Police in Victoria are now saying publicly they doubt missing Ballarat woman Samantha Murphy is alive and they suspect at least one person is involved in her disappearance. She's now been missing for three weeks after leaving her home for a run. While police won't say if they have identified any suspects a police team has narrowed in on a smaller area in the hunt for new evidence.
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00:00 Forensic and specialist teams scouring a targeted area of dense bushland, hoping the smallest
00:07 clue will spark a new lead, even as a brace for the worst.
00:12 Unfortunately, given the time and the fact we've found no trace of her, we do have severe
00:19 concerns and are very doubtful that she is still alive.
00:23 This part of Mount Clear near Ballarat has been searched before and Samantha wasn't found.
00:28 Police say mobile phone data led them here today and while they're still looking for
00:32 her phone and her body, they're also looking for more evidence.
00:37 What we're looking for today is more intricate details of what may have happened on the day.
00:42 Police are exploring the possibility she may have been removed from the area by one person
00:47 or more.
00:48 We have ruled out that she suffered any sort of medical episode and we have no information
00:54 to suggest that she left the area of her own accord.
00:57 The 51-year-old was seen leaving her Ballarat East home on CCTV just after 7am on February
01:03 4th.
01:04 Police believe she ran through the Canadian State Forest, running about 7km over the next
01:09 hour before reaching today's search area in Mount Clear.
01:14 Authorities say they're reviewing 12,000 hours of CCTV and over 500 separate pieces of information
01:20 related to the investigation.
01:22 We're looking into everything we possibly can to find out what happened to Samantha.
01:26 And while police say Samantha's husband is not a suspect, they remained tight-lipped
01:31 on who was.
01:32 Everyone in relation to Samantha is a person of interest.
01:36 In our investigation we are speaking to everyone that was in her life.
01:39 While police combed through this part of Mount Clear today, tomorrow 200 local residents
01:45 plan to carry out their own search in hopes of finding Samantha.
01:49 Just so many of us around Ballarat and Australia, indeed the world, who just want to know what
01:56 happened to Sam.
01:57 So many of us identified with her as mums, as runners.
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