Samantha Murphy Ballarat * Patrick Orren Stephenson Charged With Murder

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The Murder of Rebecca Young - Ballarat

The Murder of Hannah McGuire - Ballarat * Lachie Young charged



Allegedly
 
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A trailing dog is different to a tracking dog.

Trackers follow the footsteps with nose to the ground constantly. Trailers can, if they lose the footsteps for example when the target has moved from walking on dirt to bitumen after rain, or the body's been lifted up and moved, pick their scent up in the air and they're allowed to follow it, if wind then factors in.
Nah, dogs track by air and ground.
 
I don't know if Sissy's and XBow's friends neighbour were attacked by the same man but I don't recall Sissy saying anything about noticing a vehicle.

It might be the same offender, if so it's possible PO walked in to the bush to lie in wait, leaving his vehicle somewhere else. When he's seen a vulnerable woman, leapt out and attacked, then left the scene. He may have gone back to move her on realising an alarm's gone up, people are looking for her and he might have killed her, which could explain the 5.00pm ping in Buninyong.
Hey Kurve, it's Xbow, not Xbox. It's said as 'Crossbow', my family is from QLD so any word longer than four letters was beyond them. I will add they were very experienced with 4 letter words and had a few colorful ones they liked to string together.
 
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I would think most murderers are hiding the body to not get caught - they're not thinking about the victim's family being able to find them or parole.
Then thats the gamble they take, hide the body to avoid getting caught and still get caught you either fess up to its location or get used to life inside.

Pretty easy I'd have thought.
 
Then thats the gamble they take, hide the body to avoid getting caught and still get caught you either fess up to its location or get used to life inside.

Pretty easy I'd have thought.
Coming up to the date theres possible thinking, 'might have to make a deal'. Unless the crazy angle is played and hes gets his own little hole.
 
Google trail v track dogs. Andrew Rule specifically mentioned "trail dogs" who of course are also trained for tracking but unlike trackers, can go 'off track'.
This is the type of tracking I'm familiar with. It is done with a long lead (10m), not a harness that keeps a dog's nose down, nor is it done with dogs off lead. The track is followed by ground and body (air) scents.

"Tracking involves training a dog to follow a ground scent trail and find any discarded articles of clothing along the track. Dogs need to wear a tracking harness and be at the end of a minimum 10-metre lead, but length can be shortened if the terrain requires it.


There are two types of scents, ground, and body scents.


Ground scent: is the scent of the ground disturbance left where the tracklayer has come into contact with. It contains odours coming from the bruising and damaging of grass and foliage, the crushing of roots and the scent of soil bacteria and moulds, released where surfaces of soil soil has been broken by the tracklayer. As a track ages, the scent of the decay organisms working on the damaged roots and plants is present.


Body Scent: is a personal scent left by the tracklayer coming from normal body odour left in the air. The tracklayer may have also touched a scrub or grass leaving their scent on it. Scent can also come from particles of skin, hair, clothing, fluff, or shoe leather shed on the track.


A trained tracking dog is expected to smell an article belonging to a tracklayer and find the track, following it until it finds the end of the track. A dog must also find and indicate any articles dropped along the track by its tracklayer."
 
The only river in the area is the Yarrowee which is small and would be running very low at this time of year. It would be very hard to find a deep enough pool to hide a body in , most of the lakes around Ballarat are very shallow as well.
Mine shaft does seem logical but if he was still smashed from the night before who knows what he did ?
If he was living in Mt Clear as a kid that area of forest is pretty close he could have mucked around in there with his mates which could give him a fair bit of local knowledge.

Lal lal? Gosh she could be anywhere


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I wonder what evidence they have on him.

If it is strong and overwhelming he might as well fess up, show where body is and co-operate..I mean in Australia with good behaviour you can be out after 15 for murder-it´s a joke. Only 22..out before 40. Good deal.

Or perhaps the evidence isn´t great...phone pings etc and a good a lawyer is advising him to shut up cause there is a chance the evidence doesn't prove unequivocally murder.

We shall see.

Either way most laid back 22 year old country lads are not thinking about murder for one second.

Perhaps drunk off his face on drugs accidently hit her covered it up.

Or she somehow crossed him bad with something.

