# Inside the Search for Samantha Murphy

An episode of [What Happened To…](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1812362613), 22 Sep 2026, 25 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/8c185e62-46f1-4292-81b7-b2d00059655d/52b67298-cff1-4b5a-8ff2-b4cd00695221/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=fcf80ea6-cd25-4daa-b194-b2d000596ad2

As the search for Samantha Murphy intensified, police canvassed the area while hundreds of volunteers joined the effort to find answers. Bush tracker Jake Cassar travelled to Ballarat to help search the surrounding terrain, bringing years of experience from other missing-person cases. He takes us inside the search, explaining the clues trackers look for, the challenges of the bushland and what caught his attention on the ground. IMPORTANT NOTE: This episode was originally recorded and published during the early stages of the investigation and reflects information publicly available at that time. Since its original publication, criminal proceedings relating to Samantha Murphy’s disappearance have commenced. This episode has not been updated to discuss those proceedings and does not address the person currently before the courts, the evidence in those proceedings, or questions of guilt or innocence. Nothing in this episode should be interpreted as commenting on, prejudging or seeking to influence any current court proceedings. The accused is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty according to law. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: A Poche Production.
[0:14] Speaker 2: Welcome back to What Happened to Samantha Murphy. A person
[0:17] Speaker 2: has been arrested and charged for Samantha's alleged murder in 2024.
[0:23] Speaker 2: There was an original suppression order on the accused person
[0:26] Speaker 2: and it was lifted back in 2024. He's since been
[0:29] Speaker 2: named as now 24-year-old Patrick Stevenson. In this podcast, we
[0:33] Speaker 2: make no assertions that Mr. Stevenson had anything to do
[0:37] Speaker 2: with Samantha's disappearance. This podcast is a retelling of the
[0:41] Speaker 2: show that was initially released in 2024 at the time
[0:45] Speaker 2: of Samantha's disappearance. The next few episodes, we're going to
[0:53] Speaker 2: look at the reaction from the community across the four
[0:55] Speaker 2: weeks before anyone was arrested in the search for Sam Murphy.
[1:01] Speaker 2: As we heard in the last episode from our former
[1:03] Speaker 2: detective inspector, Greg Lamy, the public and information plays a
[1:07] Speaker 2: vital role in helping find answers for Sam's family.
[1:11] Speaker 3: You've got to do that, Jay, because you might knock
[1:13] Speaker 3: on Mrs. McGillicuddy's door down the street and she's not
[1:17] Speaker 3: home and you say, oh, don't worry about it.
[1:19] Speaker 2: But Mrs.
[1:19] Speaker 3: McGillicuddy might have seen a lady running past. She might
[1:24] Speaker 3: have seen a car following her. You don't know. You've
[1:27] Speaker 3: got to canvas that. I mean, being a, The illusion
[1:31] Speaker 3: of what a detective does and is like in the
[1:33] Speaker 3: movies and on TV is often not the reality. It
[1:36] Speaker 3: can be a really, really hard slog where you've got
[1:39] Speaker 3: to talk to hundreds and hundreds of people to build
[1:42] Speaker 3: that picture. So on the ground, as soon as she
[1:44] Speaker 3: went missing, they would have started where she was last
[1:46] Speaker 3: seen and worked their way out.
[1:48] Speaker 2: It's now really obvious that the police knew much more
[1:51] Speaker 2: than they were telling the media, and for good reason.
[1:54] Speaker 2: It was important that they were able to carry on
[1:56] Speaker 2: their investigation. The armchair detectives had all sorts of theories
[2:00] Speaker 2: about what might have happened to Sam. Police did say
[2:04] Speaker 2: that there was no way that Sam disappeared because she
[2:07] Speaker 2: wanted to.
[2:07] Speaker 3: I think it's highly unlikely. I mean, they said that
[2:12] Speaker 3: about Lynn Dawson when all of a sudden in 1981
[2:17] Speaker 3: on the north shore of Sydney she apparently left her
[2:19] Speaker 3: kids and was never seen again. Very, very unlikely, I think,
[2:23] Speaker 3: for a mother to leave her kids. And I know
[2:25] Speaker 3: that's been said before, but can you completely rule it out? No,
[2:29] Speaker 3: you can't. But what you try and do as a
[2:31] Speaker 3: detective is build evidence around negating that. But that takes
[2:36] Speaker 3: time too. You can't just sit back and go, oh, no,
[2:37] Speaker 3: I don't think that would have happened. Well, how do
[2:40] Speaker 3: you know it wouldn't happen? Well, the reasons are when
[2:42] Speaker 3: they look into her victimology, as I said before, it's
[2:45] Speaker 3: so important, they would have probably found out she's a
[2:48] Speaker 3: loving mother. And no loving mother is just going to
[2:50] Speaker 3: get up one day and go for a run and
[2:52] Speaker 3: never come back.
