Australia Samantha Murphy, 51, last seen leaving her property to go for a run in the Canadian State Forest, Ballarat, 4 Feb 2024 *Arrest* #11

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BreakingNews said:
I don't think he was meticulous in hiding the body. I think he just got lucky. MOO
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In a country side littered with old mineshafts, and around 5000 reported to be hidden around Ballarat itself, I’m not sure whether the adjectives of either ‘meticulous’ or ‘lucky’ would apply to the hiding of her body. Maybe for a guy who grew up in the area & may have had many years of exploring, the location was so very easy to find.
 
drsleuth said:
Maybe he didn't even initially realise she had her phone? ( if it was in a side pocket of her pants- which is where I think it might have been) Did he than think oh crap.... she might have had a phone on her?

I also wonder if he used the phone to ping in multiple places, to, for want of a better words, lead to cops on a "wild goose chase" & finally dumped it where it was found, maybe in a rush as by this time people where out everywhere......I also imagine he may have been a bit paranoid by this stage.

So much we don't know. Trying to put the puzzle together with so many missing pieces.

All IMO & just my rambling thoughts........
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Why release this information about finding her phone publicly, and not anything else leading up to it?

We haven't been told, If Samantha had a cellular Apple Watch, there would have been no need for her to take her phone.

There has been no release from the police on descriptions on what they are looking for with Samantha, can the public help If they find these items etc in the bush ?

Whoever put the phone in the dam clearly wanted to dispose of the whole contents of the folder. The question is why this dam? Was it just convenient? Or planned? They either didn't expect the phone to ever be found, or didn't care if it was found later, as long as they disposed of it.

Out of the blue, the phone is found, in perfect working order.!

In my thoughts, if it was the accused with the phone, the smart thing to do would be to immediately disable the phone, then drive it a long way away before disposing of it.

If the offender still had Samantha with them, the smart thing would be to disable the phone and dispose of it with her body at the same time. That way you are not worried about holding evidence
Stopping and chucking it into a random dam only increases the chances of getting caught and seen by witnesses, CCTV
 
Scooby-Doo said:
Why release this information about finding her phone publicly, and not anything else leading up to it?

We haven't been told, If Samantha had a cellular Apple Watch, there would have been no need for her to take her phone.

There has been no release from the police on descriptions on what they are looking for with Samantha, can the public help If they find these items etc in the bush ?

Whoever put the phone in the dam clearly wanted to dispose of the whole contents of the folder. The question is why this dam? Was it just convenient? Or planned? They either didn't expect the phone to ever be found, or didn't care if it was found later, as long as they disposed of it.

Out of the blue, the phone is found, in perfect working order.!

In my thoughts, if it was the accused with the phone, the smart thing to do would be to immediately disable the phone, then drive it a long way away before disposing of it.

If the offender still had Samantha with them, the smart thing would be to disable the phone and dispose of it with her body at the same time. That way you are not worried about holding evidence
Stopping and chucking it into a random dam only increases the chances of getting caught and seen by witnesses, CCTV
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Who knows. Thankfully I've never been in that position :D


Why that Dam? maybe after allegedly murdering SM, he wasn't quite thinking straight. He may have been pressured , by whatever, maybe time, seeing someone he knew, who knows, we don't?

Obviously the cops targeted that Dam area, even bought in an excavator, tech dogs, their intelligence lead them there & just maybe it was obvious that they would be searching there, doesn't seem like somewhere they could hide? Maybe it was a big show for PS & than wait & see how he reacted?

IMO they were very confident in what they were looking for.

I wonder if PS's DNA was on that phone at all? Wouldn't that be something :oops:
 
Trooper said:
FWIW I don't think the phone was thrown from the road.. I did, at first, but they found 'other artifacts'.... ( this word drives me spare ) type unknown, or, undisclosed... logically, it would be a very lucky thrower who landed the phone AND the artifacts in the same place, so I have come to think those things,, the phone, and the 'artifacts' were thrown from inside the fence, while on the property at some point.

Not necessarily by Stephenson, either. Maybe someone he gave the phone to, with a new SIM card, or someone who found it serendipitously , then realised what it was and hurled it away, not wanting to be part of it at all.....
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Agree Trooper, to me a strange choice of word - but maybe not. An ‘artifact’ is usually considered to be an object that’s been humanly crafted, especially a tool, weapon, or ornament of archaeological or historical interest - IMO.
I wonder if he had an interest in prospecting, archaeological digs etc.

Having said that, I thought the phone was found in its case, along with her cards & other identifying objects etc - were they the so called ‘artifacts’ I wonder.
 