This case is so rare.
 
Perhaps drunk off his face on drugs accidently hit her covered it up.

I don't believe this scenario would have resulted in a murder charge, ie no intent. Certainly manslaughter / interference with a corpse.

Or perhaps the evidence isn´t great...phone pings etc and a good a lawyer is advising him to shut up cause there is a chance the evidence doesn't prove unequivocally murder.

This one seems to me to be the most likely case considering no body has been recovered.

It's going to be interesting to see what evidence is in the picture. The police arrested him at the same time as executing multiple search warrants. The following day they charged him with murder, so I gather they recovered something. But is it enough to convince a jury?
 
I wonder what evidence they have on him.

If it is strong and overwhelming he might as well fess up, show where body is and co-operate..I mean in Australia with good behaviour you can be out after 15 for murder-it´s a joke. Only 22..out before 40. Good deal.

Or perhaps the evidence isn´t great...phone pings etc and a good a lawyer is advising him to shut up cause there is a chance the evidence doesn't prove unequivocally murder.

We shall see.

Either way most laid back 22 year old country lads are not thinking about murder for one second.

Perhaps drunk off his face on drugs accidently hit her covered it up.

Or she somehow crossed him bad with something.

This case is so rare.
He may be a laid back psychopath country lad. Then it may not be so rare. Man rapes and murders a woman, almost a clichè tragically
 
There have been repeated references here to Stephenson and his lawyers playing a mental health card.

I think movies like Primal Fear and shows like The Practice planted a seed a long time ago that people can just fake a complex mental illness to get acquitted.

The threshold is very high and it’s very rare that someone is found not to be criminally responsible by reason of mental illness. The jails are filled with mentally ill people - schizophrenics, bipolar, personality disorders etc. Just being mentally ill isn’t enough and there hasn’t even been a suggestion of it here.

The killers of Masa Vukotic, Eurydice Dixon and Aiia Maasarwe were all mentally ill in some way (Price had previously been in Thomas Embling), but there was no suggestion they didn’t understand what they were doing was wrong. Luay Sako tried to fake it and got nowhere (but again was quite mentally ill, with a severe personality disorder and body dysmorphia).

It can be relevant to sentencing but in those cases all got significant sentences.

It’s not likely to feature.
 
There have been repeated references here to Stephenson and his lawyers playing a mental health card.

I think movies like Primal Fear and shows like The Practice planted a seed a long time ago that people can just fake a complex mental illness to get acquitted.

The threshold is very high and it’s very rare that someone is found not to be criminally responsible by reason of mental illness. The jails are filled with mentally ill people - schizophrenics, bipolar, personality disorders etc. Just being mentally ill isn’t enough and there hasn’t even been a suggestion of it here.

The killers of Masa Vukotic, Eurydice Dixon and Aiia Maasarwe were all mentally ill in some way (Price had previously been in Thomas Embling), but there was no suggestion they didn’t understand what they were doing was wrong. Luay Sako tried to fake it and got nowhere (but again was quite mentally ill, with a severe personality disorder and body dysmorphia).

It can be relevant to sentencing but in those cases all got significant sentences.

It’s not likely to feature.
Well said
 
I wonder what evidence they have on him.

If it is strong and overwhelming he might as well fess up, show where body is and co-operate..I mean in Australia with good behaviour you can be out after 15 for murder-it´s a joke. Only 22..out before 40. Good deal.

Or perhaps the evidence isn´t great...phone pings etc and a good a lawyer is advising him to shut up cause there is a chance the evidence doesn't prove unequivocally murder.

We shall see.

Either way most laid back 22 year old country lads are not thinking about murder for one second.

Perhaps drunk off his face on drugs accidently hit her covered it up.

Or she somehow crossed him bad with something.

This case is so rare.

There's been a lot of cases particularly in the US, of women being attacked while out jogging but most often, they're found.

The police are saying she was murdered, not an accident so I think the evidence they have, absent her body, they think is solid.

Who knows though, the police aren't perfect and he's innocent until guilt can be proved.
 
Peter Falconio and Bradley Murdoch threads are here:

 

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Samantha Murphy Ballarat * Patrick Orren Stephenson Charged With Murder

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