some stories posted back in the thread about Apple Watches alerting emergency services and a contact person if it detects something has happened to the wearer.

I don't think the watch alerted anyone in this case, because MM contacted the police himself at around 11am. What a shame the watch didn't alert police at the time of the attack.
 
Voluspa said:
That's horrible some people were trying to discredit her attack. We've all seen the photos and it clearly happened.

However IMO, if PS doesn't fit the description Sissy initially described then I feel it's only normal that people are going to speculate on the accuracy here.
Click to expand...
I agree, it was horrible for people to discredit her.
We actually don’t know what the accused looked like that morning. After a heavy night out, he may have looked rough, even bare footed. In my opinion it may not be far fetched to be related.
 
Just thinking out aloud .....
VicPol arrested the accused on Wed, Wednesday, March 6 & charged with Murder on Thursday March 7.

From what I can gather, VicPol took his car away for forensic testing on the 6th ... could they have initial results back by the 7th?? Was it something they found in the accused's vehicle that allowed the murder charge?
In my mind, to be able to charge the accused with murder, I think LE have found hard evidence either in the accused's car or home (be it parents home, share house, or property his GF was looking after) : ie a shovel with traces/lots of SM's blood on it, OR a weapon (perhaps a rock tied to the end of a stick???) with traces of SM's blood OR his shoes with blood splatter??
Somehow, I don't think just finding a phone/watch/phone pings etc could result in a murder charge alone.

I also think that the accused has a history (of various sorts) with police and they started looking at him fairly early in the piece once the family/friends were scrutinized closely.
To be able to hold it together for 4.5 weeks after murdering someone would be a very very hard call to a person with 'normal' thinking and conscience.
 
Toowong(s) said:

Sissy Austin: former Greens Senate candidate attacked while running in a Victorian state forest | Victoria | The Guardian

Djab Wurrung woman is recovering from injuries after allegedly being knocked unconscious with a rock tied to a stick near Ballarat
amp.theguardian.com amp.theguardian.com

All we have is this re Sissy

Police said the attacker was believed to be a Caucasian male wearing black jeans, a cap and no shoes or shirt.

I thought there was an identikit image released but I must have imagined it, can’t find it now. IMO it could be the same person, and perhaps minimally dressed for the reasons you say. And maybe not. Not enough info to know.

But I think enough for the keyboard warriors to re-engage attacks on Sissy, and a theory as to why she’s gone private.

Also in Sissy’s case:

Police said they would be ramping up patrols in the local area as an added safety measure.

None of this “ramping up patrols” after SM disappeared. Just another aspect of police’s response that seems out of the ordinary expected response. I’m fascinated by this. Part of me wonders if police initially focused on MM for a few weeks before realising the answer lay elsewhere. But overall I’m confident police have good reasons for everything they’ve done, it’s just unusual on several levels IMO. Suggests to me there’s a LOT more going on behind the scenes than we are being allowed to know.
Click to expand...
Very interesting post Toowong(s), particularly your last paragraph.

The attack on Sissy, IMO appears to be an attempted murder, with the weapon being an improvised club, seemingly fashioned to provide maximum force. I wonder if the "ramping up of patrols" did actually occur after the attack on Sissy,
Can anyone living locally recall whether or not "ramping up patrols" actually occurred?

It certainly seems that Sissy wasn't particularly impressed by police's response to the attack on her (which could very easily have killed her, or caused major brain injury incapacitating her for the rest of her life) and I don't blame her.
From what Sissy has said, the police response to her attack was pretty wishy-washy - sounds like she was virtually fobbed off. Such a response seems rather incongruous compared to the response to Samantha's disappearance.

I have a theory about this, which is informed by my own personal experiences as a single woman with no immediate family.
I'd be willing to bet big $$$ that when police received an urgent phone call/visit from Mick, (prompted by him being unable to contact his wife Samantha when she hadn't returned from her run), things would have started happening pretty quickly at the police end.

