Five months after 41-year-old mother Trisha Graf vanished in South Australia’s remote outback opal mining region, law enforcement has launched a new phase of the investigation, refocusing search efforts on an unexamined area of the outback to unlock the mystery of her disappearance.
Graf was first reported missing to authorities on December 12, after she traveled to the small remote town of Andamooka, located roughly 600 kilometers north of the state capital Adelaide, for a visit. A timeline of her final confirmed movements places her at the Roxby Downs Hotel at 12:19 a.m. that day, when she left the premises just minutes later alongside a friend. Shortly after departing the hotel, her vehicle – a Ford Territory – collided with a kangaroo just outside Andamooka’s town limits, but she continued her trip regardless. She then stopped at a private residence in the town’s northwestern district before leaving shortly before 2 a.m., and was last observed driving along Dunstan Drive, leaving the Andamooka area.
By midday that same day, her partner and traveling companion launched an independent search and located her abandoned vehicle perched on a dirt mound near the local Blue Dam landmark, triggering a large-scale law enforcement response. Since her disappearance first was reported, South Australian Police have carried out extensive search operations across the wider Andamooka region, combing through everything from abandoned opal mine shafts to local septic tanks in previous searches. Investigators previously searched a private residential property and a stretch of land on Andamooka’s eastern fringe, but those efforts turned up no critical evidence to clarify Graf’s fate or whereabouts, leaving investigators with few substantive leads for half a year.
This week, specialist law enforcement teams have returned to the Andamooka region to renew their search, with a new targeted search area identified. In an official public statement released this week, a South Australia Police spokesperson confirmed that officers from the Major Crime Investigation Branch, STAR Group specialist operations and Far North local policing unit will spend the next several days searching a previously unsearched area on the western edge of Andamooka, looking for any physical evidence tied to the missing woman.
Investigators are continuing to appeal for public assistance to move the case forward. Any member of the public with information about Trisha Graf’s current location, or details about her movements and activities in the hours before she vanished, is asked to contact Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1800 333 000 or submit tips via the official organization website at www.crimestopperssa.com.au.