Missing teenager Pheobe Bishop’s housemate has been released without charge after hours of questioning.
Pheobe was last seen on May 15 leaving a rundown home in Gin Gin, near Bundaberg, where she had been living with couple Tanika Kristan Bromley and James Wood.
Queensland Police say the pair told detectives they drove Pheobe to Bundaberg Airport for an 8.30am flight to Brisbane and then on to Perth, where she planned to meet up with her boyfriend.
Pheobe failed to board and neither she nor her luggage have been seen since, with police revealing her neither her phone or bank accounts have been accessed.
Her housemate, James Wood was taken into custody in Bundaberg on Wednesday.
Police secured his car on Bolewski Street, in Bundaberg, before taking him into custody.
Wood had been living in his car in the area since the Gin Gin property was declared a crime scene while Bromley has been staying with family on the outskirts of town.
Police questioned the 34-year-old in connection with Pheobe’s disappearance
Pheobe Bishop, 17, went missing after she failed to board a flight from Bundaberg Airport to Western Australia, via Brisbane, on May 15
Pheobe’s housemate, 35-year-old James Wood was taken into police custody and questioned in connection to the teen’s disappearance
Queensland Police confirmed on Thursday he has been released.
‘Detectives are continuing to run through several lines of enquiry as investigations continue, and will conduct physical searches when required,’ a spokesperson said.
‘Police are continuing to appeal for any information about Pheobe’s whereabouts.’
His release follows a string of leaked text messages, obtained exclusively by Daily Mail Australia, in which Wood alleged that Pheobe stole thousands of dollars from him and had enough money to go on the run.
‘These f***ing coppers are in a witch hunt to see me and Tee (Tanika Bromley) burn at the stake all because we were the last to see her but turns out four f***ing days ago people came out stating they’d seen her with her luggage,’ Wood said.
‘Cops don’t seem to really care that when she left she took nearly $5K out of mine and Tee’s room but still harass us, like “well how could she have just gone, how hasn’t she popped up on her bank statements”? Because she has $5K f***ing cash.’
Wood said he is furious with authorities for putting his life in danger and wasting time and money when Pheobe had confided in him and his girlfriend about her fractured relationship with her family.
Prior to being taken into custody, he spoke to Daily Mail Australia about the tense and emotional morning that ended with Pheobe getting out of the car adjacent to the airport – and never being seen again.
Wood claimed that at their home at Gin Gin that morning, Pheobe was stressing about what to pack, what to wear and making the flight on time.
‘She wanted to get up at 5am but I said I wasn’t waking up that early, it’s not that far.
‘Then she slept through her alarm and when she got up she was furious.
‘She gets like that sometimes and usually we can calm her down but she was escalating and then she smashed the TV,’ Wood claimed.
‘After that she started shouting about not having anything to wear and she was so worked up about seeing her boyfriend for the first time and she wanted to look good.
‘And I get it, she is a teenager and she thinks he may be the love of her life, so I understand.
‘I grabbed some grey brand new trackies I had and I threw them to her and said wear these and first she said she didn’t want to take them as they were mine but then she said “OK” and put them on.’
Wood claimed emotional outbursts were not unusual for the 17-year-old, but they had become more frequent in the weeks leading up to her trip.
‘She does have a temper but she is not a bad kid, she is actually a great kid, she is kind and smart and has good manners but she was living with us because she couldn’t live at home anymore,’ he said.
‘There were too many fights, too much had gone on and she is just a kid.
‘If I had a little sister and all she had was her car to live in then I would want someone to help her.
‘I had known her for almost a year when she moved in with us four months ago and Tanika worked with her as a carer so they knew each other well.’
The car ride to the airport
Despite the tardy start to the morning of her planned departure, Wood said there was still plenty of time to make her flight from Bundaberg, which was around 10am.
He quickly ran to the local IGA to grab energy drinks and returned to the house around 8am.
After loading a large duffle bag – ‘almost the size of her’ – into the car alongside his dog, they set off for the airport, with Bromley driving and Pheobe in the back seat.
Minutes later, about 8.30am, before they’d left Gin Gin for Bundaberg, Pheobe called her boyfriend to let him know she was on the way.
Daily Mail Australia previously reported the boyfriend claimed he heard shouting during the call.
The boyfriend later told a friend: ‘They were both yelling at her and I couldn’t really hear her.’
Wood doesn’t dispute the claim and said that Pheobe was still complaining she didn’t have time to do her make up and was worried she was going to miss the flight.
‘We just wanted to get her checked in and thought if we can just get there she will calm down.
‘Tanika grabbed her makeup bag next to her and passed it back and told her to take anything she needed.
‘Her plane was stopping in Brisbane and we told her that the airport had everything she needed and she can take her time and do the makeup in the toilets.
‘But she wanted to look nice for the flight first and wouldn’t let it go.’
The last time Pheobe was seen
As they approached Airport Drive, less than a kilometre from the terminal, the argument continued, Wood said.
Wood told Bromley to pull the car over and they got out and walked a distance away to give Pheobe some space to collect herself.
‘We wanted to give her five minutes – give her her own space to do what she needed to do,’ he said.
‘We walked to the end, it was maybe five minutes, maybe it was three minutes or maybe it was eight but that’s about how long we were gone.’
Wood said when he returned to the car, Pheobe and her bag were gone.
He assumed that she had walked the short remaining distance to the terminal. The couple then drove toward the airport to check, he said, but they didn’t see her along the way.
‘You wouldn’t miss her carrying that thing, if you drove past her and saw her, you’d notice,’ he said.
Wood claims the pair then waited outside the small terminal for some time but did not go inside.
‘I said to Tanika if I go in it will just escalate things again but she said if she went in it would look like we were parenting her.’
They then decided to check surrounding roads in case she had walked off in another direction.
‘We drove around and as far as we thought she could have made it and then drove a bit further in case.’
Wood claimed this would have been the moment when CCTV footage picked up his car heading towards the Good Night Scrub National Park.
Wood insisted that he did not hurt Pheobe and assumed she had boarded the flight.
He said it was not until the following afternoon when he received a text message from Pheobe’s sister that he realised she was missing.
Daily Mail Australia is not suggesting Wood was involved in Pheobe’s disappearance, and likewise does not suggest Ms Bromley played any role in Pheobe going missing.
