Phone found in fresh search for Samantha Murphy’s body

A phone has been found on farmland near Ballarat during a renewed search for the body of missing woman Samantha Murphy, marking the biggest breakthrough in the high-profile case since a man was charged with her murder.

Television cameras captured police closely inspecting a dam along Buninyong-Mt Mercer Road on Wednesday afternoon, a few kilometres south of where the 51-year-old mother’s phone last pinged when she disappeared on a run in February.

Crime scene officers soon arrived at the property after a sniffer dog drew police to the dam’s banks.

A television camera captured a pair of officers then donning masks, laying down a yellow evidence marker and photographing a phone.

Aerial footage of the scene showed some searchers hugging. Shortly after 4pm, a police diver entered the dam.

A police source, speaking anonymously owing to the sensitivity of the investigation, was confident the phone was Murphy’s.

Australian Federal Police technology sniffer dogs had been brought in from interstate for the targeted search.

Victoria Police confirmed “some items of interest” had been found, but didn’t specify a phone was among them. However, television cameras clearly capture a phone being inspected.

“The area has been cordoned off, and those items will now be forensically tested,” police said in a statement. “At this stage, we are not providing further information about the items until that testing has been completed.”

The discovery of the phone could assist investigators looking for Murphy’s body, by providing detailed location data about her final movements.

Near the dam where the phone was found, a yellow digger was captured on camera excavating a nature strip and bushes adjacent to a quiet country road. Two people used tools to dig among thick scrub on the roadside. Later on Wednesday afternoon, the digger moved across a paddock to excavate near the dam’s edge.

Earlier, police said detectives from the missing persons squad were joined by specialist teams in Ballarat on Wednesday morning.

Police would not reveal the exact location of the fresh search, but said Murphy’s family had been informed.

“Police ask that members of the public do not attend the search at this time,” police said.

Murphy left her home about 7am on February 4 to go for a run in Woowookarung Regional Park – known locally as Canadian Forest – an expanse of dense scrub bordering her Eureka Street property in Ballarat’s east.

In late February, police revealed they doubted she was still alive, and alleged someone else was involved in her disappearance.

In March, Patrick Stephenson, a 22-year-old local with no apparent connection to Murphy, was charged with murder over her disappearance. Investigators allege Stephenson, the son of an ex-AFL player, attacked Murphy at Mount Clear on February 4.

Hundreds of Ballarat residents have spent hundreds of hours since then scouring bushland for Murphy’s body.

Our Breaking News Alert will notify you of significant breaking news when it happens. Get it here.