[2:53] Speaker 2: Abduction is another that's been talked about. First thing that
[2:57] Speaker 2: strikes me as abduction is what would the motive be
[3:01] Speaker 2: for abducting someone?
[3:03] Speaker 3: Yeah, probably very, I can say this, statistically unlikely in Australia,
[3:08] Speaker 3: but it's happened. It's happened a lot. You know, people
[3:13] Speaker 3: would recall Kerry Whelan, who went missing from Parramatta. Yeah.
[3:18] Speaker 3: from an underground car park in Parramatta in the 90s.
[3:22] Speaker 3: Mind you, her body has never, ever been found either.
[3:25] Speaker 3: So it does happen. It's not something you would or
[3:30] Speaker 3: could rule out for this. But I would suggest that
[3:33] Speaker 3: the police in their investigations would have some evidence of
[3:38] Speaker 3: the reason for that. I think it's safe to say
[3:41] Speaker 3: that people just don't go around willy-nilly, randomly abducting people.
[3:46] Speaker 3: I think that's very unlikely. There's always a reason now.
[3:49] Speaker 3: Those reasons come back to greed or lust or money
[3:53] Speaker 3: and things like that, that sort of stuff. So they
[3:56] Speaker 3: would certainly be investigating that angle.
[3:59] Speaker 2: There was a case last year in a similar area,
[4:01] Speaker 2: literally just up the road from where Sam went missing.
[4:04] Speaker 2: This girl was bashed and she got away. Does that
[4:08] Speaker 2: then go, that abduction piece or that predatory behaviour in
[4:13] Speaker 2: that particular area, could that be a thing?
[4:16] Speaker 3: Oh, that would, to me as a detective, would be
[4:19] Speaker 3: of great interest. And they, I would suggest, be thoroughly
[4:24] Speaker 3: reinvestigating that. And I'm not suggesting that they didn't investigate
[4:28] Speaker 3: that at the time. I've seen the photos of that
[4:30] Speaker 3: lady on TV and she was pretty severely bashed. Certainly
[4:34] Speaker 3: now that would become a real focal point in talking
[4:37] Speaker 3: to her and reinvestigating that to see if it's connected.
[4:43] Speaker 2: Sissy Austin was attacked in the same general area as
[4:45] Speaker 2: Sam went missing in February, a year prior, while going
[4:49] Speaker 2: out for a run.
[4:50] Speaker 4: This is what happens when you go for a.
[4:53] Speaker 5: Run in the bush in Ballarat.
[4:57] Speaker 2: She said she was attacked by a shirtless man who
[4:59] Speaker 2: attacked her with a homemade weapon. She told Liz Hayes
[5:02] Speaker 2: on Channel 9's TV show Under Investigation.
[5:05] Speaker 5: Once I'd been knocked unconscious... It wasn't until I got
[5:10] Speaker 5: back to my car, I was searching for my phone
[5:13] Speaker 5: and realized that I actually had my phone on me
[5:15] Speaker 5: the entire time. And it's not something that crossed my
[5:20] Speaker 5: mind at all when I was trying to find my
[5:22] Speaker 5: way back after being knocked unconscious. So I think that's
[5:26] Speaker 5: because I was trying to get out there. It was
[5:29] Speaker 5: probably because I was scared, like I was disorientated.
[5:33] Speaker 2: In the next episode, we're going to have further information
[5:35] Speaker 2: from one of our experts about how Sissy's attack might
[5:38] Speaker 2: be linked to the attack on Samantha. But for now,
[5:42] Speaker 2: let's go to the search getting underway for Sam. The
[5:46] Speaker 2: police had a squad of about 30 detectives canvassing the area,
[5:50] Speaker 2: talking to neighbours and the family, trying to establish an
[5:53] Speaker 2: idea of what happened to Sam and a profile of
[5:56] Speaker 2: what was happening at the time. The community also rallied
[5:59] Speaker 2: behind the family and wanted to help. Over 300 volunteers
[6:04] Speaker 2: joined in the search for Sam, and as part of
[6:06] Speaker 2: that team, they reached out to an expert bush tracker.
[6:09] Speaker 6: My name's Jake Casper.
