Samantha Murphy’s husband says he instantly recognised a mud-splattered iPhone discovered beside a dam belonging to his missing wife.
The mother-of-three vanished without a trace on the morning of February 4 after leaving her home on Eureka Street in Ballarat East, Victoria.
Her family reported her missing after she failed to show up to a family brunch.
Police called her husband, Mick Murphy, moments after the iPhone was discovered near Slaughterhouse Road, south of Buninyong, on Thursday.
Mr Murphy told 9News he immediately knew it was Samantha’s.
Mick Murphy (pictured in April) says he instantly recognised an iPhone found beside a dam as belonging to his missing wife Samantha, who is believed to be dead
Police called her husband Mick Murphy moments after the iPhone was discovered near Slaughterhouse Road, south of Buninyong, on Thursday (pictured)
The phone was found beside a dam 5km from the phone tower where the device last pinged before falling silent.
The breakthrough sparked celebrations between investigators, who were seen high-fiving, hugging and shaking hands.
The phone is believed to have been found by a police tech detector dog.
It’s understood police will return to the area to look for other clues and determine how the iPhone ended up beside the dam.
In a statement issued shortly after the mobile phone was found, police said they had located some ‘items of interest’ during the search for the missing mum.
The phone, along with other items found in the search, underwent forensic testing with sources confirming to the device belonged to Ms Murphy.
Samantha Murphy (pictured with her husband Mick) vanished without a trace after she left her home on Eureka Street in Ballarat East, Victoria, on the morning of February 4
The breakthrough sparked hushed celebrations between investigators, who were seen quietly high-fiving, hugging and shaking hands (pictured)
Officers located the mud-splattered mobile phone in a wallet at the water’s edge of a dam at a property south of Buninyong, approximately 14km from Ms Murphy’s home
The owner of the property, who wished to remain anonymous, said police contacted him about three weeks ago asking for permission to access his land.
The man said officers returned on Wednesday where they told him they were going to perform a line search along the road.
‘A dog found something on the banks and they came up and asked me and my wife to make a statement,’ he said.
The man said police were interested in the levels of his dam.
‘I hasn’t seen anything suspicious out there. We don’t have cameras. But yeah I believe one of those tech dogs found it,’ he said.
The man said detectives came and spoke to him about a month after Ms Murphy vanished, but only returned again in recent weeks.
‘They just asked me if I’d seen anything suspicious,’ he said.
Daily Mail Australia understands police are still searching for Ms Murphy’s missing watch and headphones, or a possible murder weapon (pictured, a map of previous search areas)
Daily Mail Australia understands police are still searching for Ms Murphy’s missing watch and headphones, or a possible murder weapon.
In early March, almost five weeks after Ms Murphy’s disappearance, local man Patrick Orren Stephenson, 22, was charged with her alleged murder.
Police allege Stephenson ‘deliberately attacked’ Ms Murphy in Mount Clear, about 7km into her run on a route she had done ‘countless’ times.
Stephenson, who has no connection to the Murphy family, was charged with murdering the mother-of-three on March 7.
He is yet to enter a plea and will next front court on August 8.