Phoebe Bishop alleged murder: Details emerge about ‘dead dogs’ outside Gin Gin home

By HARRISON CHRISTIAN and JONICA BRAY and KARLEIGH SMITH FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

A haunting detail that emerged during the investigation into the alleged murder of Queensland teenager Pheobe Bishop was the discovery of dead dogs at the home of Tanika Bromley and James Wood where she was living.

Pheobe, 17, went missing near Queensland’s Bundaberg Airport about 8.30am on May 15 after booking a trip to WA to visit her boyfriend.

Last Friday, officers discovered what were believed to be the teenager’s remains near Goodnight Scrub National Park.

The teen’s housemates, James Wood, 34, and Tanika Bromley, 33, were charged with her murder, three weeks after she missed her flight and vanished.

Police say they moved her body more than once.

In the early days of the investigation, a stomach-churning stench came from the ramshackle Gin Gin house where Pheobe lived with Wood and Bromley, with neighbours saying as many as 11 of the animals had been discovered in the home.

One local told Daily Mail Australia that they had been forced to close their windows and doors to block the smell of the rotting dogs as temperatures soared past 28C. 

Another neighbour said living next to Wood had become ‘horrible’ because the property became cluttered with rubbish and there had been noise from parties and a howling dog.

James Wood (pictured), 34, has been charged with the murder of his housemate, teenager Pheobe Bishop

Wood’s dog (pictured) was picked up from Bundaberg police station by Wood’s parents after his arrest on Wednesday June 4

Rumours of the dead animals quickly spread around the town and had an unsettling effect on locals. 

When Daily Mail Australia found James Wood living out of his car before he and his partner Bromley were charged with Pheobe’s murder, an irate local even accused him of having a dead dog in the vehicle with him.

‘There’s a dead dog in the car,’ the woman said.

The dog in the car was alive, however, and was picked up from Bundaberg police station by Wood’s parents after his arrest on Wednesday June 4. 

Wood had apparently made reference to the pup only days after Pheobe went missing, when he shared a Facebook post which mentioned ‘One very lost sad little chonker puppa at home missing [Pheobe] like crazy’.

But what was the explanation for the several dead dogs police found in the Gin Gin house? 

Last week, the truth behind the animals’ deaths came to light when Wood admitted to a friend that the dogs were actually puppies that died of natural causes.

In a text leaked to Daily Mail Australia, Wood was asked about it by a friend.

‘There’s a dead dog in the car,’ the woman (pictured) said

Pheobe Bishop (pictured), 17, went missing near Queensland’s Bundaberg Airport about 8.30am on May 15 after booking a trip to WA to visit her boyfriend

Wood responded: ‘They didn’t get killed. There was 5 puppies out of a litter of 13 that contracted hookworm and passed before the treatment could work.’

Puppies are particularly susceptible to hookworm, a intestinal parasite that affects dogs as well as humans. It’s commonly inked to warmer climates and poor sanitation.

Neither Wood nor Bromley appeared when the case of Pheobe’s alleged murder was mentioned in Bundaberg Magistrates Court last Friday.

They have not entered pleas and have been sent to jail on remand – Wood to Brisbane Correctional Centre, and Bromley to Brisbane Womens Correctional Centre. 

Dr Vincent Hurley, a criminologist at Macquarie University who was a NSW police officer and negotiator for 30 years, told Daily Mail Australia the pair would have to be housed in protective custody in order to prevent acts of ‘convict justice’ being carried out on them.

‘In jail, those accused of murdering a child are held in even lower esteem than a police informant,’ Dr Hurley said.

‘Under the social norms of jails, they will have a target on their backs and hardened criminals will try to flog them within an inch of their life.’

Dr Hurley also predicted that Bromley would have a more difficult time in a women’s prison than her partner, Wood, in a men’s facility.

‘She’ll be treated far worse than he will be,’ he said.

‘Some of the inmates will be mothers with children of similar ages to Pheobe.’

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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk