A missing woman's phone was found in Australia's Tasmanian wilderness over the weekend, more than two years after she disappeared, police said.
An independent search party organized by Celine Cremer's friends and family found her phone on Saturday at a waterfall, Tasmania Policesaid in a statement. It was the first sign of Cremer ever located in the area where she went missing, aside from her car, which investigators discovered 10 days after the last confirmed sighting of her in Waratah, a town in the Australian island state of Tasmania.
Tasmania Police said the phone will undergo further forensic examination and that they will now formally join the independent search for Cremer.
Cremer, a Belgian woman, was last seen on June 17, 2023, in Waratah, according to police. Investigators believe that Cremer drove to Philosopher Falls, a waterfall surrounded by dense rainforest, and intended to set out for a short walk through the area.
"Unfortunately, she did not return," Tasmania Police inspector Andrew Hanson said in a statement.
Her friends reported her disappearance to Tasmania Police on June 26, 2023, and the original search effort began the next day, police said.
By then, the area had already experienced an intense spell of winter weather, including subzero temperatures, snow and rainfall. According to Hanson, medical experts at the time advised police that Cremer could not have survived so many days in the wilderness under those conditions.
The initial search continued for two weeks, with no clues as to where Cremer might be, and follow-up searches over the years ended similarly. The recent discovery of Cremer's phone suggests that she may have veered off course during her walk around Philosopher Falls and lost her way.
"The phone was found in an area that has been extensively searched previously and phone data, as well as the location it was found, supports our theory that Celine may have, using an app on her phone, elected to leave the Philosopher Falls track to take more a direct route back to her car as daylight faded," said Hanson, adding: "We suspect she dropped her phone and continued without it, becoming disoriented in dense terrain."
A bout of harsh winter weather over the weekend postponed further search efforts, according to Tasmania Police, but Hanson said they planned to dispatch officers to the area as soon as those conditions cleared up.
Police said that while they were not leading or coordinating the search that led to the phone's discovery, they "had been supporting the effort by sharing information and advice about what to do should anything be discovered."
The independent group of searchers included Cremer's friends and the adventure filmmaker Rob Parsons, who has posted videos of his own private attempts to search for Cremer on YouTube. He described the moment Cremer's phone was discovered in an interview with theAustralian Broadcasting Corporation.
"I don't think there was a dry eye in the area," Parsons told the news organization. "Everyone was so emotional. Everything was building up to this point where her friends could be here for the discovery. It felt like it was meant to be."
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