Cruel trolls have targeted Pheobe Bishop’s mum with brutal comments, as Queensland police continue their desperate search for the missing teen.
A run-down Gin Gin property, cluttered with rubbish and a dilapidated bus, has been a hive of police activity during the probe into the disappearance of Pheobe, 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.
The state of the Gin Gin property, and the mystery surrounding Pheobe’s connection with Ms Bromley and Mr Wood, have led some Aussies to make cruel comments about her family online, suggesting she should never have ended up living with the couple.
One asked: ‘Why was this young girl not living at home with this “mother”.
‘Instead living in squalor with some gronks and having a boyfriend on the other side of the country. Just sad for that young girl.’
Pheobe Bishop has been missing since May 15 after missing her flight from Bundaberg Airport
The Gin Gin property where Pheobe Bishop was living before she disappeared
Pheobe’s mum, Kylie Johnson (left), has been engaged in a frantic search for Pheobe since she went missing
Another said: ‘Why was she living with other people and not her mum… her parents are responsible for her no use being heartbroken now.’
‘Most people would run a mile looking at the state of that house,’ a third said.
Yet another Aussie said: ‘There is no way in hell I would allow my 17 year old daughter to live in such a dodgy place’.
Others shared their own theories about what had happened to the teen, or suggested where police should look next.
Though it’s unclear why Pheobe was living at the Gin Gin house, 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.
But her mum, Kylie Johnson, has been engaged in a frantic search for Pheobe since she went missing, papering the town with posters.
‘As another day starts it’s getting harder to breathe and the numbness that we feel at the not knowing is eating at us,’ she wrote on Friday morning.
‘We would do anything just to hear your voice, to have you curl up in my lap and hold you tight with your wild crazy hair in my face annoying my nose.
‘I have no words to describe what this is doing to our family, to our friends and to our community.
‘What we need right now from everyone is to hold your loved ones tight and tell them you love them.’
Pheobe Bishop’s (left) mother Kylie Johnson (right) is distraught over her disappearance
Missing posters for Pheobe Bishop have been put up across the small town of Gin Gin
Ms Johnson made no comment on Pheobe’s living situation, perhaps because she was worried she might ‘jeopardize the current police investigations,’ as she mentioned in a post on Wednesday.
Ms Bromley’s 2011 silver Hyundai ix35 hatchback with registration 414-EW3 – believed to be the car she travelled to Airport Drive in – has been declared a crime scene along with the Gin Gin house.
Detectives said they 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.
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’.
Pheobe’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.
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
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’.
‘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.
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
Neighbours said they had seen the teenager coming and going from the Gin Gin property
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.
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.
Since Pheobe vanished, a distraught Ms Johnson has made repeated pleas online for anyone with information to come forward.
‘Phee is still missing [and] our heartache and pain is raw and real,’ she wrote on Thursday.
‘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.’
