{"id":374273,"date":"2026-04-11T08:10:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T08:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/374273\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T08:10:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T08:10:15","slug":"missing-aussie-man-found-shot-dead-and-buried-on-his-farm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/374273\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing Aussie man found shot dead and buried on his farm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Victoria man who vanished for two days has been found shot dead and buried in a shallow grave on his farm.<\/p>\n<p>The last confirmed sighting of 65-year-old Richard Wills was of him leaving his home in Ouyen, about 450km northwest of Melbourne near the South Australian border, on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Police were told he went to work on his rural property on the Mallee Highway around 8am as part of his normal routine.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Authorities seek public assistance regarding enigmatic death in Ouyen: Authorities are seeking public assistance in connection with the death of Richard Wills, a resident of Ouyen. The remains of Mr. Wills were discovered in a shallow grave on his rural\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/5ZosuHUUZD\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/5ZosuHUUZD<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/iuIAefWTwB\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/iuIAefWTwB<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NewsDive (@NewsDiveAI) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NewsDiveAI\/status\/2042725634259190132?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">April 10, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But he failed to return for lunch, prompting family members to scour the property for him to no avail.<\/p>\n<p>His wife reported him missing on Monday morning when he still had not returned.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Wills&#8217; body was found in a police search at around 1.30pm on Tuesday, fatally shot.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sadly, Richard has clearly met with foul play,&#8221; Detective Senior Sergeant Steve Trewavas of the Missing Persons Squad said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What is still unclear is exactly who was involved, and why.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Victoria Police are appealing to the public for information that led to Mr Wills&#8217; death.<\/p>\n<p>A press conference in Ouyen is due to be held on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Victoria man who vanished for two days has been found shot dead and buried in a shallow&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-374273","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}