'Mum, we miss you so much': Family issues emotional plea for ...
The family of missing Ballarat woman Samantha Murphy has issued an emotional plea for help finding the 51-year-old mother after she disappeared while going for a run on Sunday.
Through tears, Murphy’s eldest daughter Jess thanked family and friends for their support and spoke directly to her mother at a press conference held at the Ballarat West police station on Thursday.
“Mum, we love you so much, and we miss you, and we need you at home with us,” she said.
“Please come home soon. I can’t wait to see you, and to give you the biggest hug when I do, and to tell you off for giving us so much stress. I love you.”
Murphy’s husband Michael, better known as Mick, also asked anyone who may have seen his wife or could have captured her on CCTV to come forward.
“People just don’t vanish into thin air,” he said. “Someone’s got to know something. You know, whether it be any little thing that you might think is relevant. Just call the police. Let them know.”
Jess said her mother was “a really strong woman, and she’s far too determined to give up this fight”.
She asked the media to stop taking photos of the family home. “I just want to be able to walk around my house and feel safe, and it’s a bit hard at the moment,” she said.
Murphy’s husband also asked for the family’s privacy to be respected. “If we’ve got something, we’ll come out and say it,” he said.
He thanked the Ballarat community for their support.
SES crews are seen searching the Canadian Plantation near Mount Clear for missing mother of three, Samantha Murphy.Credit: Chris Hopkins
“The generosity throughout the community has been unbelievable,” he said.
“If we went to accept all the food that [people] want to be cooked for us, we wouldn’t have to go to the supermarket for 12 months.”
A major search operation in the Woowookarung Regional Park expanded on Wednesday and uncovered unknown items shortly after midday, but police later said they weren’t related to Murphy’s disappearance.
Murphy left her house on Eureka Street in Ballarat East about 7am on Sunday to run in bushland known locally as the Canadian Forest.
Murphy’s family raised the alarm when she failed to return home later on Sunday, when the maximum temperature soared to 36 degrees, and police launched a public appeal on Monday.
Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton told radio station 3AW on Thursday morning that police had no new information and urged the public not to speculate online about her disappearance.
“It’s very, very concerning, the length of time that Samantha has been absent,” Patton said.
“Importantly, the public ... shouldn’t be going on social media and shouldn’t be speculating on what they think has occurred here. This is very early days. This is traumatic for the family and friends of Samantha.”
On Thursday, Acting Inspector Lisa Macdougall said emergency services were using drones, mounted police and a helicopter to search.
“There are no suspicious circumstances that we’ve identified at this stage,” she told the media.
Macdougall said the search area was focused on the Ballarat East, Canadian and Mount Helen areas.
A post by the administrator of the Find Samantha Murphy Facebook group said a family member of Murphy had passed on a message to the group, which has been co-ordinating volunteer searches and discussing information in the case.
“We would like to thank everyone for the overwhelming support of this amazing community,” the post said.
“We are holding up as strong as we can emotionally and physically. We pray that Samantha comes home soon safe and sound. We all miss her dearly.”
The post went on to address “misinformation … spread on all platforms that I want to inform people about”.
“Samantha’s phone pinging that far away from home is not usual. Yes, she walked in different directions, but she kept to the paths, never went for more than 10k total roughly and would let family know if she was walking further,” it said.
Jess, the daughter of missing Ballarat woman Samantha Murphy, pleads for information on her whereabouts.Credit: Nine News
“She is a very experienced walker who is in amazing condition. Some of the trails she has done around Victoria isn’t for the light-minded.”
On Monday, crews searched scrubland behind the Buninyong Golf Club and other parts of the Canadian Forest. On Wednesday, the focus shifted to the suburb of Mount Helen, east of Geelong Road. A third search party canvassed paddocks in nearby Warrenheip.
CCTV footage released by police on Wednesday showing a person running along Eureka Street has now been ruled out of the investigation, after a member of the community came forward to say it was them.
“The footage will no longer be relevant to the search for Samantha,” police said on Thursday afternoon.
A screen grab of a jogger (circled) captured on CCTV at 7.16am on February 4 in Ballarat. Police initially said it was missing woman Samantha Murphy, but have since confirmed that another person has come forward to identify themselves as the person in the footage.
Police continue to urge residents in the area to review their CCTV cameras for footage between 7am and 11am on Sunday to see if Murphy was spotted.
A friend of Murphy told Channel Seven on Thursday morning that the 51-year-old was a dedicated mother and described the situation as an “absolute nightmare rollercoaster”.
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She said Murphy had recently got back into running and was training for a race.
On Monday, Acting Inspector MacDougall said Murphy had been carrying her phone when she went out for the morning run. She said the earlier search zone near Buninyong Golf Club was set up close to where Murphy’s phone last pinged.
Murphy – who regularly jogs in the Canadian Forest – works with her husband, Michael, at Inland Motor Body Works, a smash repairs business in Delacombe.
“Sam is the head of administration and the backbone of the office,” the company website says.
Police have described Murphy as Caucasian, about 173 centimetres tall, with a slim build and shoulder-length blonde hair. She was last seen wearing black half-length leggings and a maroon or brown singlet.
The search involving Victoria Police’s search and rescue team, the mounted branch, canine unit, SES and CFA volunteers, and locals continues.
With AAP
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