[6:10] Speaker 1: I'm from the central coast of New South Wales, about
[6:13] Speaker 1: an hour north of Sydney, or northwest. I'm living out
[6:16] Speaker 1: in the bush at the moment, out that way.
[6:19] Speaker 6: I'm 48.
[6:20] Speaker 1: I'm the proud father of a 10-year-old daughter, and I
[6:24] Speaker 1: teach bushcraft, survival, safe, sustainable foraging, and tracking.
[6:30] Speaker 2: And so, Jake, how did you get into this game?
[6:33] Speaker 2: How did you get into the bushcraft game?
[6:35] Speaker 1: Oh, my mum reckons when she put me on the
[6:37] Speaker 1: ground when I was a toddler, the first thing I
[6:39] Speaker 1: did was when I found.
[6:40] Speaker 6: Myself a semi-sharp stick and started digging. And not much
[6:45] Speaker 6: has changed.
[6:46] Speaker 1: Forty-something years later, I'm still right into getting out in
[6:50] Speaker 1: the bush and foraging for my tucker.
[6:53] Speaker 2: One of those many that you've worked on over the
[6:57] Speaker 2: last sort of 20 years is William Tyrrell. You were
[7:00] Speaker 2: involved in that in the early days. Talk to me
[7:03] Speaker 2: about how that came about.
[7:05] Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I'd just become a father at that point. And,
[7:08] Speaker 1: you know, if it was my child out there and
[7:11] Speaker 1: somebody had tracking skills, I'd definitely want them out there.
[7:14] Speaker 6: Couldn't really afford to do it at the time. I
[7:15] Speaker 6: was just volunteering.
[7:17] Speaker 1: I've had a couple of patients doing this, which is
[7:19] Speaker 1: always handy to make it sustainable. But, yes, I just
[7:23] Speaker 1: went and camped at the showground there. I met a
[7:24] Speaker 1: couple of guys from a local indigenous community. Whenever I
[7:27] Speaker 1: go into a community, I always try and, I guess,
[7:30] Speaker 1: get the blessing of the traditional custodians of that area
[7:33] Speaker 1: to walk country and let them know my intentions of
[7:36] Speaker 1: going to help the child or the missing person. And
[7:40] Speaker 1: I ended up just camping in the horse stable, literally
[7:42] Speaker 1: sleeping in the hay. And we got fed by all
[7:45] Speaker 1: the ladies at the showground.
[7:47] Speaker 6: And I spent about.
[7:48] Speaker 1: 12 or 13 days there looking for William with my
[7:52] Speaker 1: staff across at the time who decided he was going
[7:55] Speaker 1: to all of a sudden become a sniffer dog. I
[7:57] Speaker 1: encouraged him because he started sniffing around. I said, oh,
[8:00] Speaker 1: that's good, Benson. Go for it, mate.
[8:02] Speaker 6: And he ended up.
[8:03] Speaker 1: Sort of doing it with a bit more gusto. And
[8:04] Speaker 1: before you know it, he was finding other searches and
[8:07] Speaker 1: following trails and And, yeah, it was an amazing time.
[8:10] Speaker 1: There's always, like with the search for Samantha more recently,
[8:14] Speaker 1: there's always these morose undertones.
[8:19] Speaker 2: In addition to being involved in the William Tyrrell search, which,
[8:22] Speaker 2: of course, was not successful, Jake helped find a young
[8:25] Speaker 2: three-year-old boy who got lost in the New South Wales
[8:28] Speaker 2: forest back in 2021.
[8:29] Speaker 1: So, yeah, he was a young fella, young autistic fella, non-verbal, and, again,
[8:36] Speaker 1: a similar situation to.
[8:39] Speaker 6: to the young film of William Tyrrell.
[8:42] Speaker 1: I just felt compelled to get out there, although this
[8:45] Speaker 1: was a paid gig for me, but I would have
[8:47] Speaker 1: gone out there anyway. And then I met his family
[8:51] Speaker 1: and really struck a chord with the family straight away.
[8:54] Speaker 1: Apart from the tracking, I was just there to encourage them,
[8:57] Speaker 1: discourage them from getting involved in all the BS and
[9:00] Speaker 1: all the conspiracy theories and just allow the police to
[9:04] Speaker 1: do their job. I've got a great respect for the
[9:05] Speaker 1: police and the SES that every night, And I went
[9:09] Speaker 1: to sleep, I think we got him on day four.
