Death and Taxes: A True Crime Podcast
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Death and Taxes: A True Crime Podcast
70 - Anita Cobby
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On the 2nd February 1986, nurse and former pageant queen Anita Cobby finished work at Sydney Hospital at 3pm and met friends for dinner in nearby Redfern. She then boarded a train from Central Railway station heading home. Arriving at Blacktown, she would usually ring her father who would pick her up, however on this day she found all the phones out-of-operation and decided to walk the small distance home .
The next day, Anita Cobby failed to arrive at work.
Clare presents this case.
7 News | Miss X tape: Anita Cobby: https://www.facebook.com/7NEWSMelbourne/videos/7-news-miss-x-tape-anita-cobby/171052996599968/
Theme music by MVM Productions.
This podcast covers a variety of true crime, mystery, and unexpected stories. A warning that episodes will contain graphic details and may not be suitable for everyone. Welcome back to Death and Taxes, a true crime podcast. I am Claire.
Carrie:I'm Carrie.
Benny:And I'm Benny.
Clare:Welcome back, everyone, to season four. We've missed you. We've had several listeners asking, are we coming back?
Carrie:Are we gone for good? No, we are back.
Benny:Except for Lizzie.
Carrie:And where is Ben up to in Grey's Anatomy? Great question.
Benny:I'm not going to do it every episode. They'll be my my episodes, but I'll give recaps.
Clare:Keeping the listeners eager.
Benny:So yeah.
Clare:I feel like we could almost have like a side podcast of just Ben's recaps of Grey's Anatomy because they're a popular, they're popular with the listeners.
Benny:Really?
Clare:Yes. Several quests. Is he up to Owen Hunt yet? So exciting to hear.
Benny:You'll have to wait and see when it's my case next.
Clare:Mm-hmm. Really subtle transition into our serious case today.
Benny:So this is why I don't want to do Grey's Anatomy on other people's, because then I'm like, I could do like comedic summaries of the latest episode of Gray's Anatomy, and then it's like, and then Becky jumped off the bridge as well.
Clare:Okay. On the 2nd of February 1986, Lynn bidded farewell to her friend Anita at the Central Sydney train station around 9 p.m. The pair had dinner with their other friend Elaine, and the station was only roughly about 800 metres from where they had been dining. Anita had been planning to make her way home by train to Blacktown. The friends, who all worked as nurses together at the local hospital, had spent the evening laughing and chatting about the future. When Lynn waved goodbye to her friend at the station, little did they know that this would be the last time that she would see Anita Cobbby alive. To start our season four of Death and Taxes, today we will be discussing the horrific murder of Anita Cobbby. This week has actually been the 40th anniversary of this crime that not only horrified Australia, not just in its brutality, but also the fear it sparked in young women about simply trying to get home. What are your thoughts initially, team?
Benny:Yeah, I've done a bit of refreshing on it, but it is it's a very well-known case here.
Carrie:Yeah. Certainly a case that shocked Australia and and horrified the public.
Clare:Absolutely. And thankfully, we've got Ben as our Sydney um uh logistics space correspondent, yes, to make sure that we get the locations correct. So before we get into the details of what happened on the 2nd of February, I'd like you to get to know Anita Cobbby a little bit more. At the time of her death, Anita was only 26 years old. She was the daughter of Gary and Grace Lynch. Anita was a popular and very well-liked registered nurse. In her younger 20s, Anita had won Miss Western Sydney. So not only was she extremely attractive, but she was very generous in nature and her bubbly personality had many people gravitate towards her. In all of the sources that I listened to and um read in research for this case, they really did speak a lot about her just natural charm. Um, so she was absolutely beautiful. But I think the charm element is something that certainly stood out for me around people just gravitating to her.
Carrie:In every every single piece of information I saw too, her skill as a nurse, her ability to care for people and connect to people.
Clare:And you raise um a beautiful point there, Carrie, about her future as a registered nurse. So while modelling was certainly something that I think was maybe more of a hobby to her, but it certainly to win a beauty pageant is not an easy feat. Um, so there probably could have been a really big like trajectory or pathway for her to take modelling. Um but she did follow her passion in wanting to help people, and her mum had also been a nurse. So I think it was a natural fit that that's when she would where she would naturally end up. So when she was in her early 20s and first began working in the hospital, she met John Cobbie. When John, at the time, 23 speaks about this, he remembers being very shy and assuming that he didn't have a chance with her. So again, like what we were saying, you know, a beautiful, a beauty queen comes into the hospital, super charming. I can imagine that anyone would be sort of intimidated to kind of take a risk of trying to ask somebody like that out on a date. Because he was a nurse too, wasn't he? Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Benny:Fraternizing on the hospital floor. This sounds a lot like Grey's anatomy. Panoodling.
