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 #3

[mamamama9873]

I didn't see where they gave a time (or even a date) for that photo of her holding the dog poo. What was the time then?

That hasn’t been published as far as I know.

 

[Sarahlou]

I didn't see where they gave a time (or even a date) for that photo of her holding the dog poo. What was the time then?

She was last seen leaving her home in Eureka Street, Ballarat, at around 7am, Victoria Police said.
Police have also released two images of her - including one before she left for her run, captured on CCTV at her home

Australia: Victoria Police search for runner and mother-of-three who vanished six days ago

Missing persons detectives are now spearheading the search for Samantha Murphy who vanished without a trace six days ago and has not been seen since she left her home to go for a run.

news.sky.com

 

[Black-Cat]

I've just been reading about mobile phones and how they don't necessarily connect or ping from the closest tower. Sometimes a phone will connect to a tower because there is less terrain or obstacles, or a better signal. It is possible that SM's phone could hook into that tower from her home, and that she was not necessarily closer to the Bunninyong Golf Course.

IMO

 

[SouthAussie]

I didn't see where they gave a time (or even a date) for that photo of her holding the dog poo. What was the time then?

I personally don't think the media have just surmised the time of the photo. I think they have been informed by the police.


A CCTV camera in the family’s driveway captured her outside her Ballarat East home at 7am on 4 February, wearing a purple running singlet and black leggings.
A still image of the footage is now the last known image of Murphy.

Psychics and amateur sleuths toss unfounded theories into search for missing Ballarat woman Samantha Murphy

As the police investigation enters its second week, wild speculation and conspiracy theories spread on social media

www.theguardian.com

imo

 

[SouthAussie]

I've just been reading about mobile phones and how they don't necessarily connect or ping from the closest tower. Sometimes a phone will connect to a tower because there is less terrain or obstacles, or a better signal. It is possible that SM's phone could hook into that tower from her home, and that she was not necessarily closer to the Bunninyong Golf Course.

IMO

Well, the repeaters in the area were down, and everything was going through Bunninyong that day (according to the uncle).

But I do think there is a little bit more precision about it, even with just one tower. It is just not as accurate as triangulating from two or three or more towers. Instead it gives them a much wider search area on one side of the tower.

There is the strength of the ping on the tower - close or far. And there are sectors on the tower, so they can tell which side of the tower the ping was on by which sector recorded the ping.

Eg:
The mobile tower can determine that the signal is being received from the γ sector, and that the source of the signal is close to 8 km from the mobile tower.

Cell Tower Triangulation - GPYes Tracking Solutions

Cell Tower Triangulation is a technique used widely by mobile network operators, devices and phones to help identify their location. A device that is within communication range of three or more mobile network towers is located by the overlap of signals based upon its range from each tower.The...

www.gpyes.com.au

 

[Black-Cat]

Well, the repeaters in the area were down, and everything was going through Bunninyong that day (according to the uncle).

But I do think there is a little bit more precision about it, even with just one tower. It is just not as accurate as triangulating from two or three or more towers. Instead it gives them a much wider search area on one side of the tower.

There is the strength of the ping on the tower - close or far. And there are sectors on the tower, so they can tell which side of the tower the ping was on by which sector recorded the ping.

Eg:
The mobile tower can determine that the signal is being received from the γ sector, and that the source of the signal is close to 8 km from the mobile tower.

Cell Tower Triangulation - GPYes Tracking Solutions

Cell Tower Triangulation is a technique used widely by mobile network operators, devices and phones to help identify their location. A device that is within communication range of three or more mobile network towers is located by the overlap of signals based upon its range from each tower.The...

www.gpyes.com.au

So all phones in the area were going through that tower? It is possible then that her phone may have been at her home and that she never left the property. I think many people were thinking she must have been close to the Golf Course, which reinforced the idea that she had actually left and gone for a run.