IMO there exists a sub-conscious bias in our culture which may explain the gaping difference between the police response to Sissy's attack, and Samantha's disappearance. I got the impression (possibly mistakenly) that Sissy didn't have a partner with her when liaising with police, who'd go into bat for her.
IMO she would have had a well-known profile in the community, having stood as a Greens Senate Candide, as well as being an indigenous activist. She may have been known in the community as a single woman.

Please note that I'm not suggesting that police's pretty ordinary response to Sissy's report to them was deliberate.
In any situation which requires action from another party in order to address the issue, it's "the squeaky gate that gets the oil". Hence IMO, when police received a report from Mick (a well-known successful businessman) about Samantha's disappearance, it would immediately be recognised by officers receiving the report that Mick would become an awfully squeaky gate if they didn't respond appropriately.

IIRC my understanding is that as Sissy didn't know who her assailant was, and couldn't provide information which would identify him, she was informed that not much could be done. No mention of checking phone numbers pinging in the area which could have led to her assailant. In fact, at that point there was a similar lack of information re Samantha's situation.

IMO this is subconscious discrimination. This is a common occurrence in my experience, and that of other female "singletons" no longer considered youthful - (maybe 35-ish and up) - not taken seriously/considered to be overreacting. If one eventually refuses to take "no" for an answer, they are considered to be a real "".
JMO

PS I really like your Websleuths name Toowong(s). Is it Toowong(s) as in " Two Wongs don't make a right"?
 
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Angeline said:
There are some stories posted back in the thread about Apple Watches alerting emergency services and a contact person if it detects something has happened to the wearer.

I don't think the watch alerted anyone in this case, because MM contacted the police himself at around 11am. What a shame the watch didn't alert police at the time of the attack.
Click to expand...
Reposting my post from 29 Feb:

Use Fall Detection with Apple Watch – Apple Support (AU)​

If Apple Watch detects a hard fall, it can help connect you to the emergency services if needed.
support.apple.com
support.apple.com

“If Apple Watch SE, Apple Watch Series 4 or later, or Apple Watch Ultra or later detects a hard fall while you’re wearing your watch, it will tap you on the wrist, sound an alarm and display an alert. You can choose to contact the emergency services, or dismiss the alert by pressing the Digital Crown, tapping Close in the top left-hand corner or tapping “I'm OK”.

“If your Apple Watch detects that you’re moving, it will wait for you to respond to the alert and won’t automatically call the emergency services. If your watch detects that you’ve been immobile for about a minute, it will make the call automatically.”

“After the call has ended, your watch will send a message to your emergency contacts with your location, letting them know that your watch has detected a hard fall and dialled the emergency services. Your watch gets your emergency contacts from your Medical ID.”

“Falls are automatically recorded in the Health app, unless you reply that you didn't fall when your Apple Watch asks. To check your fall history, open the Health app on your iPhone, then tap the Browse tab. Tap Other Data, then tap Number of Times Fallen.”

Sorry if any of this had been mentioned before but there have been so many threads… my thoughts:

1. If SM was wearing the watch as expected, and she was struck to the ground by a vehicle or person, an emergency call may have been activated assuming her watch was a current model, SM had the feature setup and she wasn’t moving for around 1 minute.

2. If SM was moved within the 1 minute mark (e.g. put into a vehicle) emergency services wouldn’t be automatically called. They would also not have received a call if someone heard the loud warning tones from the watch and cancelled the emergency service call. I wonder if emergency services received a call?

3. It would be interesting what is recorded in SMs health app. Could possibly be linked to another one of SMs devices at home eg iPad.

4. Perhaps the family got a fall alert from the watch (assuming SM had them setup as emergency contacts) which prompted them to call the police so quickly?

5. Perhaps the location coordinates helped police focus on a particular area?

The watch would be a critical piece of evidence.

Sher Lock said:
Somehow, I don't think just finding a phone/watch/phone pings etc could result in a murder charge alone.
Click to expand...
I agree but IMO phone alerts and pings may have been a crucial piece of initial evidence.
 
