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

[SouthAussie]

Jogger, Sissy Austin, who was brutally attacked in Lal Lal State Forest, near Ballarat, last year, revealed the vulnerability of female members of the search party to harassment by “unruly men.”

Ms Austin, 29, stated: “It’s hard. There’s been a few unruly men out in the forest.”

She disclosed to The Project that just the previous day, two men were reported to the police for allegedly harassing female searchers, necessitating one woman to seek refuge in her car.

Consequently, the search party has a heightened sense of vigilance, with a strong emphasis on pairing up for safety.

https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/news/homicide-police-set-to-be-called-in-to-investigate-in-search-for-samantha-murphy/news-story/7148bcd84899c77ef740b4caee9a2937

Sissy's plight ranks pretty high for what could have happened to Samantha, and would be a good reason to pull the Missing Persons detectives into the case.

There definitely seems to be some precedent for an attack on at least one other woman jogger in the area, and they never caught the perpetrator.

Woman details brutal attack 20km from search for missing Samantha Murphy

imo

 

[technicallymissing]

In the Vic High Country near Mt Buller a few years back a bloke left their accommodation and committed suicide by hanging off a tree. Rope broke and body ended up covered by leaves branches etc. searchers had gone over the area a couple of times and body was discovered on the third pass only a few metres from a track quite a few days later. Point I’m trying to make is she may well have stumbled and fatally injured herself or suffered a Snake bite and fell off track somewhere or something more sinister and is only a few meters off a track but has been missed. If I was ses I’d be going over the ground again. Just my humble opinion.

I'm reminded also of Philip Kreycik, the runner who sadly passed away from heatstroke a few years ago. He was in Pleasanton, California, not Australia, but some of the circumstances ring similar to Samantha's disappearance. Runner went out on a hot day in a regional park and disappeared. The park was searched for over 3 weeks and many people (myself included) were beginning to doubt he was there, thinking he'd been abducted or perhaps disappeared voluntarily... how could they not have found him after all that time and ground covered? On the 25th day he was found not far off of the trail. It was determined he'd likely become delirious and died from heatstroke just a few hours after his last contact with his wife, before any search effort had even begun.

I do lean towards some sort of foul play in Samantha's case, but Philip's death was a very tragic eye-opener to me as to just how long people can go undetected in not a whole lot of land.

 

[DK007]

News update about Samantha and cctv footage and clue

Police confirm potential clue in CCTV image of missing Victorian mum

Missing persons squad detectives are working with telecommunications technicians.

7news.com.au

 

[green leaves]

No witnesses, sightings or footage outside of the home.
CCTV capture of her still on the property is the only thing.
My gut is going back to thinking she has never left the house.
IMO

 

[Monsoon]

You can see two cars in the home CCTV footage. Presumably then you could see if either car left that morning.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Missing mum's family hit back at 'malicious' rumours

Samantha Murphy's family have angrily lashed out at those trying to implicate her husband Michael as the search for the beloved mother-of-three drags into its fifth day.

www.dailymail.co.uk

The family also wanted to set the record straight on other online speculation related to the case.

'I've been seeing some misinformation been spread on all platforms that I want to inform people about,' the statement added.

Samantha's phone pinging that far away from home is not usual.

'Yes, she walked in different directions, but she kept to the paths, never went for more than 10km total roughly and would let family know if she was walking further.'

 

[LuluCherry]

You can see two cars in the home CCTV footage. Presumably then you could see if either car left that morning.

Exactly, police confirmed in press conference earlier today that they could see that she left the property, so presumably they would also see if anyone else left the property and if they did they would have to thoroughly account for their time and whereabouts. So can we assume either no one else left the property or they have been cleared if they did? I don’t know?

 

[Chestnutsunfish]

No witnesses, sightings or footage outside of the home.
CCTV capture of her still on the property is the only thing.
My gut is going back to thinking she has never left the house.
IMO

Police have said she left though?

