Former homicide detective Charlie Bezzina has lashed out at Victoria Police for their handling of the search for Samantha Murphy, criticizing a widely publicized search as a public relations stunt.
Wednesday marks 52 days since the 51-year-old woman disappeared after leaving her East Ballarat home to go jogging at Woowookrung Regional Park at 7am on February 4 in an unsolved case that has shocked the nation .
No trace of the mother-of-three has been found, even though Patrick Orren Stephenson, 22, has been charged with her murder.
A week ago, search teams returned to Mount Buninyong, south of Ballarat, in what was the first publicly announced search by the force since February 22. Footage from the search captured cadaver dogs, police on motorcycles and dozens of officers on foot preparing to search the area. land.
Despite enormous resources, the search was short-lived and police abandoned efforts at 2:30 p.m., after only eight hours.
Bezzina told Daily Mail Australia he expected more from investigators, describing it as a “show pony” search.
«There were no records of queues and they did not even involve the SES. From the outside, one might think that this is simply a public relations stunt,” he stated.
“The search seemed uncoordinated, it made no sense.”
Former homicide detective Charlie Bezzina (pictured) has criticized Victoria Police for launching a “show pony” search for missing mother-of-three Samantha Murphy.
The former detective was surprised that the police decided to stop the search at the new location so soon.
He claimed their decision to stop the search hours later had backfired, and pressure is now mounting for officers to close the matter with the Murphy family.
A Victoria Police spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia that last week’s effort was “an actual search conducted as part of a significant investigation.”
On Thursday, a day after the publicized search, Victoria Police Commissioner Shane Patton revealed on Melbourne radio that investigators were again searching elsewhere.
While the location of that search was not revealed, it was revealed that Australian Federal Police technology detection dogs had been taken into the bush.
The commissioner’s comment led police to admit they had been carrying out “small-scale searches” as part of their investigation for weeks.
“The whole investigation has been strange,” Bezzina said. “For the police chief to get involved and contradict investigators is very unusual.”
Police admitted on Tuesday that there were no updates on the location of Ms Murphy’s body, but the investigation was ongoing.
Ms Murphy, 51, was last seen leaving her East Ballarat home to go for a run on February 4.
Victoria Police have been criticized for spending just eight hours in a new search area
Stephenson will remain behind bars until his next court appearance in August and Bezzina said the murder case would continue in court even if investigators never found Murphy’s body.
“It could reduce the case a little and there will be no cause of death,” he said.
‘But we have had convictions without bodies before. “It will be based on the circumstances, that she ran away and never returned and this is out of character.”
Bezzina said if no body was found, it eliminated the possibility of finding evidence, such as DNA, that could link the alleged killer to her body.
“The police’s priority is to locate the body, first so that it can be returned to its family, then to determine causality and then as evidence,” he explained.
Investigators launched a new search at Buningyong Bushland Reserve last Wednesday.
Police on motorcycles (pictured) were part of new (and brief) search efforts last week.
The latest police searches were not even revealed to Ms Murphy’s immediate family.
Daily Mail Australia revealed last week how both Murphy’s husband, Mick, and her father, John Robson, were unaware of the searches in their own neighbourhood.
Murphy was seen on a desperately lonely journey through bushland as he tried to find the spot where police were looking for his wife’s body last Wednesday.
Robson later said that both he and his son-in-law were being excluded from any progress in the investigation.
‘We are in the dark friend. We have no idea what is happening. “Mick is in the same boat as us,” he stated.
Robson said he and his wife were no closer to getting the closure they so desperately needed.
“They haven’t told us anything,” he said.