[9:12] Speaker 1: Every night that I went to sleep without shaking uncontrollably,
[9:16] Speaker 1: because it was fairly cold, it was September, and it
[9:19] Speaker 1: was out in the scrubs, so it was fairly cold.
[9:21] Speaker 1: Every night that I didn't sort of get too cold,
[9:23] Speaker 1: I thought, well, that young fella's still alive out there.
[9:25] Speaker 1: I just slept in the garage on a thin yoga
[9:27] Speaker 1: mat with a thin blanket. They kept offering me other things.
[9:29] Speaker 1: I said, no, there's a reason why I'm doing this.
[9:32] Speaker 1: And eventually we found some disturbances. I'd searched in two
[9:37] Speaker 1: different areas, and it was at a point where I
[9:39] Speaker 1: felt like people were really about to give up. There
[9:41] Speaker 1: was still the police helicopter around, but it kind of
[9:44] Speaker 1: looked like they were packing up shop.
[9:45] Speaker 6: There was only about a dozen.
[9:47] Speaker 1: SES searchers there. The family, of course, was searching, but
[9:51] Speaker 1: everyone was saying to me, we've basically resigned to the
[9:54] Speaker 1: fact that he's been kidnapped, which is what they believed
[9:57] Speaker 1: at the time. And I uncharacteristically blew up a little
[10:01] Speaker 1: bit and said, you know.
[10:02] Speaker 6: Please stop saying that.
[10:03] Speaker 1: If there's any chance that he's out in the bush,
[10:06] Speaker 1: as soon as you, you know, throw that idea away,
[10:09] Speaker 1: then he could perish in the bush.
[10:10] Speaker 6: And one of the family members, one of.
[10:13] Speaker 1: The older guys said, he would have starved to death
[10:15] Speaker 1: by now. And I said, absolutely not. It's only been
[10:17] Speaker 1: a few days. People can go about a month without food.
[10:20] Speaker 1: And one of the other guys at the Lebanese Fair,
[10:23] Speaker 1: he goes, yeah, that's true. Jake was telling me that
[10:25] Speaker 1: the other day. And I said, he's got plenty of water.
[10:28] Speaker 1: He's got plenty of shelter. I said, again, I found
[10:30] Speaker 1: some traps over by the side of the track.
[10:32] Speaker 6: And one of the cops goes.
[10:33] Speaker 1: How do you know that wasn't a wombat pack? And
[10:36] Speaker 1: I said, well, mate, it could have been. But, you know,
[10:38] Speaker 1: you guys can all pack up. But I'm going to
[10:39] Speaker 1: be kicking on for at least another six or seven
[10:41] Speaker 1: days here, you know, whether these guys fund me to
[10:43] Speaker 1: or not. You know, I'm invested in this. And I
[10:46] Speaker 1: think there's a good chance he could have just got
[10:48] Speaker 1: lost in some thick bush around here. So I said,
[10:51] Speaker 1: I'm going to search here and then I'm going to
[10:52] Speaker 1: search over there. And given that the cops were still
[10:55] Speaker 1: searching and there were still a few SES guys having
[10:57] Speaker 1: a red hot go, we went over to the first
[10:59] Speaker 1: bit and the helicopter flew over the top of it.
[11:01] Speaker 1: went over to the second bit, and, yeah, they found
[11:04] Speaker 1: him only about 600 metres from the house, just scooping.
[11:07] Speaker 6: Up water and giving himself a drink.
[11:09] Speaker 1: Stand by, steady. I've got the boy.
[11:12] Speaker 7: Hope was never lost for AJ Alphaluck. His family always
[11:16] Speaker 7: believed he'd be found. A police helicopter about to leave
[11:20] Speaker 7: the search spotted him from the sky, drinking water, instinctively
[11:24] Speaker 7: trying to survive. he was found in a creek near
[11:27] Speaker 7: his family home after three rainy nights and bitter cold
[11:30] Speaker 7: temperatures as low as 10 degrees only suffering light scratches
[11:35] Speaker 7: and minor bruising to his legs here they come here
[11:38] Speaker 7: they come a turn of events no short of miraculous
[11:42] Speaker 7: for no one more so than aj's mom.
[11:50] Speaker 1: So that was very very satisfying the fact that he
[11:55] Speaker 1: He had mozzie bites that were four days old, mozzie
[11:58] Speaker 1: bites that were three days old, two.
[11:59] Speaker 6: Days old and fresh.
[12:01] Speaker 1: He had sunburn that was just starting to peel. Normally
[12:03] Speaker 1: it takes three or four days for that to happen.
