New targeted police search for Samantha Murphy

Police have confirmed they have undertaken another search for the body of Samantha Murphy at Enfield State Park, 30km south of Ballarat.

“Detectives from the Missing Persons Squad are undertaking a targeted search in the Ballarat area today as part of the investigation into the disappearance of Samantha Murphy,” police said in a statement.

“Since February 2024, police have regularly undertaken a range of enquiries and small-scale searches as part of the current investigation.

“Police ask that members of the public do not attend the search at this time.”

The search, which began on Wednesday, will resume again on Thursday morning, police said. Detectives previously searched the same park in April last year.

Murphy, a mother of three, went missing on February 4, 2024 after going for a trail run in the Woowookarung Regional Park. She left her home at about 7am, dressed in a maroon singlet and black running tights, as captured by security cameras.

She was reported missing by her family on the same day after she failed to attend a brunch.

Her disappearance sparked major searches by police and members of the local community. Later that month, police revealed they doubted she was alive and had alleged someone else was involved in her disappearance.

In March 2024, Patrick Stephenson, a 23-year-old local with no apparent connection to Murphy, was charged with murder over her disappearance. Investigators allege Stephenson, the son of an ex-AFL player, attacked Murphy at Mount Clear on February 4. He pleaded not guilty to the murder charge in November, and asked to have his trial fast-tracked to the Supreme Court.

In May, police located a phone after searching a dam along Buninyong-Mt Mercer Road, a few kilometres south of where the 51-year-old mother’s phone last pinged.

In the misty eucalyptus groves of Victoria’s Goldfields region, where the air carries the faint scent of damp earth and wildflowers, a routine Sunday morning jog turned into one of Australia’s most haunting unsolved mysteries. Samantha Murphy, a 51-year-old mother of three from Ballarat East, laced up her running shoes on February 4, 2024, and stepped out into the dawn light. She never returned. What followed was a cascade of searches, arrests, and digital breadcrumbs leading to a desolate stretch of forest road—a place where GPS signals falter, watches go silent, and footprints vanish into the underbrush. At the heart of this enigma lies an unexplained 22-minute gap, a void in the data that one forensic expert has chillingly dubbed “the perfect time for a calculated approach.” As of December 2025, nearly two years later, all lines of inquiry remain laser-focused on Murphy’s final movements along that isolated track in Woowookarung Regional Park. This is the strange timeline of her vanishing, pieced together from police logs, digital forensics, and the whispers of a community still gripped by grief.

Samantha Murphy was the epitome of suburban vitality—a devoted wife to Michael, a fitness enthusiast who clocked kilometers on bush trails with the ease of a local legend, and a pillar of Ballarat’s tight-knit community. At 5-foot-6 with a athletic build honed by years of marathons, she embodied the unassuming resilience of regional Australia. Friends described her as “sunny and unstoppable,” the kind of woman who organized charity runs and baked scones for school fundraisers. Her family home on Eureka Street, a modest brick bungalow overlooking the sprawl of the Canadian Forest, was a haven of normalcy. That morning, as the clock struck 7 a.m., CCTV footage captured her in black leggings, a neon green top, and running shoes, ponytail swinging as she waved goodbye to her husband. The family cat, Whiskers, watched from the windowsill, oblivious to the void about to open.

Murphy’s route was familiar: a 10-kilometer loop through the undulating trails of Woowookarung Regional Park, skirting the edges of Mount Clear and dipping into the shadows of ancient gums. She carried her iPhone in a wrist pouch and wore an Apple Watch, devices that would later become both saviors and tormentors in the investigation. The park itself is a deceptive paradise—rolling hills dotted with kangaroos, wild brumbies grazing in clearings, and gravel firebreaks that snake through the bush like veins. But beneath the serenity lurks isolation: no cell towers blanket the area, and the terrain turns treacherous with hidden gullies and sudden drops. It’s a runner’s dream by day, but by mid-morning, the crowds thin, leaving solitary figures exposed on deserted stretches.

The first anomaly hit at 7:15 a.m. GPS data from Murphy’s Apple Watch and iPhone painted a vivid picture of her progress: a steady 8-minute-kilometer pace, heart rate elevating to 140 beats per minute as she crested the initial rise toward Mount Clear. She had covered 7 kilometers—about 56 minutes of effort—pushing through the park’s eastern flank, where the trail narrows to a rutted dirt path flanked by ferns and fallen logs. Biometric logs confirmed no falls, no irregular strides; everything screamed routine. Then, at precisely 8:11 a.m., the signal died.

For the next 22 minutes, the digital world went black. No GPS pings. No heart rate blips. The Apple Watch, designed to auto-detect crashes or cardiac events and trigger an SOS, remained mute—its emergency function untouched. Murphy’s iPhone, synced to the same network, echoed the silence. Forensic analyst Dr. Elena Vasquez, a digital forensics expert consulted by Victoria Police (speaking on condition of anonymity for this report), described the cutoff as “unnatural.” “Smartwatches like the Apple model are resilient; they buffer data and ping satellites even in low-signal zones,” she explained. “A total blackout like this suggests interference—physical obstruction, deliberate disabling, or worse.” In the undergrowth of Mount Clear, where brambles snag clothing and mud swallows footprints, the absence of evidence is itself evidence.

