Stephanie Cordery is a 42-year-old woman from Ballina, Northern NSW, who disappeared in the early hours of Wednesday, August 5, 2026. As of September 16, 2026, she has still not been located.
There is a documented trail of Stephanie’s movements on the day that she disappeared, and then everything just seems to stop.
According to information released by Stephanie’s family, she left her accommodation in Ballina at approximately 5:00am on August 5, 2026.
Ballina is a town in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia, and the seat of the Ballina Shire local government area. It lies 740 km north of Sydney and 185 km south of Brisbane. Ballina’s urban population at the end of 2021 was 46,190.
NSW Police officially say Stephanie was last seen on Woodlark Street in Lismore at approximately 5:30am. This is around 34 kms/22 miles from Ballina.
CCTV subsequently helped establish that she was travelling towards Nimbin. ABC reported that cameras tracked her movements through Lismore and Nimbin.
By around 6.15am, Stephanie was in the area of Mount Nardi. This is around 45km or 25 miles from Lismore.
Stephanie’s family has said she disappeared from Newtons Road at Mount Nardi at approximately 6:15am.
There is therefore only roughly an hour to an hour and a quarter between her leaving Ballina and the point where her movements appear to end around Mount Nardi.
Stephanie’s vehicle was found on Newton Drive at Nimbin, near a remote property at Mount Nardi.
ABC reported that it was found abandoned in a friend’s driveway.
More recent reporting has identified the property as belonging to the family of Stephanie’s on-and-off partner, Shiloh Pike.
A September 10 episode of The Trial: Australia, which examined the case, reported that her white Hyundai was found at the remote family property with her keys and handbag inside, while her phone remained behind in Ballina.
The family subsequently appealed for people in Ballina to check CCTV, doorbell cameras and dashcam footage, particularly around River Street and surrounding areas, dating from the afternoon of August 4 through the early morning of August 5.
The initial search was extensive.
NSW Police said officers were assisted by:
Police Rescue
the Dog Unit
NSW SES
NSW Rural Fire Service
Marine Area Command
Queensland Remote Area Tracking personnel
Police also used drones and other specialist search resources. A geo-targeted emergency message was reportedly sent to more than 68,000 mobile phones in the Nimbin area asking for information.
The terrain has been a major problem.
Mount Nardi and the surrounding area contains dense rainforest, steep slopes, cliffs and difficult-to-access terrain. A Nimbin RFS officer told ABC that the terrain made helicopter and drone searches difficult.
Search teams repeatedly went over areas around the vehicle.
According to the Nimbin RFS officer quoted by ABC, police with dogs searched the area four or five times, with teams mapping where they had searched and returning to gaps or areas that required another examination.
Dams and waterways around the location of the vehicle were also searched.
By late August 2026, the major emergency search had effectively concluded.
ABC reported that emergency services had conducted a 13-day search without finding Stephanie.
Her family became increasingly concerned about the number of personnel actually available on the ground.
Stephanie’s mother, Joyce Cordery, said she had initially assumed that hearing the SES was involved meant there would be substantial numbers of people searching.
Instead, she said there were days when as few as six people were physically searching.
‘We see other high-profile searches across the state mobilise hundreds of personnel, dedicated multi-agency teams, and sustained specialist equipment over continuous days,’ Joyce said.
‘As a mother, I am deeply concerned by the ongoing level of resources allocated to bring my daughter home.
‘The presence of vital specialist resources – including search and detection dogs – remains extremely limited and intermittent.
‘Alongside that gratitude is a question I can no longer keep to myself: What more can the police and authorities be doing right now to find Stephanie?’
She praised the individual searchers but questioned whether the region had sufficient resources for a missing-person case involving such difficult terrain.
Stephanie’s parents, Joyce and Barry, and her sister Monique have spoken publicly about the disappearance.
The family has repeatedly said they are refusing to give up looking for her.
Her father, Barry, told ABC:
“We just can’t give up.”
He acknowledged that hope was fading but said the family had to continue searching.
Her mother has also asked residents around Nimbin, Mount Nardi and Tuntable Falls to check their properties, including sheds, outbuildings and abandoned structures. They have also repeatedly asked people to check CCTV, as well as doorbell and dash camera footage.
Police have said they have serious concerns for Stephanie’s welfare because she has a medical condition and requires medication.
Her sister Monique has publicly discussed Stephanie’s mental health, telling ABC that Stephanie lived with schizophrenia, but said that she was not suicidal. Joyce said of Stephanie’s diagnosis ‘I do not raise this to define or diminish her. She is our daughter – a deeply loved person whose life matters enormously.
She does not have children, and was the ‘fun auntie’, said her family.
In early September, former police rescue operator Philip “Tully” Benfield, who has approximately 20 years’ experience in policing and police rescue, organised a major community ground search around Mount Nardi.
The plan initially focused on an approximately 800-metre radius around where Stephanie’s car was found.
Volunteers used CalTopo mapping technology to record precisely which areas had been searched.
More than 25 people were expected to participate, with additional volunteers subsequently involved.
The volunteer operation took place around:
Mount Nardi
Tuntable Falls
Newtons Drive
surrounding private properties
Property owners allowed search teams onto their land.
Despite the significant effort, nothing was found that located Stephanie.
On September 8, Stephanie’s mother said the family had been overwhelmed by the community response but confirmed there had been no breakthrough.
The family is now reassessing the information gathered and intends to obtain advice from people experienced in missing-person searches before deciding where to concentrate its next efforts.
So what happened to Stephanie?
Monique told ABC: “We’ve discussed every scenario, foul play, everything. “Do we just leave it here and she just becomes one of those statistics — another woman that disappeared on the Far North Coast [that] hasn’t been located.”
Barry said “We just can’t give up. We’ve got to keep on trying. It’s just something that we’ve got to do.”
Questions – Why was Stephanie’s vehicle found at Shiloh Park’s property?
Monique spoke about Shiloh and said that he and Stephanie had been seeing each other ‘off and on’ for eight years – was ‘extremely private’ and lived with his family on the remote property where the car was found.
She said he had opened up his property and vehicle to investigators.
‘They care about each other a great deal,’ Monique said.
Stephanie’s disappearance has also become connected in media coverage to a much larger issue involving unexplained disappearances and unsolved cases in northern NSW.
A NSW parliamentary inquiry is examining historical unsolved murders and missing-person cases.
ABC reported that inquiry material identified more than 50 women who disappeared or were murdered between Newcastle and the Queensland border whose cases remain unresolved.
A September 10 episode of The Trial: Australia was titled “Is there a killer in Byron Bay?”
The episode examined Stephanie’s disappearance alongside the history of unexplained disappearances in northern NSW. Its description refers to 67 missing persons along the NSW coast since the 1970s.
According to NSW Police, Stephanie is:
42 years old
Caucasian appearance
approximately 165cm tall
medium build
brown hair
Police continue to ask anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
SOURCE LIST
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