[12:05] Speaker 1: To me, it suggested that he had indeed been in
[12:08] Speaker 1: the land that whole time.
[12:10] Speaker 6: And I was quite confident that.
[12:12] Speaker 1: The young fella just got lost. And I was able
[12:14] Speaker 1: to go back to that spot and find the entry
[12:16] Speaker 1: and exit points. showing where he'd come in and out
[12:19] Speaker 1: of the bush. But I was able to find a
[12:20] Speaker 1: cave that night and you could see his handprint. I
[12:23] Speaker 1: measured that and then compared that to his hand when
[12:25] Speaker 1: I saw him. I was able to find his tracks
[12:28] Speaker 1: as well, which were 19 centimetres by 6.5 centimetres by
[12:34] Speaker 1: 5.75 centimetres at the heel and able to get that
[12:36] Speaker 1: picture of what happened there.
[12:38] Speaker 2: Jake was invited down to Victoria to search for Sam
[12:40] Speaker 2: by the volunteers. They'd all pitched in to help for
[12:43] Speaker 2: flights and accommodation. And Jake landed for three days to
[12:46] Speaker 2: not only help with the search, but also give the
[12:49] Speaker 2: volunteers some lessons in bush tracking.
[12:52] Speaker 1: The ground crew got in touch with me. One of
[12:54] Speaker 1: the young ladies, Chloe, got in touch with me and
[12:57] Speaker 1: I just started offering whatever advice I could. And essentially
[13:01] Speaker 1: I just went there for three days.
[13:03] Speaker 6: To help train them up in tracking, I was going.
[13:05] Speaker 1: To say I'm not an SDS style, state emergency service style,
[13:09] Speaker 1: sort of search and rescue coordinator. But meeting up with
[13:13] Speaker 1: one of the local legends in that area, Dave, who's
[13:16] Speaker 1: just a real champion, and Chloe, we all just got
[13:18] Speaker 1: together and started to come up with a plan. Again,
[13:21] Speaker 1: I'm only focused on tracking. and dealing with a lot
[13:25] Speaker 1: of media at the time. Later, we came up with
[13:27] Speaker 1: the strategy of, okay, if we're going to be doing
[13:29] Speaker 1: all these interviews, okay, this issue is red hot at
[13:31] Speaker 1: the moment now with the media anyway. Let's try and
[13:34] Speaker 1: get numbers to the big search on Saturday. So we
[13:37] Speaker 1: just mentioned that and I did a big call out
[13:39] Speaker 1: for all the men in the community, the hunters, the prospectors,
[13:42] Speaker 1: the people that know about navigation and have book skills.
[13:45] Speaker 1: And that really, really helped get numbers on the ground.
[13:48] Speaker 1: But yeah, something really special happened in Ballarat and I
[13:51] Speaker 1: think we're getting something to get up that can be
[13:54] Speaker 1: used and transcribed to other areas across the country where
[14:00] Speaker 1: we can actually help the community with their search and rescue.
[14:04] Speaker 2: Jake, tell me about once you get on ground at
[14:06] Speaker 2: somewhere like Ballarat, what's the first thing you do as
[14:09] Speaker 2: a tracker?
[14:11] Speaker 1: Well, the first thing I do is find that space
[14:13] Speaker 1: with the local traditional custodians. And I was fortunate enough
[14:16] Speaker 1: to be able to do that. They welcomed me with
[14:18] Speaker 1: open arms and stuff. and then I headed up to
[14:21] Speaker 1: the highest. Dave took me, who I just met while
[14:23] Speaker 1: I was there. Dave took me to one of the
[14:26] Speaker 1: highest lookouts in the area, and I got to sort.
[14:28] Speaker 6: Of take in the whole topography.
[14:32] Speaker 1: I just got up high on the top of a lookout,
[14:34] Speaker 1: which is not far from where Stan went missing, and
[14:36] Speaker 1: was able to kind of take in the overall landscape
[14:41] Speaker 1: and look at areas which were called safe zones.
[14:43] Speaker 6: So a safe.
[14:44] Speaker 1: Zone is an area where if we go searching, let's
[14:47] Speaker 1: say we get disoriented, and that's happened from time to time,
[14:51] Speaker 1: we can actually, any direction, we had north, south, east, west,
[14:55] Speaker 1: we will find our way to a track, to a road,
[14:59] Speaker 1: to a creek, to the ocean, to civilization, whatever it
[15:02] Speaker 1: might be. And then I started to look at areas
[15:05] Speaker 1: where she could have potentially been lost. And then without
[15:08] Speaker 1: going into graphic details, in case the family ever has
[15:10] Speaker 1: to hear this podcast, I looked all along the really
[15:14] Speaker 1: thick scrub, as much as I could, in just a
[15:19] Speaker 1: few days. The thick scrub that had been sort.
