Why Sydney conwoman Melissa Caddick’s remains could be anywhere

Police divers will comb the water near Melissa Caddick’s Sydney mansion but an oceanographer has revealed just how far her remains may have travelled.

The remains of a missing Sydney conwoman may have travelled hundreds of kilometres out to sea and there’s no certainly they were carried in the same direction as her Asics shoe, which was found on the south coast three months after she vanished.

A desperate search is under way for the remains of conwoman Melissa Caddick after her decomposed foot washed up 400km from her home.

Police divers are expected to comb the water near her Dover Heights mansion, but an oceanographer has hinted at just how far things can travel.

Professor Moninya Roughan, who specialises in circulation along Australia’s east coast, said a team of researchers placed drifters into the water at Newcastle last year.

The UNSW-led study found the devices could float hundreds of metres out to sea before returning to shore months later. Previous studies also proved they can travel thousands of kilometres, but over many months.

Some drifters initially travelled north despite the majority being carried southward, presenting a theory that Ms Caddick’s remains could continue to turn up unexpected and in surprising locations.

Some drifters travelled as far as Jervis Bay over a two-month period.

“The timing was remarkable because it was about the week she (Ms Caddick) disappeared,” Professor Roughan told NCA NewsWire.

“It tells the story that it is possible for something to be deployed in the ocean in Sydney and end up as far as the south coast.”

Emergency crews search the coast at Mollymook where a man’s torso was found.

Police divers are waiting for conditions to improve before resuming the search near Dover Heights. Picture: NCA NewsWire/James Gourley

Many of the drifters got caught in an oceanic eddy (a whirlpool or large body of rotating water), travelling hundreds of kilometres out to sea before returning to the coastline.

Some drifters moved in the opposite direction, meaning if Ms Caddick did enter the water at Dover Heights, there’s a chance her remains travelled north if caught in this oceanic pattern.

“It’s possible things may have floated to the north first … anywhere up to Newcastle,” Professor Roughan said.

“At that time (of the study and disappearance) there was a period of northward flow which comes and goes. It’s more transient but circulations to the south are more dominant.”

Professor Roughan said occasionally her team would lose drifters in the ocean. Twice those instruments washed up years later, one on the west coast of New Zealand and the other on the Greater Barrier Reef.

“This is the problem with the ocean, nothing is impossible,” Professor Roughan said.

The red arrows show the drifters’ locations on December 1. Picture: UNSW

Compared with 30 days later on December 30. Picture: UNSW

Ms Caddick’s Asics runner and decomposed foot were found on Bournda Beach hundreds of kilometres from her Dover Heights home three months after she vanished.

“I’m not an expert in human remains but the shoe itself was the mechanism, it was buoyant, which is why it washed up,” Professor Roughan said.

“The question I’m asked is ‘why didn’t anyone see it (the shoe), it’s such a busy time of year’? It could have moved offshore, even 50km offshore is not unreasonable.”

Detectives have returned their focus to the waters below the Dover Heights cliff, just a few hundred metres from Ms Caddick’s $7m mansion.

When asked why this might be the case, Professor Roughan said there was a chance the other shoe got stuck or was wedged deep in the ocean, but that seemed “implausible”.

Melissa Caddick’s last movements remain a mystery.

Flowers at Melissa Caddick’s Dover Heights home. Picture: NCA NewsWire / James Gourley

More remains have washed up since the discovery of Ms Caddick’s shoe, including part of a human torso which was later revealed to belong to a Sydney man Kenneth Klees who vanished on February 1.

Bones and other remains have been found, some linked to animals. None have been connected to the Ms Caddick mystery.

Ms Caddick has not been seen since she vanished from her home in the early hours of November 12, two days after it was raided by the corporate watchdog and federal police.

She was accused of swindling family and friends out of millions of dollars through her financial business Maliver.