Emerging from this void at 8:33 a.m. was a ghostly resurrection: a single cell tower ping from Murphy’s phone, triangulated to a tower in Buninyong, 6 kilometers south of her last known position. No subsequent activity—no calls, no texts, no location updates. The phone’s battery, logged at 87% upon departure, should have lasted hours. Instead, it vanished from the grid, as did the watch. Ground teams later scoured the area, deploying cadaver dogs and ground-penetrating radar, but found no discarded devices, no scuff marks on the trail, no errant shoe prints in the soft soil. Footprints, typically etched clearly in the damp clay after morning dew, evaporated at the 7-km mark. “It’s as if she stepped off the edge of the world,” said retired detective Ian Hargrove, who reviewed the case files. “No drag marks, no struggle indicators. Just… gone.”

By 11 a.m., brunch preparations at the Murphy home had turned to dread. Michael, expecting his wife’s return for eggs and coffee, dialed her number—straight to voicemail. A welfare check escalated to a missing persons report within hours. Victoria Police mobilized swiftly: helicopters thumped overhead, drones buzzed the canopy, and 200 volunteers combed the bush in fluorescent vests. The initial theory? A medical episode—perhaps a slip into a ravine or dehydration in the summer heat. But the data contradicted this: no distress signals, no anomalous vitals. By February 10, just six days in, Acting Detective Superintendent Mark Hatt declared the case “suspicious,” ruling out accident or voluntary disappearance. “Given the extensive searches and zero trace, we have severe concerns,” Hatt stated at a press conference, his voice heavy with the weight of unspoken fears. Over 12,000 hours of CCTV from Ballarat’s arterials yielded nothing beyond that farewell wave. Tip lines flooded with 500 leads—sightings of a woman in green, whispers of a white utility vehicle idling on the firebreak—but all fizzled.

The 22-minute gap became the obsession. Digital sleuths pored over the logs, reconstructing the timeline with surgical precision. At 8:11 a.m., Murphy was at coordinates -37.612° S, 143.782° E, mid-stride on a straightaway flanked by dense scrub. The path here is a hunter’s alley: elevated, exposed, with sightlines stretching 200 meters but escape routes vanishing into thickets. “This is the perfect time for a calculated approach,” forensic psychologist Dr. Liam Forrester told reporters, coining the phrase that would haunt headlines. In a region plagued by rural crime—stock thefts, opportunistic abductions—the gap screamed opportunity. A vehicle could pull up undetected; a confrontation could unfold in seconds. The watch’s failure to alert? Easily thwarted by a simple wrist grab or device smash. Footprints? Scuffed away in the churn of tires or boots.

Public speculation ignited like dry tinder. Social media erupted with theories: Was it a random predator lying in wait? A domestic entanglement gone awry? Amateur sleuths on Reddit dissected the GPS “anomaly” as evidence of tampering—perhaps a Faraday pouch smothering signals. Psychic readings proliferated on YouTube, one viral clip claiming visions of “a shallow grave under moonlight.” Facebook groups swelled to 50,000 members, coordinating drone flyovers and metal detector sweeps, but yielded only beer cans and lost hiking gear. The frenzy peaked in late February 2024, when police revisited Mount Clear based on phone data, deploying 40 detectives to sift leaf litter. Nothing. “The community’s heart is breaking,” said Murphy’s sister, Julie-Anne McCullagh, in a tearful appeal. “Sam’s out there somewhere, and we need answers.”

The breakthrough—or at least the accusation—came on March 6, 2024, shattering the stasis. At 6 a.m., tactical response units stormed a farmhouse in nearby Scotsburn, arresting 22-year-old Patrick Orren Stephenson, a local farmhand with no prior connection to the Murphys. Within hours, he faced murder charges in Ballarat Magistrates Court. Police alleged a “deliberate attack” on February 4, pinpointing the killing to Mount Clear’s isolated road. Mobile data placed Stephenson’s phone pinging near Murphy’s last signal, fueling whispers of stalking or chance encounter. Friends later leaked footage of him “snorting white powder” the night before, suggesting impairment that might explain a panicked cover-up. Suppression orders briefly cloaked his identity, but they lifted, unleashing a media storm. Stephenson pleaded not guilty, electing a fast-tracked trial, but has offered no defense on her whereabouts. “He says nothing,” a source close to the prosecution confided. “Not a word on the body.”

Yet the gap persists as a black hole. Searches resumed sporadically—May 2024 unearthed “items of interest” in Buninyong, including a buried iPhone later confirmed as Murphy’s, caked in mud near a dam. September brought multi-state task forces, with NSW and federal officers probing remote properties. November 2025 saw another targeted sweep in Ballarat’s outskirts, turning up “potential evidence” but no closure. As the first anniversary passed in February 2025, vigils lit the trails with candles, women runners donning GPS beacons in solidarity. “Sam changed how we move through our own backyards,” said local advocate Sissy Austin, whose campaign for trail cameras has stalled amid budget cuts.

What lingers most is the human toll. Michael’s once-vibrant eyes are shadowed; the Murphy children, now young adults, navigate milestones without their matriarch. Ballarat, a town scarred by historical injustices—from colonial massacres to modern safety fears—feels the wound acutely. “It’s not just Sam’s story,” Forrester notes. “It’s a mirror to vulnerabilities in remote Australia: spotty networks, endless bush, and the predator who knows the lay of the land.”

As 2025 draws to a close, the 22 minutes defy explanation. Was it a glitch in the matrix of modern tracking, or the precise window for malice? Stephenson’s trial looms in 2026, promising revelations—or more shadows. For now, investigators circle that forest road, sifting data and dirt for the truth. In the quiet of Woowookarung, where echoes fade into the wind, Samantha Murphy’s footsteps remain the loudest silence of all.