New details have emerged about a rotting stench coming from a home where a missing Queensland teenager was living before she disappeared – as police continue to search for answers.
The run-down Gin Gin property, cluttered with rubbish and a dilapidated bus, has been a hive of police activity as detectives search for Pheobe Bishop, 17.
Pheobe was last seen en route from the Gin Gin house, where she was staying, to Bundaberg airport on the morning of May 15.
She was supposed to board a flight to Brisbane and then onto Perth to see her boyfriend – but she did not check in or board her 8.30am flight, police say, and she has not been seen since.
Pheobe was living at the property with local couple Tanika Bromley and James Wood.
Questions remain over exactly why she was living there, but final posts she made to social media before she disappeared suggested the troubled teen had fallen out with her mother and would not return home.
Ms Bromley’s 2011 silver Hyundai ix35 hatchback with registration 414-EW3 – believed to be the car she travelled to Airport Drive in – has also been declared a crime scene.
Detectives said believe Ms Bromley and Mr Wood were the two people who drove her the 40 minutes to the airport.
On Thursday, Daily Mail Australia revealed that Ms Bromley is facing unrelated charges for possessing a sawn-off shotgun and a flick knife in public.
Pheobe Bishop has been missing since May 15 after missing her flight from Bundaberg Airport
The Gin Gin property where Phoebe Bishop was living before she disappeared
Police searched the Gin Gin property, after declaring it a crime scene
James Wood (left) and Tamika Bromley (right) lived at the Gin Gin property and are said to have driven Pheobe Bishop to Bundaberg airport the morning she disappeared
Police also issued an update on Friday morning saying they were continuing to search the wider Gin Gin and Bundaberg areas, and ‘no one is in custody in relation to this investigation’.
Phoebe’s baffling disappearance has rocked Gin Gin, a small town west of Bundaberg with a population of 1,300 residents.
When Daily Mail Australia visited the scene on Thursday, there was a pervading stench of decay emanating from the Milden St property, which witnesses speculated could be due to the dead dogs reportedly found at the home.
Early reports suggested police had discovered and removed four dead dogs from the scene, but one neighbour told Daily Mail Australia she believed as many as 13 of the animals had been found.
Horrified residents watched from their windows and from the street as a forensics team scoured the location, with local police keeping careful watch.
Media gathered at the address on Thursday as the vigil continued.
Ms Bromley and Mr Wood’s neighbour, Shari Loughland, told Daily Mail Australia on Thursday that Pheobe had only been living there ‘for a few weeks, up to a month or two’.
She said living living next door to the couple had become ‘horrible’ as she had to deal with regular noise from parties.
Last week she had made a complaint to council and RSPCA about their ‘howling dog’.
Neighbours nearby were seen watching on as police searched the Gin Gin property
A broken down bus was found at the scene, which is owned by James Wood
The property had a horrible smell, understood to be caused by dead dogs on the site
‘They moved in late October or November, and then it’s just gotten more and more cluttered with rubbish.
‘It was for sale… We did hear last night that someone owns it and they rent from them, so I don’t think they actually own it.’
Ms Loughland had said Pheobe came in and out of the home a couple of times, but didn’t realise she was actually living at the address until news broke of her disappearance. She did not know why the teen was living there.
A dilapidated single-decker bus, emblazoned with the words ‘Let it ride’ stands guard outside.
The coach is owned by Mr Wood, who was recently trying to sell it on Facebook marketplace.
He is divorced and only moved to Gin Gin from Emerald, 500km west in Queensland’s Central Highlands, around six months ago after the end of his marriage.
Ms Bromley is understood to be a Gin Gin local and a mother of two. The couple are believed to have moved in together earlier this year.
The pair were questioned by police but later released.
Missing posters for Phoebe Bishop have been put up across the small town of Gin Gin
Pheobe Bishop’s (left) mother Kylie Johnson (right) is distraught over her disappearance
Neighbours said they had seen the teenager coming and going from the Gin Gin property
No charges have been laid over Pheobe’s disappearance and Daily Mail Australia does not suggest Mr Wood and Ms Bromley were involved in her disappearance.
A Queensland police spokesman added on Thursday: ‘Currently, no one is in custody in relation to this investigation.
‘However police continue to speak to people who know Pheobe.’
Since her disappearance, Pheobe’s distraught mother Kylie Johnson and other family members have papered the town with missing posters.
‘Phee is still missing [and] our heartache and pain is raw and real,’ she said today. ‘We as a family are trying to hang onto the light of life that is our free-spirited soul gypsy that is Phee Phee.
‘Phee, we need you home, we need to hear your sassy voice and feel your hugs.’