[15:22] Speaker 6: Of, in my opinion, hadn't been penetrated.
[15:25] Speaker 1: So just looked throughout those areas there and covered as
[15:29] Speaker 1: much ground as I could in case she had been
[15:32] Speaker 1: indeed attacked and then taken into the bush or someone
[15:36] Speaker 1: got a phone and threw it into the bush or
[15:37] Speaker 1: there was some kind of evidence that came up in
[15:40] Speaker 1: those areas.
[15:41] Speaker 6: And when I first got.
[15:42] Speaker 1: In around that lookout, got into the bush with Dave,
[15:45] Speaker 1: and I can't say what, we did find something that
[15:49] Speaker 1: if that area had been thoroughly searched, that should have
[15:52] Speaker 1: been spotted. And that's not a criticism of cops or
[15:57] Speaker 1: the SES. You know, a lot of people told.
[16:00] Speaker 6: Me on Facebook, oh, there's no point in searching.
[16:02] Speaker 1: It's all really open country here. Yep, there's a lot
[16:05] Speaker 1: of open country, but there's a lot of really thick
[16:07] Speaker 1: scrub where you could trip over the top of someone
[16:09] Speaker 1: before you saw them.
[16:10] Speaker 2: I won't ask the detail about what you found, but
[16:13] Speaker 2: what you did find has been handed over, I'm guessing.
[16:15] Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely.
[16:16] Speaker 1: Straight away, they put back to the cops. And it
[16:20] Speaker 1: wasn't only that. Tracking, to me, is not only, you know,
[16:24] Speaker 1: searching for tracks and looking for signs, but it's trying
[16:27] Speaker 1: to find answers.
[16:28] Speaker 6: So, you know, we went into town.
[16:30] Speaker 1: And spoke to the locals. I spoke to a young
[16:33] Speaker 1: Indigenous lady who was down at one of the outreach centres,
[16:38] Speaker 1: like a soup kitchen. It's a buff. It's a wonderful
[16:40] Speaker 1: service they have out there. Just chatted to people on
[16:43] Speaker 1: the ground, you know, We particularly focused on the attack
[16:48] Speaker 1: on Sissy, which was pretty much a year before this,
[16:51] Speaker 1: and that really caught my attention. That was one detail
[16:53] Speaker 1: that really caught my attention. And as many people as
[16:57] Speaker 1: we put on the ground there and just tried to
[16:59] Speaker 1: gather any kind of intel we could.
[17:01] Speaker 6: We were very transparent about it.
[17:03] Speaker 1: They came out with flies and said, listen, this is
[17:05] Speaker 1: what we're doing.
[17:05] Speaker 6: We're looking at them.
[17:07] Speaker 1: I'm an attacker, but that includes any way we can
[17:09] Speaker 1: find them. We're here to help. We're certainly... not here
[17:12] Speaker 1: to hinder the authorities in any way, shape or form.
[17:14] Speaker 1: We want to complement what they're doing and stay out
[17:17] Speaker 1: of their way, you know, search the areas that haven't
[17:19] Speaker 1: been searched and also just see if anyone would be
[17:22] Speaker 1: willing to open up to us and share any information
[17:24] Speaker 1: with us. And so, yeah, we've got a little bit
[17:26] Speaker 1: of information there that we're able to share as well.
[17:28] Speaker 2: One of the things mentioned was bird signals could be
[17:31] Speaker 2: an important part of you finding someone in bushland like
[17:36] Speaker 2: Samantha's gone missing in or was last sighted in at least.
[17:40] Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it could be a variety of different things.
[17:43] Speaker 1: Let's separate it from Samantha for a sec, just for
[17:45] Speaker 1: sensitivity for the family. But let's say we're looking for
[17:47] Speaker 1: a missing dog that's deceased, and this kind of thing's
[17:50] Speaker 1: happened before. You know, you might have a goanna visiting
[17:53] Speaker 1: that site, and when you get a goanna lurking around
[17:55] Speaker 1: who they carry on, like eat dead stuff, then you'll
[17:59] Speaker 1: have all the birds absolutely going off, especially the native miners.
