{"id":11021,"date":"2024-02-14T08:47:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-13T22:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=11021"},"modified":"2024-02-14T06:50:02","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T20:50:02","slug":"forensic-psychologist-reveals-shocking-new-theory-about-missing-ballarat-mum-samantha-murphy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=11021","title":{"rendered":"Forensic psychologist reveals shocking new theory about missing Ballarat mum Samantha Murphy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The frantic search for missing Ballarat mum Samantha Murphy has continued for an eighth day but a leading forensic psychologist has unveiled a concerning new theory about what happened to the 51-year-old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ms Murphy failed to return to her East Ballarat home, in the Central Highlands, after going for a run on February 5 in the Canadian State Forest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dozens of police, SES, Country Fire Authority, loved ones and locals have been searching for the mother-of-three over the past week&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.skynews.com.au\/australia-news\/shift-in-community-search-for-samantha-murphy-after-facebook-group-dedicated-to-finding-missing-mum-quietly-shuttered\/news-story\/df374b1871817318e16dfac3c43eb2bc\">but police are reportedly limited by a lack of leads<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Forensic psychologist Tim Watson-Munro said he had \u201cnever encountered\u201d a case like Ms Murphy\u2019s, whose sudden disappearance has captured national attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-13.jpeg\" alt=\"Ms Murphy disappeared during a morning run near her home in Ballarat on February 5. Picture: Supplied.\" class=\"wp-image-11025\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-13.jpeg 1280w, https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-13-300x169.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-13-1024x576.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-13-768x432.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Ms Murphy disappeared during a morning run near her home in Ballarat on February 5. Picture: Supplied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere&#8217;s no evidence, Chris. She&#8217;s literally vanished off the face of the Earth,\u201d Mr Watson-Munro told Sky News host Chris Kenny on Monday evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere&#8217;s no clues at all. The police have wound back. They&#8217;re searching the forest. They&#8217;re relying on CCTV footage if it exists. Video cameras from cars and so on. But I&#8217;ve never encountered a case like this where someone ostensibly goes for a run and they&#8217;re never seen again. It&#8217;s very unusual.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr Watson-Munro has analysed some of Australia&#8217;s most infamous criminals, including notorious Melbourne underworld figure Alphonse Gangitano and mass murderer Julian Knight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The expert said there were \u201ca number of possibilities\u201d of what happened to Ms Murphy but that the mum appeared to have a happy family life prior to her sudden disappearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-12.jpeg\" alt=\"Ballarat locals search through the bush for missing mum Samantha Murphy on Saturday. \nPicture: NCA NewsWire \/ Ian Wilson.\" class=\"wp-image-11024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-12.jpeg 1280w, https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-12-300x169.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-12-1024x576.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-12-768x432.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Ballarat locals search through the bush for missing mum Samantha Murphy on Saturday. Picture: NCA NewsWire \/ Ian Wilson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe family life seems to be happy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe saw harrowing footage the other day of a daughter who is in deep distress with her father. Look, there&#8217;s a number of possibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOne of them is that she had been stalked for a while. I&#8217;ve done a lot of profiling. Stalkers love routine of their potential victims.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Victoria Police formally scaled back search efforts for Ms Murphy over the weekend due to a lack of leads and handed the investigation over to the Missing Persons Unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr Watson-Munro said a possible explanation was that a stalker had abducted Ms Murphy and the perpetrator \u201cknows a lot about evidence and covering their tracks\u201d. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-11.jpeg\" alt=\"Volunteers continue to search for Ms Murphy.  Picture: NCA NewsWire \/ Ian Wilson.\" class=\"wp-image-11023\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-11.jpeg 1280w, https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-11-300x169.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-11-1024x576.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-11-768x432.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Volunteers continue to search for Ms Murphy. Picture: NCA NewsWire \/ Ian Wilson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThat&#8217;s one possible explanation. She went for a run, and she was abducted on a van or a car and taken away from the potential crime scene,\u201d he theorised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAnd I think that&#8217;s probably one of the reasons why the police wound back the physical search in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI gather that there was a ping from a mobile phone some distance away and then a drop out. So obviously a phone was either thrown away as a decoy or she made it that far and then the phone died out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBut the fact that there&#8217;s no evidence, there&#8217;s no witnesses, if you follow that line of inquiry, then you&#8217;re dealing with a fairly calculating, intelligent person who understands forensic procedures and somebody who knows a lot about evidence and covering their tracks. Terribly clever and psychopathic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Source: SkyNews\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The frantic search for missing Ballarat mum Samantha Murphy has continued for an eighth day but a leading forensic psychologist has unveiled a concerning new [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":11023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[273,471,32],"tags":[472,4239,8],"class_list":["post-11021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-news","category-news-and-opinion","tag-australian","tag-ballarat","tag-victoria"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11021"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11028,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11021\/revisions\/11028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}