By 3 News online staff
Police in Melbourne have released CCTV footage of ABC employee Jill Meagher the night she disappeared.
Four men can be seen in the footage, walking past Ms Meagher just minutes before she vanished after a night out in Brunswick, the Melbourne Age reports.
The 29-year-old was walking home along Sydney Rd and is captured on camera outside the Duchess Boutique around 1:40am Saturday morning.
Detectives are urging the four people in the footage to contact Crime Stoppers as soon as possible, in the hope they will shed some light on Ms Meagher’s whereabouts.
Police are examining the footage frame-by-frame to determine whether a man in a blue hooded sweatshirt was following Ms Meagher the night she disappeared.
Yesterday a group of forensic police searched the Brunswick home Ms Meagher shared with her husband Tom, removing several bags of evidence from the property. A second group of officers, this time homicide detectives, returned to the apartment in the evening, leaving with more property.
The detectives who carried out the earlier search said it was part of a routine investigation.
Police say their investigation is currently focusing on the missing woman's handbag, which was found Monday on a bench in Brunswick. The handbag was spotted in plain sight by a pedestrian, in an area already been searched by police, leading authorities to suspect that the bag was planted by someone involved in Ms Meagher's disappearance.
"There's two options, either police in the original search missed the bag or the bag has since been placed at that laneway after the police searched it originally," Det Insp John Potter told ABC 774, where Ms Meagher worked.
"You've got to ask which is true."
The bag contained Ms Meagher's credit card, but was missing her phone.
Police say Ms Meagher is 165cm tall, of a slim build and has long curly black hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a blue dress, black jacket, black patterned stockings and high heels.
About 60 people also have contacted Australia's Crime Stoppers with potential information.
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