Samantha Wilson walked a long way from home to drink poison

A bottle of poison and a death in dense bushland have left locals pondering the mystery of what happened to Samantha Wilson.

Samantha Wilson’s body was found by deer hunters in a high country valley.

The woman who sometimes called herself Samantha Wilson was unlucky in love.

The truth is, she had bad taste in men. One of her partners boasted to his mates he had made his previous wife walk on all fours and bark like a dog.

It was an ugly story of sex and violence from a man who didn’t realise that even his “mates” were disgusted. But those who knew him were careful not to show it because of his brutal streak: he once killed a dog with a pair of pliers in front of horrified children.

No one knows how many men like that had been involved with “Samantha Wilson” before she turned up in 2016 in one of Victoria’s most remote spots — a high country valley at Abbeyard, between Mt Buffalo and Wonnangatta.

“Samantha”, whose real name was Tracey Lee Whittaker, reputedly had a chequered past in New South Wales and Queensland. But, at least for a while, she seemed to have found a haven in the bush of north-eastern Victoria with her latest boyfriend.

She posted pictures of herself luxuriating in an outdoor bath, adding a gushing caption: “There is a paradise”. Occasionally, she would head north to do some off-the-books work in regional cities like Wagga Wagga or Wodonga.

Ms Wilson had recently split with her partner before she disappeared in the high country.

“Sam” had a ready smile and laugh lines, liked cooking and gardening. A mother herself in another life, she got on well with children. Some locals warmed to her friendly personality.

But it was clear she had a troubled past. One local landholder told another that “Sam” owed money interstate and was careful to keep a low profile and obscure her identity, though whether to avoid the law or dangerous law-breakers wasn’t clear.

It struck some that she didn’t seem to have any genuine “ID” in the name she used.

The speculation about her patchy background was exactly that — speculation. What is true is that she vanished in the winter of 2018, not long after her previously blissful relationship had turned sour.

It was bad luck that her most recent partner, a sometime shearer, itinerant bush worker and keen hunter, didn’t report her disappearance.

This oversight might easily and innocently be explained by the fact “Sam” had taken trips away before, perhaps for weeks at a time, and her latest absence at first might have seemed no different from others.

Besides, the deer hunter and she had split up before she vanished, and he had started a relationship with another woman so he could not be sure exactly when it was that the missing woman’s absence turned into a disappearance.

Like some others who retreat to hideaways in remote areas, “Sam” was an itinerant fringe dweller and came from what seemed a harder place.

Police were unaware Ms Wilson had vanished from Abbeyard until her body was found eight months later.

But it turns out that her prolonged absence wasn’t because she was in jail or on the run. Any speculation about her true whereabouts was shattered on May 11, 2019.

That afternoon, deer hunters’ hounds drew their handlers to the scent of something dead in scrub below a “switchback” — a hairpin bend at least 5km along a track from the property where Samantha had been last seen the previous winter.

When the hunters investigated, they found a woman’s decomposed remains. A summer in the open meant the remains were not recognisable but police forensic experts were eventually able to identify them as the remains of a person named in early reports as Samantha Wilson. Her true identity was established later.

Intriguingly, police had recovered a bottle of poison found next to the dead woman’s remains. The implication seemed to be that she had carried the bottle there herself but there was no way to prove or disprove that.

It struck sceptical investigators and anxious locals as a long way for a 53-year-old woman to walk in rough country, and a strange place to kill herself — if that’s what happened.

The body was off the track, well obscured. Apart from the chance finding by a curious hound, it would probably never have been seen again.

Why would she trudge so far to such an obscure spot before killing herself? Occasionally, suspected suicides happen without bodies being found, but such cases mostly often involve deep water rather than deliberate hiding. And many, if not most, suicide victims leave a note or otherwise say something that flags their intent.

Ms Wilson seemed to have finally found some peace in her life in the bush.

Whatever the facts of Tracey Lee Whittaker’s disappearance, some people in the district where she died doubt she deliberately killed herself. But it’s possible she voluntarily drank something poisonous without realising, perhaps thinking it was “moonshine” liquor that some people distil in the hills.

If her death wasn’t suicide, then someone or something else must have caused it, either accidentally or deliberately. The only people who might know something are tight-lipped and nervous and insist on anonymity.

Many locals find it hard to believe she took her own life.

“Everyone’s adamant about that,” one resident told the Herald Sun, listing reasons why. Starting with the fact that police were unaware of her disappearance until her remains were found eight months after she was last seen.

Another strange detail was what seemed like an orchestrated barrage of social media messages viciously disparaging the missing woman soon after she disappeared, describing her with obscene language as a “whore” and a thief and insinuating she had staged her own disappearance.

Locals say that when police finally went to the house where she had been living, all her clothes and possessions had been burnt.

Those who know how rugged the area is doubt that a middle-aged woman would have walked 5km by choice and then stumbled off the track into scrub before taking poison.

They wonder whether the poison found at the scene could have been placed there to promote the suicide scenario.

Police have, as a matter of routine, had to interview those people who last saw the missing woman — and those she knew best in the district. Investigators usually start close to home, so near the top of that list is her “ex”, a man renowned for his volatile nature and willingness to defend “his” hunting territory.

One man was terrified when the ex-partner struck his vehicle with a wood-splitter — a heavy blunt axe with a wedge-shaped steel head.

The victim told police he was lucky not to be seriously hurt. The man was charged and appeared at Myrtleford Magistrates’ Court, where a kind-hearted magistrate placed him on a good behaviour bond and ordered him to pay $100 to a Country Fire Authority brigade.

The court’s apparent leniency did not impress officers of the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) and Parks Victoria responsible for patrolling vast areas of wilderness.

A source close to the investigation has told reporters that police suspected the woman’s body had been tampered with post-mortem.

“They didn’t believe where she was found was where she died and that perhaps someone had moved her there afterwards,” the source said.

The Sunday Herald Sun is not suggesting the ex-partner or anyone linked to him is involved in Tracey Lee Whittaker’s death, only that they were spoken to by police.

The investigation continues, pending a full coronial inquiry. One of the photographs the coroner will study shows what happens to a body left for wild animals to eat for months. It also shows that the deceased was wearing heavy farmyard gumboots … perhaps not the ideal footwear to wear for a 5km trek.

Anyone with information should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential report online at www.crimestoppersvic.com.au.

Originally published as Samantha Wilson walked a long way from home to drink poison