[18:02] Speaker 1: I call them the guard dogs of the bush. But
[18:05] Speaker 1: it's not only birds you're looking out for. It would
[18:07] Speaker 1: be crows. It would be all the different birds with
[18:09] Speaker 1: the alarm calls. But it could be flies. There was
[18:11] Speaker 1: a missing dog here once. And I said to my friend,
[18:15] Speaker 1: I said, oh, listen, listen out for flies and look
[18:17] Speaker 1: out for flies. And how we ended up finding the
[18:19] Speaker 1: dog was it was a single fly flew past my
[18:22] Speaker 1: head and I just angled myself so I didn't have
[18:24] Speaker 1: the sun in my eyes so I could follow the
[18:26] Speaker 1: fly and followed it for a while and eventually lost it.
[18:29] Speaker 1: Then I said to my friend, try and pick up
[18:30] Speaker 1: a scent, you know.
[18:31] Speaker 6: Something dead.
[18:33] Speaker 1: And eventually just got that tiny, tiny little microscopic, tiny
[18:37] Speaker 1: little scent and followed that.
[18:39] Speaker 6: Fly in the distance.
[18:40] Speaker 1: I said, really open up your ears. And then eventually
[18:42] Speaker 1: we could hear the buzz of the flies. Unfortunately, we
[18:45] Speaker 1: found a staffy that looked like my little old staffy
[18:47] Speaker 1: that had passed away. It's really about activating all your
[18:51] Speaker 1: senses and really tuning in when you first get there.
[18:55] Speaker 1: You know, I've been a very sensitive star that visits
[18:58] Speaker 1: someone's mother, someone's sister, someone's wife. And with all the
[19:02] Speaker 1: horrible things that go around at the time with all
[19:04] Speaker 1: the lounge chair detectives and internet sleuths, you know, I
[19:09] Speaker 1: just wanted, I really wanted to get in there and
[19:12] Speaker 1: help the community to ideally find Samantha alive, although the
[19:16] Speaker 1: chances of that are getting thinner and thinner.
[19:23] Speaker 2: How were the police, when obviously you're an independent with
[19:26] Speaker 2: the Grand Crew who are also independents and volunteers.
[19:29] Speaker 1: Yeah, I had no dealings with the police and I
[19:31] Speaker 1: often don't. I wait for them to come to me
[19:34] Speaker 1: if indeed they do. I think tracking is not widely
[19:38] Speaker 1: accepted in Australia anymore and that's fair enough. I mean,
[19:42] Speaker 1: it's their job to be suspicious and to, you know,
[19:46] Speaker 1: but also it should be their job to remain open-minded.
[19:49] Speaker 6: I've been very.
[19:50] Speaker 1: Responsive with the police over the years. I've had a
[19:53] Speaker 1: little bit of support, and I've had some police sort
[19:55] Speaker 1: of go above and beyond just quietly to assist me
[20:00] Speaker 1: in what I'm trying to do. So I have no
[20:03] Speaker 1: dealings with them, but from what I've heard from locals,
[20:06] Speaker 1: there's some really passionate police out there that are putting
[20:10] Speaker 1: in the big hours.
[20:11] Speaker 6: To try and find answers here.
[20:12] Speaker 1: So... If the police come to me and they ask
[20:15] Speaker 1: me for any information, I'll certainly give that to them.
[20:18] Speaker 1: I have given them some information this time around as well.
[20:20] Speaker 1: I had quite a good conversation with one of the
[20:22] Speaker 1: local detectives last week.
[20:24] Speaker 6: And she was lovely.
[20:26] Speaker 1: And sounded like she was doing a great job and
[20:29] Speaker 1: was very interested in some ideas that I had and
[20:32] Speaker 1: some different things that I found and different things that
[20:35] Speaker 1: I saw and different things that I heard. So yeah,
[20:38] Speaker 1: hats off to them.
[20:38] Speaker 6: I think they're doing.
[20:39] Speaker 1: Absolutely everything they can and they want to crack these cases.
[20:42] Speaker 1: Even if they had the people power on the ground,
[20:47] Speaker 1: it would be extremely difficult to cover all of that
[20:50] Speaker 1: untouched stuff around the edges of.
[20:51] Speaker 6: The bush there.
[20:52] Speaker 1: So that's where you get someone like myself and some
[20:55] Speaker 1: community volunteers to get in and.
[20:57] Speaker 6: Rip into that.
[20:58] Speaker 2: Do you get a chance to examine any of Samantha's
[21:01] Speaker 2: shoes or understanding what the shoes she was wearing on
[21:03] Speaker 2: the day? And did that help you in your efforts?
[21:06] Speaker 6: Yeah, I did ask about that.