IMO

 

[sapphire blue]

Did anyone pick this up? Things that make you go hmmmmmm

“You’d think the police dogs would have been able to pick up her scent. They should have been able to pick up where she ran into that forest.”

https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/news/samantha-murphy-family-members-of-missing-mum-believe-foul-play-was-involved-in-disappearance/news-story/f02ae1b5afb27699b0f4be04206343d4

 

[ZombieKittie]

There's a national missing persons register - for long term missing, which they define as more than 3 months.

View all profiles

Who is missing? In Australia, more than 38,000 missing persons reports are received by police each year. While most people are found within a short period of time, there remain approximately 2,600 long term missing persons; those who have been missing for more than three months. Missing persons’...

www.missingpersons.gov.au

There's a missing persons support and awareness group

The Missed Foundation

The Missed Foundation, formerly known as MPAN, raises awareness for missing persons and supports those left behind.

missed.org.au

There doesn't seem to be a cold case/ missing person combined where cases could be related even though we know the outcome for some cases.

The cold cases pages seem to be more ad hoc, differing by state at crimestoppers. South Aus is comprehensive.

Some cases get renewed attention when rewards are offered, but I can't find one place these are listed. Or why it's those cases.

Between one week and 3 months then, in Victoria, they're apparently not listed anywhere official. Unless someone else can work it out?

I know from looking into previous missing persons cases that unlike US we don't have a comprehensive database for all our missing persons and unidentified body's which I find incredibly heartbreaking. There are some civilian website that are rarely updated, hard to navigate and only have at best 25% of the missing people in Aus. This is partly because the state police don't have databases for the whole of Aus and each state operates differently. It's also why crime stats in Aus are really hard to track accurately. Or at least that is what we were taught 3 years ago in one of our first criminology subjects at uni

 

[SouthAussie]

So all phones in the area were going through that tower? It is possible then that her phone may have been at her home and that she never left the property. I think many people were thinking she must have been close to the Golf Course, which reinforced the idea that she had actually left and gone for a run.

IMO

As the link in my post says, they can tell how far away from the tower the phone was by the strength of the ping.

I am presuming that the ping was pretty strong on the tower at Bunninyong if they based their first main search area behind the golf course on the ping (as has been reported).

Samantha's home is further away from there, so likely would have been a weaker ping than it was, if her phone was there at the last ping.

imo

 

[SouthAussie]

Did anyone pick this up? Things that make you go hmmmmmm

“You’d think the police dogs would have been able to pick up her scent. They should have been able to pick up where she ran into that forest.”

https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/news/samantha-murphy-family-members-of-missing-mum-believe-foul-play-was-involved-in-disappearance/news-story/f02ae1b5afb27699b0f4be04206343d4

Maybe they did pick up her scent. Maybe her scent went in multiple directions. I am not sure the dogs would be able to tell if the scent they picked up was from Sunday, or Saturday, or Friday ...... Sam ran regularly.

imo

 

[sapphire blue]

Maybe they did pick up her scent. Maybe her scent went in multiple directions. I am not sure the dogs would be able to tell if the scent they picked up was from Sunday, or Saturday, or Friday ...... Sam ran regularly.

imo

the way it’s worded it sounds like they didn’t pick up her scent.

Considering it’s SMs aunt and uncle commenting about it, I mean if the dogs did pick up her scent there wouldn’t be any reason to have mentioned it

 

[SouthAussie]

I am just going to put this tower diagram here. It shows that they can locate a ping (from a single tower) into a band like the yellow band.

Keep in mind that is still a huge area to search for a little mobile phone that may or may not still be there.

