Coroner's Court inquest into death of Ballarat woman Angela Tulloh

Tulloh, 43, went missing from her Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) in Brown Hill on October 31, 2022, triggering a large police and SES search operation.

According to a police summary read to the Coroner's Court, Ms Tulloh was living in SDA accommodation with two other residents who received daily care from support workers.

When support workers arrived at the home on October 31, they found Ms Tulloh had left the house.

Staff members immediately went looking for Ms Tulloh, and when she couldn't be found, reported her as a missing person to police.

The court heard Ms Tulloh had a history of absconding, and had required hospitalisation on multiple occasions for ingesting over the counter medications.

On the following day, 1 November, 2022, police said a young girl noticed someone lying down behind a Shell service station in Brown Hill.

The young girl noticed a bottle next to the person, who they thought was sleeping.

When they returned to the location the next day, the person, who was later identified as Ms Tulloh, was still there, and police and paramedics were alerted to their presence.

Ms Tulloh was pronounced dead on November 2, 2022, with the cause of death said to be hypothermia, after exposure to overnight temperatures of about four degrees Celsius.

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Security footage showed Ms Tulloh entering the Shell at about 11:30am on October 31, after leaving the service station, she sat between the rear of the building and the fence, where she was not easily visible to passersby or in view of CCTV.

Coroner Simon McGregor said he would take time to hear testimonies from the parties involved.

He adjourned the court without a return date.

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