Man arrested over disappearance of Ballarat mother Samantha ...
A man has been arrested over the disappearance of Ballarat mother of three Samantha Murphy, who vanished more than a month ago.
Police said on Thursday that a 22-year-old man from Ballarat was in custody and assisting investigators with their inquiries.
Samantha Murphy was last seen outside her Ballarat East home on the morning of February 4.
Investigators confirmed they believed the man was not connected to the Murphy family.
Police said the man was arrested shortly after 6am on Wednesday at his home.
“He remains in custody, however no charges have been laid at this time,” police said in a statement.
Murphy disappeared on February 4 after telling family she was going for a 14-kilometre run on nearby trails.
The last known sighting of Murphy was on CCTV outside her home.
Murphy’s family reported her disappearance to police when she failed to attend a brunch later that day.
Her husband, Mick, told this masthead on Thursday he had been in contact with police all week but that he had not been told of Wednesday’s arrest.
He declined to make further comments until he had spoken to detectives.
Samantha Murphy’s husband, Mick, outside his home on Thursday.Credit: Jason South
Following the arrest, close family friend Paula Heenan said that, like everyone else in the community, she hoped for a positive outcome for Murphy.
Heenan, who is the Ballarat Centre of Music director, has taught all three Murphy children.
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She said the youngest children had recently returned to school and music classes.
“I do trust the police and the investigation. We’ll do whatever we can do, but I trust in the system, and hopefully we get an outcome,” Heenan said.
Mick didn’t comment as he left his house to pick up his daughter from school on Thursday. At the family’s panel beating shop, staff also declined to comment.
Murphy’s uncle, Allan Robson, said his niece’s parents had been through hell over the last two months.
Speaking from his home in Maryborough, a town about 58 kilometres north of Ballarat, on Thursday, Robson said it was a relief that the investigation was moving forward.
“As long as they haven’t forgotten about her,” he said.
Murphy’s disappearance has vexed investigators, who had been scouring the community and local bushland looking for evidence.
Last week investigators said they believed that Murphy was not alive as they probed the possibility that her body may have been moved from the area where she went missing.
Earlier this month, dozens of officers carefully sifted through bush at Mount Clear, about six kilometres from where Murphy was last seen, after mobile phone data pointed detectives to the area.
Hundreds of concerned residents also conducted their own search.
Acting Superintendent Mark Hatt, speaking earlier this month, said investigators had established Murphy had left her house on February 4 for a run, and made it to the Woowookarung Regional Park, formerly known as Canadian State Forest.
The last known image of Samantha Murphy.
He said the Mount Clear area searched was pinpointed by “intelligence derived from phone data”.
Detectives combed the area, which had been searched in the past, looking for smaller objects that could reveal clues about Murphy’s movements.
Investigators reviewed about 12,000 hours of CCTV footage and followed up more than 500 pieces of information.
Police can track a phone through “pings”, signals sent from a phone to a cell tower to establish a connection.
By analysing the signals sent and received by a phone, police can determine its location. However, this method is not as precise as GPS tracking and may only give an approximate location of a phone.
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