Detectives have conducted a “targeted search” in a state park near Ballarat as part of the ongoing investigation into the disappearance of Victorian woman Samantha Murphy.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Victoria Police confirmed it had searched Enfield State Park, about 30 kilometres south of Ballarat, with the search likely to resume on Thursday morning.<\/p>\n
Ms Murphy, aged 51 at the time she went missing, was last seen alive on February 4, 2024, when she left her home in Ballarat for a morning run.<\/p>\n
Her body has not been found despite a number of police and community searches.<\/p>\n
In March last year, Ballarat man Patrick Orren Stephenson was charged with the murder of the mother of three.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday night, Victoria Police released a statement saying detectives from the Missing Persons Squad were searching in the Ballarat area.<\/p>\n
“Since February 2024, police have regularly undertaken a range of enquiries and small-scale searches as part of the current investigation,” the statement said.<\/p>\n
“We are not in a position to supply further specific details of today’s operational activity at this time.”<\/p>\n
Police have asked members of the public not to join the search at this time.<\/p>\n
Mr Stephenson, 23, has been scheduled to face the Supreme Court on April 8, and has pleaded not guilty to the murder charge.<\/p>\n
The trial will take place in Ballarat and is expected to last about six weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Detectives have conducted a “targeted search” in a state park near Ballarat as part of the ongoing investigation…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":405915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,50,191554,191553,191556,191557,191555,8344],"class_list":{"0":"post-405914","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-patrick-orren-stephenson","11":"tag-samantha-murphy","12":"tag-samantha-murphy-disappearance","13":"tag-samantha-murphy-murder-accused","14":"tag-samantha-murphy-search","15":"tag-victoria-police"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115615901925274442","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}