Human remains found near ute of missing Queensland mother

Human remains have been found near the ute of missing woman Tayla Spies.

The 29-year-old mother-of-three disappeared more than two months ago while she was driving home to Roma.

Police held a press conference at their Brisbane headquarters on Friday to reveal her ute had been found, but in unusual scenes, reporters were called back to another briefing minutes after it wrapped up.

Spies was last seen in the remote town of Surat, about five hours’ west of Brisbane.

Her Toyota Hilux was found by police on Thursday afternoon at a private property on Yuleba-Surat Road in Noorindoo, about 40 kilometres north-east of where she was last seen.

The area is remote and has few buildings.

Tayla filled up her car at a petrol station in Condamine after leaving Dalby. She was last seen driving the dual cab Toyota Hilux with registration 559 GJ7.

Police said they believed the Toyota might have been dumped on the land in the past two weeks.

But minutes after their announcement concluded, Detective Chief Inspector Garry Watts told the handful of reporters who had stayed behind of a grim development in the case.

“I’ve just been updated by the search team in the area,” Watts said.

“I can advise that human remains have been located about one kilometre from the vehicle.

“Although we cannot confirm at this stage that those remains are of Taylor, we suspect they may be.

“That’s probably all I can really share with you at the moment.”

Moments earlier Watts had been calling for information from the public on Spies’ whereabouts following the discovery of the vehicle.

He said the pink shirt worn by the Spies on the day she went missing had been found in the ute by investigators.

The landowner – who has no known links to Spies – believed the ute was not on his property two weeks ago, and might have been left there recently.

“The property has some areas heavily wooded, but also some open paddocks,” Watts said.

“Where the vehicle was located was about two kilometres into the property from the road, so you would not have seen this vehicle from the road.

“You’d have had to drive through the driveway of the land and then go through another gate.

“The car is now being towed back to Roma to be fully examined by our scientific experts.”

He did not say if police believed Spies was murdered.

“We’ve always had an open mind about the disappearance and we have great concerns.”

Spies’ family has been notified of the discovery.

“Our family as a whole are really struggling,” sister Rebecca Spies previously told Brisbane Times.

“I can’t speak for everybody else, but I can say that this has really affected me in ways that I never thought it would.”

“Tayla and I have matching tattoos. Hers says ‘you keep me wild’, and mine says ‘you keep me safe’, and she really has always made sure that I am safe and well looked after.

“Never in a million years did we think that this would be our life right now.”

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