Cell Tower Triangulation - GPYes Tracking Solutions

Cell Tower Triangulation is a technique used widely by mobile network operators, devices and phones to help identify their location. A device that is within communication range of three or more mobile network towers is located by the overlap of signals based upon its range from each tower.The...

www.gpyes.com.au

imo

 

[SLouTh]

Did anyone pick this up? Things that make you go hmmmmmm

“You’d think the police dogs would have been able to pick up her scent. They should have been able to pick up where she ran into that forest.”

https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/news/samantha-murphy-family-members-of-missing-mum-believe-foul-play-was-involved-in-disappearance/news-story/f02ae1b5afb27699b0f4be04206343d4

I have my own suspicions that Samantha didn’t get as far the Forest Track that morning … IMO Some sort of incident occurred shortly after she left home…

But with the dogs and scent at the park … how many people had walked those same trails on the Sunday before the dogs arrived to search?? There may have been some unintentional cross contamination before the dogs arrived on scene?? (Possibly mid afternoon?? If dogs had to travel to Ballarat.)

All MOOOOO

 

[ann3244]

Could have been not captured due to limitations of a cheap battery trigger recorded CCTV ( as I talked about a few pages back).

Having such a nice property/house and the extra additions added to the property since they bought in less than three years ago, and MM's car collection on the property, you would think that they would have spent the money for a decent CCTV system to help secure it all.

 

[Black-Cat]

As the link in my post says, they can tell how far away from the tower the phone was by the strength of the ping.

I am presuming that the ping was pretty strong on the tower at Bunninyong if they based their first main search area behind the golf course on the ping (as has been reported).

Samantha's home is further away from there, so likely would have been a weaker ping than it was, if her phone was there at the last ping.

imo

I guess we don't really know the strength of the ping. At that point they would have had the ping from the tower coupled with the info that they were told, that she had gone for a run. They had to start their search using what info they had.

 

[SouthAussie]

I have my own suspicions that Samantha didn’t get as far the Forest Track that morning … IMO Some sort of incident occurred shortly after she left home…

But with the dogs and scent at the park … how many people had walked those same trails on the Sunday before the dogs arrived to search?? There may have been some unintentional cross contamination before the dogs arrived on scene?? (Possibly mid afternoon?? If dogs had to travel to Ballarat.)

All MOOOOO

I don't know if you ever followed the Gary Tweddle case. The dogs tracked Gary from his hotel to the middle of a bitumen road, then that was it. We all thought he was picked up by a car there.
Turns out he wandered through the bush and fell off a cliff, was found on a ledge much later.

The dogs just couldn't track him there, for whatever reasons. I agree that the dogs are not infallible. Though many people think they are.

imo

 

[SLouTh]

The dogs are not infallible. Though many people think they are.

Agree….

I think the environment being searched, needs to be pristine … and not trampled on by anyone else, to be most successful …

IMO

 

[Warshawski]

New Article from The Age….

Victoria Police is actively engaged with a number of external agencies and telecommunications companies in an effort to get as much information as possible to assist the current search,” a spokesperson said on Tuesday. (Today)

“Given this investigation is active and ongoing, we are not in a position to provide further detail about these processes at this time.



Paywalled for some

Samantha Murphy’s husband hopes for good news as volunteers keep up the hunt

A community group determined not to let the missing Ballarat mum slip from memory has taken up the search effort with an event planned this weekend.

www.theage.com.au

Cheers SlouTh, thats a paywalled comment - which I’m not permitted to read

* Note however that it makes my blood boil when people with no idea of reality see an opportunity to plaster the rawest of human emotions across the world .

I can’t begin to imagine the pain that Sam’s kids are enduring -

 

[Warshawski]

What if an alleged abductor was parked up the lane further… ??? Watching and waiting in their car, possibly for a few hours waiting for Sam to enter the lane, and she routinely turns right onto the lane, (heading to Eureka Street) that person could approach her and abduct her from behind ..??

If the dogs were still inside the house, they may not have been aware ???

Just Speculation and IMO

My dog barks at a critter on the wall, a fallen palm frond. Yep also a stranger at the door. He’s a bit OCDC in his love & protection

 

[SLouTh]

I can’t begin to imagine the pain that Sam’s kids are enduring -

They must be bereft…. Imagine them waking up every morning, asking if Mummy has been found .??? It’s heartbreaking …

IMO