Latest news with #disappearance
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- General
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE The Tinder row that rocked missing teenager Pheobe Bishop's housemates - as bizarre video emerges of 'cheating' boyfriend singing soppy love song in the car he now lives in
The housemate of missing Pheobe Bishop was caught on a dating app by his girlfriend in the lead up to the teenager's mysterious disappearance two weeks ago. Pheobe, 17, was last seen on May 15 when James Wood, 34, and Tanika Bromley, 33, gave her a lift to the airport from their ramshackle home in Gin Gin, near Bundaberg, central Queensland. She told friends she was leaving the 'hellhole' living arrangements - as she branded it - to be with her high school sweetheart in Western Australia. The housemates told police they dropped the teen off at Bundaberg Airport in Bromley's 2011 grey Hyundai ix35 hatchback. But Pheobe never checked into her flight and no CCTV of her at the airport has been found. Now Daily Mail Australia can reveal that in February, Wood had been spotted on Tinder looking for 'short term fun', prompting Bromley's friends to intervene. In the profile photo, Wood can be seen in a cowboy hat and aviator sunglasses and wearing a hi-viz tradie's work shirt with the logo obscured. It also states that he is 34 years old. 'Everyone had been telling Tanika he was cheating,' a friend of the former NDIS support services worker confirmed. 'When her mates found his profile and he denied it they listed it online in one of those 'Sis, is this your man,' Facebook groups to see if anyone had been with him. 'People came forward too, but even with all the proof, she decided to stay with him.' It is unknown why Pheobe was at the house or how long she had been there. Prior to her disappearance, she told her aunt Caz Johnson she was 'up s*** creek,' and couldn't wait to leave. Pheobe claimed her mother, Kylie Johnson, had told her to 'get out' of the family home. She also messaged a friend to say she was heading away to see her boyfriend for 10 days. 'I take off to WA in three days! Get out of this s*** home for a bit so that will be good, just packing atm [at the moment].' Both the Gin Gin house and the Hyundai were sealed off by police and combed over by forensics experts. Up to 11 dead dogs were reportedly removed from the rubbish-strewn yard. The housemates have since been charged with unrelated weapons offences after police impounded the car and allegedly discovered a shortened firearm, two replica handguns and ammunition in the car. Bromley's strict bail conditions include a curfew and that she not see Wood. Police have now released the car and Wood appears to be living in it with at least one dog, after Daily Mail Australia found them sleeping inside the car in a nearby street. He was also filmed and confronted by an angry local, with video later posted online. Last week, days after the teen went missing, he posted a bizarre, two-minute video of himself lounging back in the driver's seat of a car. Heavily filtered, Wood lip-syncs to the 2017 love song Perfect by Ed Sheeran, dramatically closing his eyes and then biting the silver chain around his neck. When lyrics mention 'listening to our favourite song,' Wood looks emotionally at the camera tapping his heart. 'Well, I found a woman, stronger than anyone I know,' he croons along with the song. 'She shares my dreams, I hope that someday, I'll share her home. 'I found a love to carry more than just my secrets. 'To carry love, to carry children of our own.' The car appears to be parked alongside bushland with only grass and trees visible from the windows. He also posted a single black and white selfie with the words: 'Let it never be said I'm not where I need to be on time.' No charges have been laid over Pheobe's disappearance and it is not suggested that Bromley and Wood were involved in her disappearance. The police investigation into her disappearance continues.
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- General
- Daily Mail
BREAKING NEWS Mum of missing teen Pheobe Bishop admits the 'worst could have happened' in heartbreaking video
The grief-stricken mother of missing teenager Pheobe Bishop has admitted the 'worst case-scenario could have happened' to her daughter as she begged the public to share any information about her disappearance with police. Kylie Johnson's voice wavered as she fronted cameras for a video appeal shared by Queensland Police on Saturday, over two weeks after Pheobe was last seen leaving a home in Gin Gin, Bundaberg, on the morning of May 15. 'This investigation will not be over for me until we find Pheobe,' she said. 'I still hold hope that Pheobe will come home but I have to consider the possibility that she also won't. 'If the worst-case scenario has happened, I at least need to know where she's resting. I need to know where Pheobe is. 'My daughter wouldn't just disappear. Someone knows something. 'As a mum, I'm asking you to come forward with your information. 'Please speak to police if you have any information, big or small. You can report information to police anonymously, via PoliceLink or CrimeStoppers.
