Arabic version: الشرطة والمتطوعون يبحثون عن أم مفقودة في توومبا
Jana Armstrong, a 30-year-old support worker and mother of a four-month-old boy, has not been located after she was last seen at her Newtown home on the afternoon of Tuesday, July 7. According to ABC News, family and friends spent Saturday searching bushland near locations where her car was spotted the night she disappeared.
Ms Armstrong’s sister, Faith Isaacs, and a large group of volunteers spent Saturday combing bushland at Preston, on Toowoomba’s south side, looking for any clues. Detectives spent the day trawling CCTV, traffic and surveillance camera footage after searching several areas of interest on foot the previous day. Ms Isaacs, who is caring for Ms Armstrong’s four-month-old son Deshal after he was found at the home with his father, was one of the last people to see her sister; the pair had met for brunch on Tuesday and police released CCTV showing Ms Armstrong in a cafe car park, pushing a pram and walking in the cafe holding the little boy.
Nursing her baby nephew, Ms Isaacs said the family would keep searching and asked the community to continue looking in locations released by police. Friends and co-workers joined the volunteer effort — Norah Vinson, who works with Ms Armstrong, was among those helping to search at Preston and said the group had done a ‘‘massive walk’’ and would not give up. Ms Isaacs has said she realised within hours that her sister’s disappearance was out of character and that she would not have abandoned her child.
Police found Ms Armstrong’s white Hyundai Kona abandoned about 500 metres from her home, at the corner of Jellicoe Street and Gordon Avenue, in the middle of the road, at about 6am on July 8 — a discovery officers said immediately raised suspicion. Investigators have since identified sightings of the vehicle on the evening of July 7: at Tabletop Drive, Rangeville, between 9pm and 10pm; at Preston Road, Preston, about 10pm; and at Charker Street in Darling Heights at about 10:15pm. Between about 3am and 5am on July 8 the car was seen on Gordon Avenue in Newtown. Forensic officers searched Ms Armstrong’s house on Friday and police, together with SES, have carried out extensive searches of Black Gully Reserve at Newtown and rugged areas at Tabletop Drive. On Saturday afternoon several unmarked police cars and a police van were at Charker Street in Darling Heights, another location linked to the vehicle sightings.
What happens next: police are continuing a painstaking investigation to track down Ms Armstrong’s last movements and are asking anyone with information, CCTV, dash cam or other footage to contact them.
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