ANITA COBBY
ANITA COBBY
Anita Cobby, 26, was a nurse who lived and worked in Sydney, Australia. On 2 February 1986 she was abducted from the street by a group of men, who gang raped her and then murdered her.
When she arrived to Blacktown station, she went to ring her father to pick her up but the phones were vandalised and didn’t work and there were no taxis. It was a hot daylight savings night and so Cobby decided to walk home. A group of young men in a stolen vehicle drove up to her, grabbed her and forced her into the vehicle. They told her to remove her clothing, punched her, broke her nose and cheekbones and forced her to do the unspeakable to them. They stole her money to pay for more petrol and then drove her to a secluded paddock, gang raped her repeatedly, and continued to physically abuse her. John Travers, concerned that she would be able to identify them chose to kill her.
Cobby never arrived home to her parents and her sister. That night her father was sitting on his bed before midnight and looked out the window, where he saw one of the clouds ‘turned into the most evil face I could ever imagine.’ He later learned this was around the same time his daughter had been murdered. After her family had reported Cobby missing, her body was discovered in the paddock by a farmer. Her father had to go to Westmead Hospital morgue to identify her body.
Radio host John Laws read out on live air her autopsy report, which detailed what the men had done to her. This generated such anger and fear from the public. The police got a tip about the men involved, and they were arrested regarding the stolen vehicle. Many of her killers had criminal records, including violence, animal cruelty, and rape.
The police questioned the men, who all initially denied their involvement in Cobby’s murder. Whilst in custody a female friend visited Michael Murdoch who was able to attain a secret recording of his confession, his excuse was ‘we were all drunk’ and ‘she’d fucking seen all of us’. All five men showed no remorse, were found guilty and got a life sentence, their files marked ‘never to be released’.
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