Finding the phone seemingly out of the blue and making it very public was a strategy to place pressure on PS IMO. An attempt to make him feel uneasy and shatter any confidence that he may have had in his ability to conceal evidence.

After the find, stories then trickle out suggesting that the phone was still in working order, this adds to the pressure, leaving PS not knowing whether further evidence can obtained from the phone.

Police hoped he would crack under pressure and divulge information to investigators or someone else. All designed to get him to talk IMO.
 
Scooby-Doo said:
Why release this information about finding her phone publicly, and not anything else leading up to it?

We haven't been told, If Samantha had a cellular Apple Watch, there would have been no need for her to take her phone.

There has been no release from the police on descriptions on what they are looking for with Samantha, can the public help If they find these items etc in the bush ?

Whoever put the phone in the dam clearly wanted to dispose of the whole contents of the folder. The question is why this dam? Was it just convenient? Or planned? They either didn't expect the phone to ever be found, or didn't care if it was found later, as long as they disposed of it.

Out of the blue, the phone is found, in perfect working order.!

In my thoughts, if it was the accused with the phone, the smart thing to do would be to immediately disable the phone, then drive it a long way away before disposing of it.

If the offender still had Samantha with them, the smart thing would be to disable the phone and dispose of it with her body at the same time. That way you are not worried about holding evidence
Stopping and chucking it into a random dam only increases the chances of getting caught and seen by witnesses, CCTV
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I think you answer your own question. He in all probability forgot to dump the phone when he dumped the body.

Saying that, Modern Apple phones have a function that allows it to be found even when the phone runs out of power or turned off. If he is aware of that , he is unlikely to dump the phone with the body. Given he was described as the 'Elon Musk" as a teenager, I am sure he knows this.

Throwing a phone into water makes it undetectable. Microwaves just don't travel through water very well. You may note the telephone was found out of the water on the side of the dam. The thought crossed my mind that the police had pinged the co-ordinates of the phone when the water level dropped. The fact that the phone was in working order suggests this is quite possible. It's possible they may have used other intelligence. I doubt the phone was on after he attacked her as they would be able to trace it using phone dumps in the period after her disappearance. They have already stated that the phone went silent from the morning she disappeared.

WE know the phone pinged at Buninyong, we just don't know when. Was this also apple/telstra pinging the phone using the same technique? I doubt he would have turned the phone back on as Dr Sleuth has suggested as a wild goose chase.

Question is why not destroy the phone with a hammer before disposing of it.

Imho he dumped the body where he could not be seen. He dumped her that day, most probably that morning. The smell would have been dreadful if he kept her in the back of a 4WD in the heat. He dumped the telephone later possibly a different day.
 
Lemony said:
Finding the phone seemingly out of the blue and making it very public was a strategy to place pressure on PS IMO. An attempt to make him feel uneasy and shatter any confidence that he may have had in his ability to conceal evidence.

After the find, stories then trickle out suggesting that the phone was still in working order, this adds to the pressure, leaving PS not knowing whether further evidence can obtained from the phone.

Police hoped he would crack under pressure and divulge information to investigators or someone else. All designed to get him to talk IMO.
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Yes & they may have an undercover op in with PS?
 
Lemony said:
The condition of the phone has been discussed in previous threads, not sure if this article was posted.

"A data recovery expert has said "there would be a lot of data" retrievable from the phone found this week in the search for missing Ballarat woman Samantha Murphy".

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Xanthe Mallet is a forensic Anthropologist whose expertise is facial reconstruction. She inserts herself into every case whether her expertise is useful or not. I consider her a bit of a media tart. She is not a data expert.
 
I think we need to be careful with our assumptions on how smart or otherwise the accused is.

Unless he is a serial killer, this was his first rodeo and we don't even know if it was premeditated. So he may not have put much thought into it and in panic, may have made any number of mistakes.
 
drsleuth said:
Who knows. Thankfully I've never been in that position :D


Why that Dam? maybe after allegedly murdering SM, he wasn't quite thinking straight. He may have been pressured , by whatever, maybe time, seeing someone he knew, who knows, we don't?

Obviously the cops targeted that Dam area, even bought in an excavator, tech dogs, their intelligence lead them there & just maybe it was obvious that they would be searching there, doesn't seem like somewhere they could hide? Maybe it was a big show for PS & than wait & see how he reacted?

IMO they were very confident in what they were looking for.

I wonder if PS's DNA was on that phone at all? Wouldn't that be something :oops:
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Or someone else. They have to link the accused with that dam

Or did Samantha take her phone as she was only going for a quick run or just her watch ? We don't know much about her smartwatch, if it was a cellular model etc ?