 

[DK007]

Ye

Police have said she left though?

Yes Apparently so

 

[green leaves]

Police have said she left though?

Yes police have said the cctv footage is of her leaving.
The lack of any sightings from the public sets off alarms for me.
It was a sunny morning, I can’t wrap my head around no one seeing her if she’d left.
IMO

 

[tiff]

Exactly, police confirmed in press conference earlier today that they could see that she left the property, so presumably they would also see if anyone else left the property and if they did they would have to thoroughly account for their time and whereabouts. So can we assume either no one else left the property or they have been cleared if they did? I don’t know?

We have a Ring cam thats on the Ring cloud and it says if I delete a scene it cannot be recovered. So it’s possible future movements could have been deleted.

 

[Bats]

IMO, regarding the Police saying that at this stage there is "nothing suspicious". I don't believe they would flat out lie about this. If they had some suspicious evidence but were keeping it to themselves, then i would expect the message would be something like "we have a number of lines of enquiry still to investigate".

 

[JLZ]

With all due respect, the incorrect CCTV vision was supplied by the Police.

Investigators have also released updated CCTV footage of Samantha in the hope that someone can provide information on her whereabouts.

The footage was captured at about 7:16am on Eureka Street near the intersection of Warrenheip Road and captures Samantha running in a north easterly direction toward Yankee Flat Road.

PM pays tribute to search for Sam Murphy as investigation continues

Extensive searches have failed to find any whereabouts.

www.thecourier.com.au

I can't make sense of that. From the corner of Eureka Street and Warrenheip Road, Yankee Flat Road is south-east.

 

[JLZ]

That ping on her phone from Buninyong Golf Club is about 8-10 miles from her starting point (not exactly but accurate enough to judge reasonableness). That means her run would be about 16-20 miles if she turned around there or even did a loop on those connecting roads and trails. That is a very long run and I personally, as a long distance runner, doubt that was her plan. It would be interesting to see the time of that Ping relative to the CCTV image of her at her house.

Kilometres not miles. Half those distances.

 

[JLZ]

I haven't followed the Ristevski case closely. I'm aware that the husband was found to be responsible, but that's all I know. Just wondering what the similarities are?

One difference is that Karen went walking without shoes; Sam went running without water.

 

[MrJ]

Quite a hinky feeling about this case. The lack of information feels strange, and the fact that nobody's sighted her. The husband might be saying strange things due to nerves, but it all seems odd in tandem with the other two things. It's so sad for her family. All JMO

 

[Awakening]

Robert Baden-Powell invented the Scouting movement.

You're thinking of Allison Baden-Clay.

Thank you! Im old and get muddled up. I just remember she was a mum of three girls who went missing when she went out for a run.

 

[kiwi50]

Maybe a small thing, but I want to know who “flipped the bird” to media waiting outside the Murphy house, one may dislike the media, but if a relation of mine was missing, I’d be very grateful for any help the media would give me, and probably beg them to keep telling our story.
Why would you not want them on your side?

 

[SouthAussie]

Paul Nolan is a Newscorp journo who lives in Ballarat. He wrote a piece about what is happening among the locals.

He says that Samantha's family has valuable connections through small business, Catholic schools, and performing arts companies.
That the locals care about Samantha, whether they have met her or not. And that they are caring about her family.
The local people will keep making meals, and hugging the family, and searching every trail until they find some clue about what happened to Samantha.

Community spirit shines through as Ballarat searches for Samantha Murphy

 

[iamshadow21]

Maybe a small thing, but I want to know who “flipped the bird” to media waiting outside the Murphy house, one may dislike the media, but if a relation of mine was missing, I’d be very grateful for any help the media would give me, and probably beg them to keep telling our story.
Why would you not want them on your side?

I don't tend to think anything of that kind of reaction, because certain elements of the media will provoke by saying pretty vile things, to try to get a reaction for the camera. The media tends to care about the story, not the people, and a reaction makes a better story.

MOO