The desperate search for missing Toowoomba mother Jana Armstrong has ended in tragedy after human remains believed to be those of the 30-year-old were found in Queensland bushland and her former partner was charged with murder.

Queensland Police said human remains were discovered late on Saturday night in steep bushland off Esk Hampton Road at Redbank Creek, near Ravensbourne National Park, after days of searching for the young mother.

The remains are yet to be formally identified, but investigators believe they are those of Ms Armstrong, who vanished from her Newtown home in Toowoomba on Tuesday, July 7.

A 48-year-old man, identified in Australian media as Ms Armstrong’s former partner Dharminder Singh, has been charged with one count of murder, classified as a domestic violence offence.

He is due to appear in Toowoomba Magistrates Court on Monday.

Police said forensic examinations and the investigation were continuing. A post-mortem examination is expected to assist authorities in formally confirming the identity of the remains and establishing a cause of death.

The devastating development brought an end to a frantic search that had drawn police, emergency services, volunteers, family members and members of the wider Toowoomba community.

For Ms Armstrong’s family, however, the news confirmed the outcome they had desperately hoped would never come.

Her younger sister, Faith Isaacs, shared an emotional tribute after being advised that her sister had been found dead.

“It is with a completely broken heart that I share we have now been advised my beautiful sister Jana has been found deceased,” she wrote.

“There are simply no words to describe the heartbreak and devastation I am feeling. Losing my beautiful sister in this way is something I will never be able to understand or put into words.”

Ms Isaacs thanked emergency services and the members of the public who had joined the effort to find her sister, describing the support shown to the family as overwhelming.

Her most painful words were reserved for Ms Armstrong’s four-month-old baby boy, Deshal.

“I promise you, Jana, your beautiful baby boy will always know exactly who his mummy was, how deeply you loved him and just how incredibly special you were,” Ms Isaacs wrote.

“I will speak your name, share your stories and keep your memory alive for him every single day. I will never, ever let him forget his beautiful mummy.”

The tribute reflected the central concern repeatedly raised by Ms Armstrong’s family from the first days of her disappearance: they did not believe she would willingly leave her infant son.

Ms Armstrong was last seen at a unit on Gordon Avenue in Newtown on Tuesday.

Her white Hyundai Kona was located early the following morning near the intersection of Jellicoe Street and Gordon Avenue, close to her home. The circumstances surrounding the abandoned vehicle immediately intensified concerns for her welfare.

Police and family members described the disappearance as completely out of character.

Before the tragic discovery, Ms Isaacs had made repeated public appeals for help, asking residents to check backyards, gullies, creeks, bushland and other places where someone might not easily be seen.

“She would never just disappear, and she would never willingly leave her son,” Ms Isaacs said during the search.

“Being a mum is the most important thing to her, which is why we’re so incredibly worried.”

The disappearance triggered an intensive investigation, with homicide detectives joining the case as concerns grew about the circumstances in which Ms Armstrong had vanished.

Police reviewed CCTV and sought dashcam footage while volunteers searched areas around Toowoomba.

Investigators are now particularly interested in footage captured between Toowoomba and Esk, including along the New England Highway and Esk-Hampton Road, between about 10.30pm on July 7 and 1.30am on July 8.

Anyone who travelled through the area during that period and has dashcam footage has been urged to preserve it and contact police, even if the recording initially appears unremarkable.

The discovery of the remains came at about 10.30pm on Saturday in rugged terrain that had not previously been searched, according to reports of a police briefing on Sunday.

The location is roughly 50 kilometres north-east of Toowoomba and close to Ravensbourne National Park.

The grim breakthrough transformed the missing-person investigation into a murder case.

Australian media reported that Mr Singh was arrested early on Sunday. Police have charged him with murder as a domestic violence offence, a legal classification that places the alleged killing in the context of a domestic relationship.

As the matter is now before the courts, the charge remains an allegation and the accused is entitled to the presumption of innocence unless and until proven guilty.

Police have also said there had been no domestic violence protection order in place between Ms Armstrong and the accused before her disappearance.

Detective Acting Inspector Brian Collins described the case as horrific and said the investigation was continuing.

The case has also highlighted the danger of unverified speculation during rapidly developing missing-person investigations.

In the days after Ms Armstrong disappeared, claims circulated on social media suggesting she may have been experiencing mental health problems after giving birth to her son in February.

There was no publicly established basis for those claims.

Police said Ms Armstrong was not previously known to them and no concerns or reports about her wellbeing had been raised before her disappearance.

Her family and friends also strongly rejected suggestions that she had simply walked away from her life.

A family friend described Ms Armstrong as a central source of strength for her relatives and said she had helped care for younger family members following the deaths of her parents.

The family had already endured extraordinary personal hardship.

Ms Isaacs had recently returned to Toowoomba with her family to be closer to her sister. The two women had been pregnant at the same time, and Ms Armstrong had spent time with her sister on Tuesday morning, just hours before she disappeared.

CCTV released during the search showed Ms Armstrong arriving at a cafe for a meeting with her sister.

She was wearing a green-and-white striped shirt, jeans and thongs and could be seen pushing her baby son in a pram before later carrying him through the cafe.

The images became some of the last publicly known footage of Ms Armstrong before her disappearance.

At the time, they also reinforced her family’s insistence that she was a devoted mother whose sudden absence made no sense.

Ms Armstrong worked in disability support and was remembered by relatives as caring, dependable and deeply committed to her family.

Her sister’s pleas during the search were echoed by friends and volunteers who spent hours checking bushland and other areas around Toowoomba.

The community response grew as the case attracted wider attention across Queensland.

Family members thanked the public for sharing appeals, searching local areas and providing information to police.

After the discovery of the remains, that hope was replaced by grief and a new focus on supporting Ms Armstrong’s baby son.

The Toowoomba community has begun rallying around the family, with donations and practical assistance offered for the child now left without his mother.

Ms Isaacs is caring for the baby, according to reports, while the family attempts to process Ms Armstrong’s death and the criminal proceedings now surrounding the case.

The tragedy has also renewed local discussion about domestic and family violence.

Police have classified the alleged murder as a domestic violence offence, but investigators have stressed there had been no previous domestic violence order between the parties.

That detail does not resolve the broader circumstances of the case. Detectives are continuing to reconstruct Ms Armstrong’s final movements and examine evidence gathered during the investigation.

The white Hyundai Kona is expected to remain a significant part of that work.

Police are seeking to establish the vehicle’s movements during the crucial hours after Ms Armstrong was last seen and before it was found near her Newtown home on Wednesday morning.

Dashcam footage from motorists may help investigators build a more precise timeline.

Forensic examinations of the remains and other evidence will also form part of the investigation as police prepare the prosecution case.

Until formal identification is completed, authorities have carefully described the remains as believed to be those of Ms Armstrong.

Her family, however, has already publicly mourned her death.

Ms Isaacs’ tribute has become a deeply personal account of what has been lost — not simply a woman at the centre of a major police investigation, but a sister and new mother whose baby is only months old.

“My beautiful Jana deserved so much more,” she wrote.

“She was so deeply loved and will be missed beyond words.”

For days, Ms Armstrong’s family asked Queenslanders to help bring her home.

Now, as a man prepares to face court accused of her murder, her sister has made a different promise: that Jana’s son will grow up knowing who his mother was.

“I love you forever, my beautiful sister,” Ms Isaacs wrote. “Until we meet again.”