Fox News
3 days ago
- General
- Fox News
20 years after Natalee Holloway vanished, suspect's confession still leaves questions: PI
Graphic content warning Twenty years have passed since 18-year-old Natalee Holloway of Alabama disappeared on May 30, 2005, during a senior trip to Aruba with her high school friends, but the Holloway family's private investigator says there are still many unanswered questions in the case. In 2023, 36-year-old Dutch national Joran van der Sloot, the primary suspect in Holloway's disappearance and murder, confessed to bashing the teenager's head with a brick and dumping her body in the ocean after she refused his advances. "I smash her head in with it completely," van der Sloot said in an Oct. 3, 2023, interview with federal authorities. "Her face basically, you know, collapses in. Even though it's dark, I can see her face is collapsed in." TJ Ward, a private investigator hired by Holloway's family in 2005 and again in 2010, does not believe he acted alone. "Twenty years, can you believe that?" he told Fox News Digital in an interview this week, marking two decades since the 18-year-old graduate vanished from Carlos'n Charlie's, a restaurant and nightclub in Oranjestad, Aruba. "She had a bright future. She got a scholarship to go to college for medical school – ubelievable." Ward does work for a voice analysis company based in Israel, which paid the private investigator to travel to Aruba after Holloway disappeared. There, he met with her parents as well as the FBI and Aruba authorities. Ward said he used the voice analysis technology on van de Sloot's existing interviews at the time and determined that he was lying to authorities and to the public. "We knew numerous times along the course of the investigation [and] over the last few years that Joran van der Sloot was not telling the truth," Ward said. "Thereafter, we started locating witnesses and talking and finding information that was going on with the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, and we knew a lot of the information that Van der Sloot was communicating was not true." Holloway was last seen leaving Carlos'n Charlie's with van der Sloot and two other men, brothers Satish and Deepak Kalpoe, on the evening of May 30, two decades ago as of Friday. The three men were considered early suspects in the case. Police arrested van der Sloot but eventually released him due to a lack of evidence. Authorities eyed the same suspects again in 2007 after uncovering "new facts" but wound up releasing them once more. Holloway's remains have never been found. Five years to the day after Holloway's disappearance, van der Sloot killed 21-year-old Stephany Flores, a business student from a wealthy Peruvian family who crossed paths with the killer on May 30, 2010. Van der Sloot later confessed to killing her in a fit of anger after she learned about his connection to Holloway's disappearance. They had met earlier in her father's casino in Lima, and he beat her to death in his hotel room the following morning. In June 2010, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Alabama announced an indictment on extortion and wire fraud charges against Van der Sloot for allegedly trying to sell information about the whereabouts of her body to her family. "Joran contacted Natalie's mother and Natalie's attorney, John Q. Kelly, in New York and said that for $250,000 he would tell Beth exactly what happened to his daughter," Ward said. "So John Q. Kelly, along with the FBI, arranged to set up a room in the Marriott with the Aruban authorities … and Joran van der Sloot came in and started telling Beth and John Q. Kelly that Natalie was buried under a house in the concrete. Well, they in turn gave him $25,000 cash, on film, and he then departed. He should have been arrested right then and there for the FBI for trying to extort Natalie's mother." He then left the United States and later told Beth Holloway and Kelly that he lied. Van der Sloot is currently serving prison time in Peru for Flores' murder. He is expected to be released in 2036, at which point Peruvian authorities will extradite him back to the United States to serve his concurrent 20-year sentence for Holloway's murder. AUDIO: LISTEN TO JORAN VAN DER SLOOT'S CONFESSION "You have brutally murdered, in separate incidents, years apart, two young women who refused your sexual advances," Judge Anna Manasco told van der Sloot in court in 2023, referencing Flores' murder. Manasco called the extortion and fraud charges "heinous" because the killer knew the information he was selling was a lie to make a profit. However, as part of the deal, she said federal prosecutors have agreed not to use his confession against him for any other purposes. "After 18 years, Natalee's case has been solved," Beth Holloway told reporters outside the courthouse immediately after van der Sloot's 2023 sentencing hearing in Holloway's death. "Joran van der Sloot is the killer." "You are a killer, and I want you to remember that every time that jail door slams." In a victim-impact statement during the hearing, Holloway's mother tore into van der Sloot, saying he taunted her family and caused indescribable pain before turning to him and saying, "You look like hell." Ward told Fox News Digital this week that Beth Holloway feels "kind of satisfied with the fact that he is in prison, and now he's gotten jail time in the United States, which he's going to have to do concurrent to the charges in Peru of the 20 years in the United States in the federal penitentiary. " The private investigator added that he continues to stay in touch with Dave Holloway to this day and that they have not reached "a finalization of what happened." "Even though Joran van der Sloot confessed in 2023, we're not convinced that he was alone with what transpired with Natalee Halloway," Ward said. "But again, our conclusion, as of today, Dave Holloway and I are still looking and trying to gather information, which we believe that there's other people involved with Joran van der Sloot when she was on the beach in May 30, 2005." Ward said he does not believe van der Sloot acted alone, and he is still working to determine if others were involved.