[21:07] Speaker 1: We were unable to get that information.
[21:09] Speaker 6: You know, my mother turned around and.
[21:11] Speaker 1: Said she was wearing white night, and.
[21:13] Speaker 6: I did pursue for a while trying.
[21:15] Speaker 1: To find out exactly what kind they were. By the
[21:17] Speaker 1: time I got there, it was a couple of weeks in. Now,
[21:20] Speaker 1: you wouldn't throw away the possibility that she could have
[21:25] Speaker 1: walked in some semi-dry mud.
[21:26] Speaker 6: I think it rained quite.
[21:28] Speaker 1: Hard about three days after she went missing, which can
[21:31] Speaker 1: be bad, but if the person's still around and still alive,
[21:34] Speaker 1: it can set nearly like a cement. So that can
[21:37] Speaker 1: be a little window of opportunity, quite literally, to find
[21:43] Speaker 1: or either person that you're tracking.
[21:45] Speaker 6: But, yeah, I wasn't too.
[21:47] Speaker 1: Worried about that because if I was out in a
[21:50] Speaker 1: remote area and I found tracks that were a person
[21:54] Speaker 1: or persons walking or dragging someone or something through the bush,
[21:58] Speaker 1: then that would have caught my attention and I would
[22:00] Speaker 1: have followed those tracks.
[22:01] Speaker 6: But I was surprised.
[22:02] Speaker 1: In some areas to find some very, very undisturbed ground.
[22:05] Speaker 1: Fairly open woodland and grassland going into semi-wet sclera falls
[22:11] Speaker 1: that have been very, very disturbed over the years. You
[22:14] Speaker 1: can see that I think maybe a massive bushfire might
[22:17] Speaker 1: have gone through there 10 or 15 years ago. I
[22:19] Speaker 1: doubt it was around the same time as the bushfires
[22:22] Speaker 1: we had here. There were some trees that have been burnt.
[22:25] Speaker 1: So there wasn't a great feel of diversity through there.
[22:27] Speaker 6: There was some fairly thick grass.
[22:30] Speaker 1: On one side of the track, you had fairly open woodland.
[22:33] Speaker 1: and mainly xantholidae species, grass trees, and eucalypt species. And
[22:38] Speaker 1: that area was quite easy to start off by circumnavigating
[22:42] Speaker 1: and zigzagging through those areas. And then to the left-hand
[22:45] Speaker 1: side of the track, a track that Sam used to
[22:46] Speaker 1: apparently run quite often, it would have been really, really
[22:50] Speaker 1: clear to be able to see if anyone or anything
[22:52] Speaker 1: had been dragged through or pushed.
[22:53] Speaker 6: Through or walked through that scrub. So there was a
[22:56] Speaker 6: couple of areas of interest. that I really.
[22:59] Speaker 1: Focused my energies on it and with a small group
[23:02] Speaker 1: that I was with in the very little.
[23:03] Speaker 6: Time that we had there.
[23:05] Speaker 1: You know, some people criticised and said, well, you know,
[23:08] Speaker 1: if it looks unpenetrated, then isn't that because no one's
[23:11] Speaker 1: been in there and nothing's been in through there? And
[23:13] Speaker 1: I said, really, really good question, good comment and fair call.
[23:16] Speaker 1: But what if someone threw something in the bush there,
[23:19] Speaker 1: some kind of evidence or something was.
[23:21] Speaker 6: you know, like obviously a.
[23:22] Speaker 1: Weapon, a mobile phone, sandwich man, white ear pods, an
[23:26] Speaker 1: item of clothing, putting my phone into those areas. So
[23:29] Speaker 1: I was, you know, really focused on making sure that
[23:32] Speaker 1: we did our best to leave no stone unturned.
[23:34] Speaker 2: In the next episode of Missing Pieces, the search for
[23:37] Speaker 2: Samantha Murphy. We've already heard from searchers on the ground,
[23:40] Speaker 2: but what about the other things that leave tracks? Tracks
[23:44] Speaker 2: that these days can't be wiped over. We chat to
[23:47] Speaker 2: an expert in following those digital footprints to help find Sam.
[23:51] Speaker 4: From a police point of view, what they're trying to
[23:53] Speaker 4: do is to identify all those people in the area
[23:58] Speaker 4: at the time when Samantha Murphy went missing. And so
[24:04] Speaker 4: they will look at.
[24:06] Speaker 4: All of the devices that connected to the towers in
[24:09] Speaker 4: the vicinity of that forest.
[24:45] Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to this episode and supporting this story.
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