Police have defended the time it took to alert the public about a missing Queensland schoolgirl whose body was found on a riverbank almost a week after she disappeared.
Police say Tiahleigh Palmer, 12, was last seen being dropped off by her carer at Marsden State High School in Logan about 8.10am on Friday, 30 October.
Her body was found on the banks of the Pimpama River on the northern Gold Coast on Thursday afternoon.
Police had only issued an alert about Tiahleigh’s disappearance earlier that day – six days after she was reported missing.
But Detective Superintendent Dave Hutchinson said police had been busy interviewing witnesses and reviewing CCTV footage behind the scenes.
“Throughout that whole period there was a whole range of investigations being conducted and there were a number of [unconfirmed] sightings,” Supt Hutchinson said.
He said he was concerned with finding out what happened to Tiahleigh, rather than questioning the merits of the investigation.
“What we’re here talking about today is the investigation of the location of a deceased child, OK?” Hutchinson told a news conference on Saturday.
“We’re interested in what’s happening from now on ... anything that might have occurred prior to this, those further investigations, I can talk to you [about] later.”
Hutchinson said the homicide squad was investigating because no cause of death had been determined.
An autopsy was carried out on Friday, but decomposition and damage caused by Tiahleigh’s body being in water hindered investigations.
Hutchinson said detectives’ best hope of finding out what happened to Tiahleigh was through public appeals.
He has called on anyone who has come across a white Marsden State High School uniform or distinctive pink Mambo backpack to come forward.
Those items, which Tiahleigh was wearing when she was dropped off at school, have not been found.
Hutchinson also called for people driving past the school on the morning of 30 October who have cameras attached to their vehicles, or those who were in the area of Pimpama River on Thursday afternoon, to contact police.
Detectives were at the school on Saturday afternoon trying to narrow down Tiahleigh’s last known whereabouts, Hutchinson said.
He said State Emergency Service volunteers who began scouring the Pimpama crime scene on Saturday afternoon had not found anything of interest.
