A community has united in heartbreak, gathering for an emotional candlelight vigil to honour the life of Pheobe Bishop, the Queensland teen allegedly murdered by her two housemates.
Police yesterday confirmed the remains, found on a back road near the Good Night Scrub National Park, about an hour away from Pheobe’s home in Gin Gin, are human. Further testing is being carried out, but police believe they belong to the 17-year-old.
Her mother, sister and hundreds of other loved ones and locals gathered today in Gin Gin, about 40 kilometres west of Bundaberg, to pay tribute to the loyal and fiercely protective girl.
There was a sea of butterfly iconography and bright colours to represent her wild and free spirit.
“Pheobe always sung her own tune. She lived to the fullest,” mother Kylie Johnson told the crowd.
“She loved the people that she loved to every extent of the earth, and she was 200 per cent invested in the people that she loved.
“And that is what we need to hang on to and remind ourselves of it every day.”
A visibly emotional Kaylea Bishop said 17 years was “never enough” life for her sister.
“But in the short 17 years that she was with us, God, she gave us a run for our bloody money,” Kaylea said.
“But that’s just the way Pheobe was. But she was loyal to the core to everybody she loved, respected and valued in her life.”
Amid the devastation, there were moments of levity, such as Johnson joking about how opinionated her daughter was.
A second vigil is planned for Bundaberg tomorrow.
Bouquets and letters are piling up on the road where Pheobe is believed to have been last seen, near Bundaberg Airport.
“Forever 17,” some of the letters read.
Pheobe’s housemates, 34-year-old James Wood and his partner, 33-year-old Tanika Bromley, were charged with one count of murder and two counts each of interfering with a corpse after they were arrested in Bundaberg on Thursday night.
Pheobe went missing after she failed to check in and board her flight to Western Australia from Bundaberg Airport on May 15.
Three crime scenes have been declared — Pheobe’s home she shared with her housemates in Gin Gin, her housemate’s grey Hyundai and the site where the remains were found near Good Night Scrub National Park.
Investigations remain ongoing.
Police continue to appeal for any information about Pheobe or the movement of her housemate’s grey Hyundai IX35 with registration 414EW3 between May 15 to 18 in the greater Gin Gin area.
