Police conclude search of Badgingarra property formerly owned by Francis Wark in search for Hayley Dodd

The search for the remains of missing teenager Hayley Dodd at the Badgingarra property once owned by her killer Francis Wark has ended without success. Police returned to the rural property for a third day to continue excavating a leach drain and sifting through soil beneath a concrete water tank but revealed late today the latest search had finished and Hayley’s remains had not been found. Hayley’s mother Margaret said tonight she was “disappointed” nothing had been found but believed Wark might have been “baiting us” with comments made at his trial about the water tank. The fresh search was launched on Tuesday in response to Wark referencing the tank and what might be underneath it while giving evidence during his trial. Mrs Dodd said police had assured her they would never give up searching for her daughter’s remains. Neighbours Kaye and Clayton were heartbroken to hear that police were unable to find Hayley’s remain in their third search of the property. The Badgingarra residents remained hopeful throughout the week that authorities could find closure for Hayley’s mother Margaret and the Dodd family. Clayton, who did not want his last name published, believes long-running rumours speculating where Hayley body is, will now intensify in the tight-knit community. It came as WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson urged Wark to reveal the location of the 17-year-old’s body. Police are expected to attempt to speak to him in prison again after the 21-day appeal period ends. “Francis Wark killed her, he knows where her body is,” Mr Dawson said. “One might appeal to conscience but clearly there is an opportunity here. If he wants any reduction in his sentence then there is an incentive. “He should tell her family where she is.” Wark was jailed for 18 years last week — the longest ever sentence for manslaughter in WA — after a Supreme Court jury cleared him of the teenager’s murder but found him guilty of unlawfully killing her. It is not the first time the North West Road property where he lived for 15 years has been searched, with officers previously scouring it for clues in 2013 and 2016. Hayley was last seen hitch-hiking on July 29, 1999, 1km from the property. Today’s search had forensic officers carefully excavating where the old concrete tank once stood. They also dug up an old leach drain and sifted through the soil. “The latest advice I got overnight was that they have continued to dig under the concrete tank stand,” Mr Dawson said. “There is a leach drain as well that they are examining. We have not found Hayley’s body at this point in time.”He said police had a duty to “bring justice to Hayley and to her family” and that “we do not ever give up”. When Wark was charged with Hayley’s murder in 2015, he was already in jail in Queensland for abducting and raping another woman who had been walking on the Palmerston Highway in 2007. His six-week retrial earlier this year was ordered after his 2018 murder conviction, for which he was jailed for life with a non-parole period of 21 years, was overturned on appeal. During sentencing last week, Justice Stephen Hall found the circumstances of the case made it among the “worst cases of manslaughter” in the State’s history.