The man charged with the murder of Samantha Murphy has reportedly been pulled from prison and taken to Ballarat bushland where Victoria Police believe her body may be.

Patrick Orren Stephenson, 23, who has pleaded not guilty to the 51-year-old mother’s murder, was previously escorted to the search site from jail last year.

He is under heavy police guard, Sunrise reports.

Murphy was last seen leaving her home for a 14km run along a route she frequented in the Canadian State Forest on February 4, last year.

Her body is yet to be found, despite extensive searches by police and members of the public, with a particular focus on the Canadian State Forest, Enfield State Park and Buninyong Bushland Reserve.

7NEWS.com.au does not suggest Stephenson was involved in Murphy’s alleged murder, or knows where the body is.

Top criminologist Xanthé Mallett joined Nat Barr and Matt Shirvington on Sunrise on Tuesday and said that Stephenson may have simply been taken to confirm claims he might have made to police, such as where he was the day Murphy went missing.

“It is certainly not abnormal, but I’m not surprised by this development,” Mallett said. “They are trying to talk to him to get as much information to help them with the investigation as possible.”

The search for Murphy located her credit cards, licence and iPhone in a teal-coloured case, in mud at the bottom of a dam in Buninyong, not far from her home, in June last year.

The phone was in near-perfect working condition, and it was hoped location data of the Ballarat mum’s final movements, and the possible location of her body, would be revealed.

Detectives then zeroed in on nearby bushland south of Buninyong, 2km from the dam.

Victoria Police said on Tuesday it is not making any comment on the ongoing investigation, as the matter is before the courts. A trial is expected later this year.

Prosecutor Raymond Gibson KC said during a court date for Stephenson in February this year, that police members and a DNA expert were among their list of eight proposed witnesses.

He said road crash reconstruction expert Robert Hay, a digital data expert, and phone data specialist Matthew Sorrell would be among them.

Stephenson, the son of former AFL player Orren Stephenson, had never met Murphy, but there was a small-town connection between the two.

Murphy worked as a volunteer in the uniform shop at St Francis Xavier Primary School, where Stephenson attended as a child.

7NEWS understands police had been keeping an eye on Stephenson for two weeks before his arrest in March last year, at a Ballarat home where he and his girlfriend were house-sitting at the time.

SOURCE: https://7news.com.au/news/major-update-in-search-for-samantha-murphy-as-murder-charged-man-pulled-from-prison-c-18376109