Samantha Murphy’s husband declared a ‘person of interest’ in the investigation as police reveal they are now searching for her body

Samantha Murphy’s husband and ‘anyone’ close to her have been named as persons of interest as police reveal they are now searching for her body.

Ms Murphy, 51, left her home in Ballarat East, Victoria, about 7am on February 4 to go for a run at nearby Woowookarung Regional Park.

Despite extensive search efforts, no trace of the missing woman has been found.

Detective Acting Chief Inspector Mark Hatt of the Victoria Police Crime Command said Police are understood to be speaking to her family, friends and colleagues as part of their ‘open-ended’ investigation.

Chief Inspector Hatt said that while Mick Murphy was not an official suspect, he was a ‘person of interest’ in the investigation.

“We have a number of people we are talking to and I can say that the family has been absolutely fantastic in cooperating with the police,” he said.

“At this stage he is not a (suspect). Everyone in relation to Samantha is a person of interest. In our research we speak to everyone who was in her life.’

In a comment that appeared to suggest Ms Murphy may have been targeted, Chief Inspector Hatt said: ‘We have no information or evidence to suggest there is any risk to anyone else.’

“We are definitely looking for her phone, we haven’t found it yet. We are looking for a body. “Once again, that area was searched for Samantha herself and we did not find her in that area,” he said.

Chief Inspector Hatt said police are “certainly” investigating whether Ms Murphy’s body was removed from the Mount Clear area after foul play was alleged.

“We believe there is another party involved, whether it’s one person or a number of people,” Chief Inspector Mark Hatt said.

“We are keeping an open mind, but believe the most likely scenario is that her disappearance involves one or more parties.”

Chief Inspector Hatt said police believe Ms Murphy’s body has been removed from the area they are searching.

“That is certainly a scenario we are looking at. Based on our elimination process, we believe there is another party involved – whether it is one person or a number of people.”

Chief Inspector Hatt said detectives had searched Ms Murphy’s home ‘to some extent’ as part of the investigation.

“I will not comment further on our investigation,” he said.

The chief inspector said the possibility that Ms Murphy had suffered a medical episode had been ruled out and said he ‘doubted’ whether she was still alive.

“Given the extensive and detailed search that has already been undertaken and the fact that no trace of Samantha or her personal belongings has been found, we have ruled out any kind of medical incident,” he told reporters.

‘Unfortunately, given that we have found no trace of her, we are very concerned and doubt that she is still alive.’

Officers are currently tracking more than 500 individual pieces of evidence and sifting through 12,000 hours of CCTV footage.

Chief Inspector Hatt said questions about the movements of those within the family home during the period Mrs Murphy was on the run were difficult to answer.

“There’s a lot of movement to and from the house during the day and we’re confident that we’ve tracked all that movement and that we’re following up on everything,” he said.