Search intensifies after Australian teen vanishes without a trace
The search for a missing 17-year-old Australian girl has taken a grim turn as police have deployed cadaver dogs to scour a national park on the island continent.
Pheobe Bishop vanished earlier this month after she was dropped off at Bundaberg Airport on May 15 to catch an early morning flight to Brisbane. She never checked in with the airline.
She has not been seen or heard from since and, according to the Australian Associated Press, she wasn't picked up on CCTV entering the airport terminal.
What we know about her disappearance
Before her disappearance, Bishop was living in the small town of Gin Gin, approximately 360 kilometres north of Brisbane, with two people police have described as 'associates.'
Police first got wind that something might be amiss after she failed to show up in Western Australia after her scheduled flight.
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She was last seen on Airport Drive at Bundaberg Airport around 8:30 a.m. on May 15, carrying a suitcase.
The following day, police issued a missing person's report.
In various press conferences and updates since Bishop went missing, Queensland detectives have shared a number of clues and pieces of information about her life leading up to the day she disappeared.
Police say they believe the couple she had been living with, Tanika Bromley and James Wood, drove Bishop to the airport that day.
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On May 19, police searched the land surrounding the Bundaberg Airport, but failed to turn up anything belonging to Bishop. The next day, they asked the public for tips regarding a 2011 grey Hyundai ix35 that was seen near the airport the day she went missing.
'We do have associates that are assisting police with our inquiries at the moment, and this is why we're trying to narrow down that timeline in relation to where Pheobe could be,' Det. Acting Insp. Ryan Thompson said at the time, reports the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
The next day, after Bishop had been missing for six days, police announced they considered her disappearance 'suspicious' and that they had established two potential crime scenes — one being the dilapidated house in Gin Gin, where Bishop had been living with Wood and Bromley, and the other the grey Hyundai, which police have seized.
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'We do hold concerns for her safety,' Thompson told reporters last Wednesday.
'It has been nearly a week since she was last sighted and it's out of character for her not to make any contact with anyone.'
'Grasping onto hope'
Meanwhile, Bishop's mother, Kylie Johnson, has been pleading for information about her daughter, often speaking directly to Bishop through social media posts.
'We enter another day with Pheobe still missing, our hearts are breaking more and more,' she posted on Facebook last week. 'Phee we just need to know that you're ok? We just need to hear your voice!
'I'm begging anyone that has anything to contact Police link 131 444.'
It's unclear why Bishop did not reside with her mother.
The search intensifies
In the past days, police have turned their search efforts to a nearby park, deploying land and air search teams, as well as dive squads in Good Night Scrub National Park.
On Sunday, police dogs and homicide officers were also called into the park.
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On Monday, forensic detectives said they have collected some items as evidence during the search that 'are believed to be linked to the investigation.' Those items are undergoing forensic examination, reports local outlet 7 News.
So far, no one has been taken into custody in the case, but police say they continue to speak to people who know Bishop and are committed to exploring any tips or related information that could help determine her whereabouts.
'People don't vanish,' Thompson told reporters last Thursday.
'Someone knows something and we're urging anyone with information to contact police immediately.
'You may have the small piece of information that leads us to finding Pheobe.'
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