Could have the police had found her phone earlier in a search and kept quiet?
Possibly planted it there at the dam themselves ? Staged ?
Funny How a camera crew were on hand to capture everything, including perfect photos of the phone in its wallet, for all to see. And the police high-fiving and jumping for joy
Possibly police suspect someone may have further knowledge of, or may have assisted in disposal of the body, phone, watch or other items, and police wanted to observe that person's reaction to the search and see what they did, where they went, who they spoke to...
It doesn't add up to me !
It still leaves unanswered questions about the phone, how and when it got there
 
Scooby-Doo said:
No, doesn't sit with me. The last thing you want after you murdered someone is to still have the phone. I can't understand why he just didn't destroy it, throw it down a mine shaft etc
But to then leave all her ID in it and throw it carelessly into someone's dam
We don't know if the accused has done this, someone else could have ?

There is no direct evidence that we know of linking drug use or abuse to Samantha's disappearance
It is unlikely that a drug-crazed offender could and would have successfully concealed the body in such a short time without detection.
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There is conflicting information. One article says that he was out at many venues in Ballarat the night before the disappearance. Police were looking at footage and tracing his footsteps I am not sure where the 80th birthday info came from.
 
australianwebsleuth said:
Xanthe Mallet is a forensic Anthropologist whose expertise is facial reconstruction. She inserts herself into every case whether her expertise is useful or not. I consider her a bit of a media tart. She is not a data expert.
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This one is a data expert thou


Paraphrased:

Data Detect's spokesperson, which is a company that specialises in retrieving data from mobile phones, said contents would be preserved if the phone was a late-model iPhone or Samsung.

The spokesperson for Data Detect said such models were hermetically sealed so they could be used in water.

They said there would potentially be information of great assistance to investigators, particularly related to the movements of Ms Murphy, including tracking information, there would be alot of data.

Xanthe is also a criminologist
 
Cliff Hardy said:
I think we need to be careful with our assumptions on how smart or otherwise the accused is.

Unless he is a serial killer, this was his first rodeo and we don't even know if it was premeditated. So he may not have put much thought into it and in panic, may have made any number of mistakes.
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But we don't know if he put the phone in the dam. Police have not stated that, they have to link him to the dam. Which will be part of his defence
 

Paraphrased:

This article also says that the dam area was of interest to the police due to it's proximity to a nearby phone tower, the last which Mrs Murphy’s phone pinged off.

Police had also searched that stretch of road many times, but the water levels in the dam had dropped recently.

Also property owners were told approx 1 week before that the police could be searching the area again.

The dam is 5km south of where SM's phone last pinged a moible phone tower about 5pm & 10km south of SM's home. It is 7km from where PS was arrested.
 
Cliff Hardy said:
It depends what else the police have on him. They may have him cold regardless of the phone.
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It doesn't prove intent.
It proves nothing unless police can connect the offender with the phone or the dam. If anything, finding the phone without finding Samantha opens up more possibilities, including one where the phone was disposed of by someone other than the accused.
 
Trooper said:
'So the defendant was recovering from a drug and alcohol fueled bender.'... this is not , so far, a designated concrete occurrence. Apparently, he attended a birthday party for an 80 yr old the Saturday night, he had been filmed on a drug and alcohol interlude back in January, these two events should not be conflated. at this point.

Not to say, that 80 yr old's birthday parties should not be alcohol and drug fuelled, I certainly intend mine to be, and much more, it's a free country, pay your taxes, do what you want, but generally speaking , they are usually staid and subdued affairs, on the whole....
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This is the information I have read about the bender. Is it not correct?

 
australianwebsleuth said:
This is the information I have read about the bender. Is it not correct?

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I disregard anything on sky news. This does not mean you must, it merely informs one that anything out of sky news is meaningless, to me as it is an entertainment organisation, not a news channel. When 'his friends' testify in court that he was on a bender the night before is when I'll be taking it on board. Entirely up to you , though. So far, all that has been reported from Ballarat is amateur clips of him on a drunken drug rage back in January. I won't be arguing with you about it, either.
 
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Scooby-Doo said:
It doesn't prove intent.
It proves nothing unless police can connect the offender with the phone or the dam. If anything, finding the phone without finding Samantha opens up more possibilities, including one where the phone was disposed of by someone other than the accused.
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As little as we know - and we don't know much for certain in this case - the police have evidence damming enough to convince the DPP to allow them to proceed with a charge of murder. How did they described that brief of evidence in court again? Substantial?

It may be that the prosecution have been dealt a hand good enough here that they don't even need to 'discard' in the hope of improving on it. We shall see.
 
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