A brother searching for the body of his sibling who went missing nearly 50 years ago near the central Victorian town of Avoca believes he's closer than ever to finding him after a weekend search of an old mine site by cadaver dogs.
Terry Floyd was 12 when he went missing in 1975 while waiting for a ride home to Maryborough and was last seen on the side of the Pyrenees Highway.
His younger brother Dary and a canine search unit from Search Dogs Sydney have spent the past three days searching for Terry's remains at the spot he went missing, a nearby 150-year-old, 50-metre-deep, mine shaft.
Cadaver dogs show 'significant interest'
Mr Floyd said he would now seek further expert advice before taking the next steps.
"We had an area set out around the mine site, which is on the southern side of the road, where we've been searching for several years," he said.
Prospectors contacted Mr Floyd last month after finding an old knife near where Terry was last seen and handed it to Mr Floyd on Thursday.
Searching for answers
On Friday, Mr Floyd said finding his brother's human remains would provide answers for the family.
"If the knife is a little bit older, 50 years or plus, it puts it in the timeframe Terry went missing. Then you need to look at it a bit more," Mr Floyd said.
Dogs used to sniff out human remains
Five dogs from Search Dogs Sydney and a search and rescue teams searched the Coghlan's Mine shaft where Mr Floyd believes Terry's remains lie.
Chris Darcy, director of Search Dogs Sydney, said the dogs could sense human remains the eye might miss and were a lot more effective in searches.
A coroner ruled in 2004 that the cause of Terry's death was murder but a $1 million reward by the police has failed to produce any concrete leads.
