So a moment of clarity for me then, as while elaborate theories are good reading, things are usually a lot simpler and more mundane “for real life” as Bluey would say.
IMO what went down went something along these lines:
1. On 3rd Feb the accused went on an all night bender, leaving his Ute/truck wherever he started, and went back for it around 8am the next morning to get it home.
2. On 4th Feb the accused was driving under influence and took backroads to avoid the risk of losing his licence. Difficult to work as an electrician without a drivers licence, it’s a tradies lifeblood.
3. The accused struck SM with the vehicle, panicked, deliberately caused her death by refusing to call help, and instead performed a deliberate act to end SMs life, then put the body in the vehicle, smashed SMs devices with a rock and/or threw them into a dam or similar, then drove to another place, and hid the body. All to protect his own livelihood and life.
4. MM reported SM missing around 11am, after undertaking his own searches, calling friends, etc around the period 9am to 11am.
5. Police searching from 11am onwards on the 4th March.
6. After 4 weeks of searching and investigating police finally received access to a swath of phone data. Article on 4th March:
7. Analysis of the data, which is presumably done digitally and quickly, revealed the accused phone was pinging in the area on the morning of 4th Feb around 8am.
8. The accused is arrested on Wednesday 6th March, 2 days after reports of the phone data dump, under suspicion of involvement due to phone pings and taken in to custody for questioning.
9. Two properties (Mt Clear and Scottsburn) are searched and the accused vehicle is seized. Somewhere in amongst all this police find a “smoking gun” that confirms SM is dead, and due to the extent of the injury, it is obvious was deliberately made so.
All I can think of that would be so specific to support the charges as they have been laid out, including time of death and place of death, is a morbid video or photos. This tells police the location and the time and it’s clear SM has been deliberately killed. I am reminded of the Richard Pusey case who, high on drugs, morbidly filmed police officers dying at the scene of an accident, instead of helping them:
Richard Pusey is sentenced to 10 months jail for filming dying police officers at a crash scene.
www.bbc.com