Nifty said:
Will be interesting with further CCTV and phone pings, If the accused has been hanging around SM house leading into the days of her disappearance

I have a feeling, the accused has been stalking SM for some time and knew her routine in a premeditated attack

I think he has done something with her body so physically it can't be brought back or identified

If the police knew SM was still in there somewhere, the place would be saturated, including other areas

I am sure the police know everything that has taken place now

The neighbours would also see him ride his motorbike in an army uniform, which is a bit odd
as only reason you wear a camouflage outfit into the bush, so you can't be seen

It remains unclear what evidence police uncovered which led to their decision to charge the 22-year-old with Ms Murphy's murder.

According to the Herald Sun officers had been tracking Mr Stephenson for as many as two weeks before his arrest, but had avoided acting immediately so as not to tip him off.

His girlfriend could be the big breakthrough for the police in the accused murder allegations








Click to expand...
Do you remember seeing the reference to the army uniform? I don’t remember hearing that part
 
Newby171 said:
I agree, it was horrible for people to discredit her.
We actually don’t know what the accused looked like that morning. After a heavy night out, he may have looked rough, even bare footed. In my opinion it may not be far fetched to be related.
Click to expand...
Or possibly if the earlier attacker was PS, he may have deliberately disguised himself. He is proving to be rather more cunning than we first thought.
 
www.abc.net.au

First Nations advocate hit with 'rock tied to the end of the stick' in weekend run attack

Sissy Austin, a former member of the First Peoples' Assembly of Victoria has been brutally attacked by a man wielding a makeshift club during a weekend run through a state forest near Ballarat.
www.abc.net.au www.abc.net.au

I wonder how long Sissy was unconscious for??

The 28-year-old said she had her headphones with music playing while running along a motorcycle track when a man emerged and attacked her with a makeshift weapon.

Interesting that it was along a motorcycle track?
 
nightrider17 said:
www.abc.net.au

First Nations advocate hit with 'rock tied to the end of the stick' in weekend run attack

Sissy Austin, a former member of the First Peoples' Assembly of Victoria has been brutally attacked by a man wielding a makeshift club during a weekend run through a state forest near Ballarat.
www.abc.net.au www.abc.net.au

I wonder how long Sissy was unconscious for??

The 28-year-old said she had her headphones with music playing while running along a motorcycle track when a man emerged and attacked her with a makeshift weapon.

Interesting that it was along a motorcycle track?
Click to expand...

Was it sexual attack?
I don't know this case well.
 
Dotta said:
Was it sexual attack?
I don't know this case well.
Click to expand...
Lal Lal Victoria is about 6 minutes drive from Scotsburn (or about 7 km by car) Victoria which is where PS was housesitting I believe. IMO

Its about 15 minutes drive to Mount Clear Victoria( or about 18 km by car)

Its about 11 minutes drive from Buninyong Victoria ( or about 14km by car)

Maybe it's a good place for dirt bike riding. IMO
 
ZombieKittie said:
The red line was the path a fellow WS member had taken while walking there. I've attached the pic with just that path marked. The yellow and purple lines are just my brain trying to understand possible paths I'm a visual learner I just didn't have the time to remark all the dams on a new map
Click to expand...
Army type ‘camouflage ‘ pants and shirts … don’t have to be actual army issue … retailers sell this type of gear … popular too with gold prospectors seeking to merge with their bush environment .
 
Does his previous school hold cadets classes (high school introduction to military training)?

Would be the only logical non-suspicious reason I could think of for wearing an army uniform, other than being in the army... which he wasn't.
 
Nifty said:
Yeah, it doesn't sound good

I would say the police know what has happened

And they realise the search will be an unproductive endeavour
Click to expand...
If PS is maintaining his silence then I wonder what evidence the police have that allowed him to be charged with murder. They have no body. Im not exactly sure how accurate phone pings are. Do they show how close different phones are to one another or just which phones were pinging off different towers? If someone told the police that PS admitted to the crime would that be enough to charge him? LE had him under surveillance for two weeks. What could they observe that would show his guilt? I suppose someone could have recorded PS admitting his guilt. Has it been long enough for forensic examination of PS vehicle to show DNA or evidence of a dead body? CCTV or dash cam footage might place him in the area but would it be enough to charge him with murder? Just thinking out loud.
 
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