EXCLUSIVE – Susan Connors Discovery Sparks Questions Over River Search Efforts
A local fisherman’s sonar detection of a submerged vehicle later identified as belonging to Susan Connors is raising fresh questions about how river searches are conducted in missing persons cases.
The discovery was made by a local fisherman on November 13 last year near the rock wall at Emigrant Creek, about a year after Ms Connors disappeared.
The fisherman and his wife have asked not to be named.
His wife, who we will call Elaine, said her husband was moving slowly along the edge of the wall looking for fish when he first noticed an unusual shape on his sonar sounder.
He went back over the same spot for a second look.
“That’s when he realised it was a car,” she said.
Elaine said her husband initially believed there may have been someone inside the vehicle.
She said he took screenshots of the sonar image at the time and showed them to her when he returned home.
Elaine said her husband did not know at the time that Susan Connors was a missing person.
She said it was only months later, after reading Ballina News Daily’s coverage of missing woman Cicily Spiers’ case, that he mentioned the sonar sighting again.
“I was pushing Bob to go to the police, but he honestly didn’t have faith that anything would get done,” she said.
“So that’s when I took over.”
Elaine, who works in the care sector, said she was aware of the Susan Connors case and believed the information needed to be passed on.
The couple reported the sighting to police on February 22, providing the location and sonar images.
Less than a week later, on March 1, police recovered a vehicle from Emigrant Creek.
The vehicle was confirmed to be the car driven by Ms Connors.
Her remains were also located.
The sequence of events has raised broader questions about how submerged vehicles are identified and checked in missing persons cases.
Elaine said her husband was not surprised by the discovery.
She said local fishers using sonar are aware of other submerged vehicles in the river system.
“He knows of at least one more near the Burns Point Ferry,” she said.
Local fisherman Graham, who lives in the caravan park adjacent to the Emigrant Creek wharf and witnessed the vehicle being pulled from the river, said he is aware of “at least six other vehicles” sitting on the riverbed in the area.
The case has also drawn attention to earlier concerns raised about how water-based searches are conducted in the region.
In December, Ballina community worker Mark Ross publicly questioned the early response to the disappearance of Ballina woman Cicily Spiers.
Mr Ross said items linked to Ms Spiers were found near the Richmond River shortly after she went missing, and he believed this should have triggered a stronger search response.
“To me, that screamed one thing,” Mr Ross said at the time.
“That car’s in the river.”
He also claimed specialist water police resources were not deployed immediately and that more intensive search efforts came weeks later.
NSW Police have previously defended the search in the Spiers case, saying they involved marine, aerial and land-based operations, and that investigations commenced as soon as she was reported missing.
The car fitting the description of that of missing person Cicily Spiers pulled from the river on February 20.
Main image: the car belonging to Susan Connors recovered near the Emigrant Creek boat ramp on March 1.
A Honda CR-V matching the description of the vehicle driven by Ms Spiers was recovered from the Richmond River February 20 after human remains were found on the riverbank near Fawcett Park in Ballina’s CBD four days earlier.
Police say forensic testing in that case is still underway.
In the Connors case, a report is now being prepared for the Coroner.
Ellen Wilson, with her silver Subaru Forester from the area, has been missing since September 11, 2015. She may be in one of the other five vehicles located by sonar. It’s impossible that no one has reported this. There are so many missing people being searched for. Adventures with Purpose always says: please ALWAYS report sunken vehicles.
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