Tanja Ebert left an impression on everyone. She was tanned and lean, with strong arms and white-gold hair. Her smile was huge and easily given. She was 23 years old, German, opinionated, and worldly.

She ran a vast sheep farm with her husband and two young boys outside of Mannahill, a remote pastoral town in eastern South Australia four-and-a-half-hours journey north-east of Adelaide. Seen from above, this part of Australia looks just like dry skin.

Her farm, Oulnina Park, was 100,000 hectares — the same size as Antigua — a “historic” property used mainly for sheep grazing. It had been passed down to her husband Michael, a man 18 years her senior, from his father, a well-known pastoralist in the region.

I knew her for only five days. We met in the Bahamas at my cousin’s wedding, where she formed an essential part of everyone’s experience. She was absurdly alive, and the children hung off her with delirious smiles on their faces. We all fell a little in love.

That was in May. Now it’s August, and Tanja has been missing for more than two weeks. Her body has not been found, but it’s presumed she was murdered by her husband, who shot himself dead in the presence of police.

Before he killed himself, Michael Burdon told police that Tanja had disappeared into the bush with a large sum of cash at Roseworthy, on the way home from Adelaide. He told police that the couple had argued and Tanja became so “agitated” that she insisted on getting out of the car. Curiously, she left behind her phone, wallet, passport — and her beloved sons, aged one and three.

Two days later, on Thursday August 10, she was reported missing, not by Michael but by one of her family members. The police started searching as word went out on Facebook. By the following Wednesday police had lost all hope of her being alive: she hadn’t accessed any funds, her email or Facebook, and no one had heard a word from her. That afternoon, police went to Oulnina Park to tell Michael they believed she had been “murdered”. At some point, he slipped away from them and shot himself dead.

Now police are looking for her body, but they have already scaled back the search on Oulnina Park, where efforts have proved fruitless. If Michael did kill her, which seems overwhelmingly likely, he had plenty of time to hide her body. She wasn’t reported missing until two days later and by then everyone seemed willing to believe the fantasy that she would just disappear into the outback with a “large sum of cash”.

I have been reading the articles about Tanja’s disappearance and her husband’s death with a sick and sad feeling. She has been turned into “news”, and her story has been wrested from her.

The Tanja depicted in the media is the “gap year” student who married the “grazier”. The “idealistic” teenager, guided by fate and the throbbing of her heart, who settled down in the golden expanse of the pastoral district. In the words of news.com:

“When Tanya Ebert left her native Germany for a year-long Australian adventure, settling down was probably the furthest thing from the teenager’s mind. Ms Ebert, then just 19, found herself in South Australia’s mid-north pastoral district, where she picked up casual work at a local pub to fund her travels. One day she crossed paths with Michael Burdon, a handsome farmer almost two decades her senior, and her life changed forever.”

The fact that the “handsome farmer” is two decades her senior adds a Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed lovers element to the story.

And the description of their wedding last February is like a stylish melodrama straight out of Vogue or Country Style:

“Those who attended the union, which took place at the homestead in February this year, described it as a ‘magical’ event. The photographs of the newlyweds, dressed beautifully against such a uniquely Australian backdrop, are stunning. In one, Ms Ebert, dressed in a sleeveless silk-tulle dress, gazes into the eyes of her husband, who looks equally elegant in a grey checked suit with brown RM Williams boots and an open-necked white shirt.”

This is pure fantasy. The “uniquely Australian backdrop” is not a set-piece but the farm that Tanja worked, loved, and managed. And, as Tanja’s friends will tell you, the dress was second-hand.

Michael, meanwhile, is depicted as a ruggedly elegant pastoralist, the perfect match to his sweet bride. The man who likely murdered his wife is cast as a dapper rural gent.

The reportage revelled in the idea of an unconditional love gone wrong. “Friends of the couple say they were made for each other,” says Yahoo News, while The Advertiser describes it as a “fairy tale intercontinental love match”, “at least on the surface,” and a “whirlwind love affair”.

In fact, Tanja was not instantly “smitten” with Michael. He was older, persistent and seemed kind, she told me in the Bahamas. He visited her in hospital every day after she suffered injuries from a car accident. This was not the tectonic plates of time and history moving together to push two wildly different people together, it was a choice made by two adults.

According to The Advertiser, this is a “tragic mystery” about a couple who died in “unthinkable circumstances”. But, they reveal that “the veneer of domestic bliss … masked a darker truth,” as though Tanja were equal shareholder in this foul passion. The Daily Mail even pitched in with a story of the “tragic past” of the Burdon family. “The probable murder-suicide is not the first tragedy for the Burdon family”, the article reads. His brother killed himself a few years ago, and his “much-loved” father died of a brain tumour in 2013, before the birth of Tanja’s first son. The Burdons, it would seem, are a cursed family and Tanja’s murder is just another manifestation of this dark curse.

Let’s be straight. It seems overwhelmingly likely that Michael Burdon, 41-years-old, healthy and sane, murdered his wife, hid her body, lied to police and then killed himself. He is not a victim. He is probably a murderer and certainly a weak man, who has possibly denied Tanja’s children and her family any knowledge of her fate.

He was probably, at least some of the time, a “lovely bloke” and a “hands on dad”, as some friends and acquaintances have said. But he was also most likely a man who turned to violence in response to relationship breakdown.

Most of the articles written about Tanja include phone lines for the following services: Lifeline, Mensline or Kids Helpline. Perhaps this is just the code of news reporting. Michael killed himself, so newspapers have to include these phone numbers — it’s a kind of ethical duty. It makes it seem as though Michael was mentally ill and that any wrongdoing was a result of this mental illness.

But it begs the question: where is the number for a woman’s shelter? Or to 1800 Respect, the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service? Or to the Luke Batty Foundation? Or to 000?

Because there is, perhaps, another word for what happened to Tanja, though it hasn’t been used yet, or even hinted at: femicide.

We know that women in Australia are most likely to experience violence from a partner or ex-partner (one in four has been the victim of partner violence). And we know that this too often results in her death. Of the 182 women killed between 2010-12, we know that 83 were at the hands of their intimate partners. We also know that women are most likely to experience violence in the home and that a majority have children in their care at the time of the violence. We also know too well the reasons for domestic violence, that it is often aimed at controlling one’s partner, or exercising power and domination that in its most extreme form it involves murder.

I am sure South Australian police are doing the best they can in a difficult situation. I am sure their careful words and sobriety is a good thing and a sign that the Australian police force is working.

But I have been a little surprised by their apparent willingness to control any suggestion that Michael might have been responsible for Tanja’s disappearance, and by the fact he doesn’t really appear to have been closely questioned.

“We do believe there were issues in the marriage that perhaps made her unhappy, and that she had indicated that she was considering leaving,” Detective Superintendent Bray said, while emphasising that there was no evidence to suggest that Burdon murdered Tanja.

Perhaps they are just being cautious — after all, Tanja’s body has not been found. But I fear that they were also far too keen to believe Michael’s story that Tanja might just disappear, fleeing like a flighty bird from euphemistic “marital problems”.

Sexual Assault & Domestic Violence National Help Line: 1800 Respect (1800 737 732)

Lifeline: 13 11 14

Elke Wakefield is a freelance writer. This article was first published by Crikey.