News.com.au
4 days ago
- General
- News.com.au
NSW Police arrest man 30 years after disappearance of Illawarra mum Pauline Sowry
A man has been arrested 30 years on from the disappearance of Pauline Sowry. The shock breakthrough in the cold case was announced on Thursday morning and follows the formation of Strike Force Anthea in 2022 that was set up to examine the circumstances surrounding Ms Sowry's disappearance. Ms Sowry, also known by her married name Pauline Lawrence, was 49 years old when she was last seen by her family in the northern suburbs of Wollongong in December 1993. NSW Police Southern Region commander Assistant Commissioner Joe Cassar and Wollongong Police District commander Superintendent Karen Cook police will address the media on the arrest on Thursday. It follows an earlier breakthrough in December last year when the taskforce discovered items of clothing in bushland in the Illawarra region related to the case. Searches in 2023 and 2024 in the area of Figtree near Wollongong turned up a cream button-down long sleeve blouse with a coloured stitching design and black pants. Mr Cassar, speaking in December, said the discoveries could prove crucial in determining Ms Sowry's final movements. 'We are releasing these images to try to jog someone's memory. The clothing includes some hand stitching in coloured cotton and we know Pauline was known for altering both her and her children's clothing, ' he said. 'We are not ruling out further searches as we continue to investigate the circumstances of Pauline's disappearance. 'Pauline's family deserve to know what happened to her and to get some closure following her disappearance.' In a statement from December, Ms Sowry's son Jason Lawrence said he hoped the clothes could lead to a breakthrough in the investigation. 'We don't want to spend another Christmas not knowing what happened to mum. We deserve to know what happened to her and to give her a proper send-off and lay her to rest,' he said. 'It's been 30 years since my mother's disappearance, she's been sadly missed and this has been a devastating effect on our family, including the loss of her two sons, my brothers Paul and Adam, to mental health and her parents, Bill and Pat, who have also passed away not knowing what's happened to their daughter.' A 2008 coronial inquest found that Ms Sowry had died, most likely after an unconfirmed sighting in 1994. In May 2024, police issued a call for information on a white 1968 Holden HK Kingswood sedan said to be in 'pristine' condition that police believed Ms Sowry may have travelled in south of Wollongong.
News.com.au
4 days ago
- General
- News.com.au
Sad texts from Pheobe Bishop before disappearance revealed
Pheobe Bishop's aunt has revealed a series of worrying text messages she received from her 17-year-old niece before she vanished, adding she believes the teenager 'won't be found alive'. Caz Johnson, Pheobe's mother's sister, appeared on The Project on Wednesday. Pheobe was last seen on May 16 at a property she rented with housemates James Wood and Takina Bromley, in Gin Gin, near Bundaberg in Queensland. She had planned to fly to Western Australia to visit her boyfriend. She never arrived at the airport. Her housemates have since been charged with unrelated weapons offences. No charges have been laid over Pheobe's disappearance. It is not suggested Mr Wood and Ms Bromley are involved in the disappearance. Pheobe texted her aunt Ms Johnson on April 26, after not speaking for a period of time, to say her mother Kylie Johnson had told her to 'get out' when the teenager asked to live with her dad. 'Up s**t creek but s**t happens,' Pheobe texted her aunt. 'I'm flying the f**k out of here to see my boyfriend. 'If it goes to plan I'm not coming back … I need to get out of this hell hole.' When The Project host Waleed Aly asked if the messages concerned her, Ms Johnson said she was 'puzzled'. 'It was like something's really happening,' Ms Johnson said. 'All of a sudden, she (Pheobe) had to get out. She had no one to talk to, turn to.' Ms Johnson, who is estranged from her sister Kylie, said Pheobe had a tough childhood. 'She was always changing schools. She had so many different stepdads in and out of her life. She never had no one that she could really speak to. 'They grew up in filth. I have no disrespect for anyone because I grew up in housing commission, but they lived like a typical housing commission family.' When pressed on concerns for Pheobe, Ms Johnson said she feared the worst. Aly asked: 'Do you think police are going to find Pheobe?' 'Honestly, I don't know, but I'm certain she won't be found alive,' Ms Johnson said. The teen was last seen on May 15, travelling towards Bundaberg airport, however, she failed to board the plane and has not been seen since. Police began their search of the national park on May 23, and expanded the operation after they found evidence may have been moved from the Good Night Scrub area prior to their arrival. Some items of interest have been located during the search and will undergo forensic examination. Police said on Wednesday the investigation was 'ongoing' and that 'police are continuing to run out several lines of inquiry'. 'In addition to investigative work, physical searches will continue as needed and as information is provided,' a spokesman said. 'The greater Gin Gin area remains the focus of the investigation.'
