Missing backpacker Theo Hayez’s godfather urges Samantha Murphy’s family to push for key clue that could reveal what happened to the mum after she vanished

The godfather of missing backpacker Theo Hayez has said the lessons he learned from his disappearance could shed light on what happened to Samantha Murphy.

The 51-year-old mother of three left her home on Eureka Street in Ballarat East, Victoria, to go jogging on February 4 and has not been seen since.

The case is eerily similar to that of Mr Hayez, a Belgian teenager who disappeared without a trace while visiting Byron Bay while backpacking Australia.

The 18-year-old was last seen outside a nightclub in Jonson Street at around 11pm on May 31, 2019. His family later successfully petitioned Google to release detailed phone records tracking where he went next.

Hayez’s godfather, Jean-Philippe Pector, said this week he was shocked that the coronavirus findings about what happened to his godson did not change the way missing persons cases are handled.

NSW State Coroner Teresa O’Sullivan said in October 2022 that legal “gaps, roadblocks and inconsistencies” in accessing telecommunications data were hampering these types of investigations.

“Many of these legal barriers are inexplicable and removing them could save lives and prevent the terrible grief of ambiguous losses that Theo’s family and many others have suffered,” Ms O’Sullivan said.

Police in Ms. Murphy’s case have said they are working with telecommunications experts, but progress appears slow. The large-scale investigation, almost two weeks after her disappearance, has not yielded any breakthroughs.

Mr Pector urged Ms Murphy’s family to focus on electronic methods of tracking her.

“I would certainly suggest that they push as much as possible for the police to try to access that information,” Pector said. The Australian.

His family had gone through a complicated process that involved resetting Theo’s account with Google and then gaining access to a stream of information that tracked where he went that night but was not in the police search area.

Australian police have no jurisdiction to require major international tech companies like Facebook and Google to hand over information unless it relates to a specific crime, making missing persons investigations particularly difficult.

Even if it does, Ms O’Sullivan says the process could take “months, sometimes even more than a year”.

In some cases, police may even be prevented by law from accessing devices.

“We made it very clear that if Theo’s coronal research could help other cases… that would be the least we could expect if we couldn’t find Theo,” Mr Proctor said.

He added that he would be “shocked” if no progress was made in streamlining the process for police to access this type of information when searching for a missing person.

Records from his family showed that Theo was walking in the opposite direction of the route back to his accommodation indicated on Google Maps. For seven minutes he stopped at some cricket nets.

He then took a dark path through bushland towards the ocean, at some points appearing to be walking or running quickly.

At the insistence of locals and police, coroner Teresa O’Sullivan walked the Milne Track one evening last year.

Police had noted that it would be strange for a foreigner to walk the terrifying and ‘haunted’ path alone at night, prompting theories that Theo was with someone else.

He left the path into steep, dense bushland and ended up on the beach.

He was in Cozy Corner when he turned off his location services just after midnight to save battery power.

After midnight, he used his phone to exchange messages with his stepsister Emma, ​​watch clips from a French quiz and joke with a friend on Facebook about an upcoming U2 concert.

But just after 1am, his phone stopped receiving data.

Detectives worked with telecommunications technicians to track the route taken by Ms Murphy after confirming she was carrying a smartwatch and a phone.

Police are also sifting through CCTV footage sent in by the public to try to piece together Ms Murphy’s last documented movements. She says a full search will only resume if new information surfaces.

“Missing Persons is tracing, moving through timelines, reviewing CCTV footage and investigating many information reports we have received from the public,” the commissioner said.

“So it’s still early, but the concern is clearly there as we really don’t have any clues.”

The mother-of-three is described as mentally and physically fit and was training for an upcoming race by running 15km.

Police Commissioner Shane Patton said on Wednesday that the situation was unusual because police had not been able to locate any trace or find any clues to Ms Murphy.

“If someone is missing for a period of time, we have no trace. There must clearly be suspicions because we have not been able to locate them,” he said.

Dozens of volunteers and search crews have unsuccessfully searched areas in the Ballarat region, including Buningyong, Eureka and the Canadian National Forest.

Missing Persons detectives went to Ballarat to investigate.

Police said on Saturday they had not identified any sinister circumstances surrounding Ms Murphy’s disappearance but were deeply concerned for her welfare.

“Obviously there’s missing persons involved, it’s suspicious, whether there’s foul play or not, I don’t know,” Patton said Wednesday.

“But detectives investigating a case where a woman has been missing for quite some time are calling it unusual, calling it suspicious, but it certainly causes us great concern.”