00:00 It's quickly approaching a week since the last known sighting of Samantha Murphy, the
00:06 missing mother of three from Ballarat.
00:09 Five or six days of really intensive searching in an expansive area have followed, but as
00:13 you said, there's still no sign of her.
00:15 Police yesterday said that at this point they hold significant concerns for her safety and
00:19 her welfare, given how long it's been.
00:22 Late yesterday, the latest development police came out with was that they're in fact scaling
00:26 back the search operation this weekend, with volunteer units from some agencies, particularly
00:31 the Country Fire Authority, being stood down over the weekend.
00:35 But police have emphasised that they could be scaled back up over the weekend if necessary.
00:40 The other major development yesterday was that police have now assigned carriage of
00:44 this investigation to the missing persons squad, a specialist unit from Melbourne.
00:49 That means that more resources will be coming in from the capital city and it will also
00:53 broaden the scope of the investigation.
00:55 So police will now be doing things like speaking with family and friends of Ms Murphy, as well
01:00 as looking at the days leading up to her disappearance last Sunday.
01:04 Now when she set out for that run, just after 7 o'clock that morning, she was seen with
01:08 a GPS fitted watch and did have her phone on her.
01:11 Police say they're also working with telecommunications companies to see if they can access any of
01:16 that data and discern what it might say about her last known location.
01:20 Police have all of this time though maintained that there's nothing suspicious, nothing to
01:25 suggest that anything sinister has taken place so far, so homicide detectives are not involved
01:31 at this point.
01:32 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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