Clare:Yeah, absolutely right. They can't help but the fornicate in the hospital. So back in the hospital, John and Anita, he did take the risk and he did ask her out on a date, and they did quickly begin dating. They also didn't really waste any time, and they married within a year of meeting and moved into a house. While they'd initially planned to settle down and have children, a very sad miscarriage resulted in them rethinking about settling down and instead decided to spend some time adventuring around the world. So taking advantage of, I guess, being young and being in their 20s and the freedom that that can provide. So after traveling the world when money runs out, as it as it does, um, they headed back to Sydney. So, as often happens with couples who settle down very young, they did start to grow apart. Um, mostly I think it's more around once you start to self-discover or once you start it, you start to step out of your own environment and you can kind of navigate different spaces and stuff and see that the world is so big. From what I've read and saw, I think that was kind of maybe where that balance was kind of being struck between them. Of John was quite happy to kind of just be back in Sydney and just get on with their lives, where I think Anita kind of had that desire to kind of see a bit more and do a bit more, maybe.
Benny:And he John had he'd done a lot of travel already, I think. So kind of earlier in his life, he had uh resigned from his nursing job and done a bit of travel, so maybe he'd kind of gotten that a bit more out of his system. Whereas Anita, they you know, I think they won this some money or something, and that's how to kind of how they did this trip together. Maybe that was kind of her first glimpse into the rest of the world and how big it is and adventure, and he'd been there, done that.
Clare:Yeah, that's a very good point, Ben. And I guess like also him being, even though it's only three years, that does that in your early 20s, that is such a difference of how much life you can fit in a couple of years. And so, to your point, if she hasn't had the opportunity to do that, she's now just got like a bit of an itch for it, like the freedom to be able to do that and maneuver around, that's probably something a calling card, I guess.
Benny:Yeah.
Clare:So at this time they decided that the best way forward was for them to separate. So they both moved back in with their own parents. So uh that for Anita was back in with her parents, Gary and Grace, in Blacktown. I think it's worth kind of pointing this fact out already because we'll kind of learn this quickly. But this was just six weeks before Anita passed away.
Benny:I don't think I realized how close it was from their separation to her partner. Yeah, wow.
Clare:Anita, now living in Blacktown with her parents, was spending more time with friends and enjoying work and looking forward to her new adventures. Noting, of course, that while they were separated, they were still in contact, like continuously. They were still talking, they were still seeing each other, but they just made the decision that they would kind of live slightly separate lives.
Carrie:Which makes sense when it's still so new. You are kind of it takes a while to kind of disengage or consciously uncouple, as the modern folks say.
Clare:Yes, exactly. On the morning of the 2nd of February 1986, Anita had had excitedly told her parents she was having dinner with her friends Lynn and Elaine after work and she would be home late. So the next morning when they woke up and she wasn't home, they just assumed that maybe she'd slept at one of their friends' houses. She did have a shift at the hospital that day. So that wasn't totally out of the norm, I guess, of that being a scenario for her. So they weren't worried. It wasn't until later that evening, though, when Anita had failed to show up for work for that shift. Um, the hospital had called the house looking for her, um, that they realized that nobody knew where Anita was. So Gary and Grace quickly started to call all of Anita's friends and families to see if anyone had seen her. So they did call Lynn and Elaine, who she'd spent the night with the night before. And Lynn did share with the parents that she had dropped her at the train station, but they hadn't seen her or heard from her either during the day. So it took them most of the day to kind of go through the list of people. At around 8 p.m., they called John to see if they if he had seen her or heard from her. He he um did confirm that he'd spoken with her the night before and had asked if she wanted to catch up, and she had confirmed that they were going, he was, she was going to go out with friends, so that she already had plans, so he hadn't seen her. Um, so obviously, after John gets this call, he does rush over to Gary and Grace's house to kind of spend time with them and try and work out what's the next move, where do we go from here? Some of the references that I did find kind of indicated that there was maybe tension between the relationship between Gary and John in particular. So, and it's hard to know, right? Because it's such a tense situation. If you don't know where she is, but also if your daughter is separated from her husband six weeks before, like there's probably a little bit more to that story of like that that happens quite quickly and things like that. So it's kind of hard to know what the catalyst was for that. I don't know if either of you have further insights to that.
Benny:I think I heard that John arrived and sort of like, have you tried this? Have you tried this? He was very sort of proactive in terms of what he wanted to do and what what's been done already. Yeah. And I think the father Gary, I think he kind of found that a little bit like patronizing. I think. Like, of course I've done this, and a little bit like maybe he's he's taken control and he thinks I'm a fool and I haven't done that. And I think it was a little it's probably just taking their stress out on each other, I'd think. But I believe that's kind of what the tension was about. And in the end, I think John decided to remove himself from the situation and just said, look, things are bad enough, obviously.
Clare:Yeah, I'll just you know step away kind of thing.
Benny:Yeah.
Clare:Yeah. It's always hard to think about these types of cases with the removal of mobile phones. Like if you take that technology out of the equation of how much extra effort it would be involved in this of just being able to track someone's movements, whereas now you could be like, well, they were active three hours ago and I can see this and they've got the location here and they tagged a photo here. It just just jump on their Facebook and message their friend.
Benny:Like you don't have your wife's girlfriend's numbers, you know.
Clare:A hundred percent. Even when they were going through like the friends that she may have been with. I mean, I don't know about you guys, but I wasn't in my 20s telling my friends, uh telling my parents every single friend I had, like of you know, like, oh, I'm gonna go and, you know, this person that I kind of vaguely know that lives near us, all those types of things.
Benny:And if you've got a contact book, it's probably in your handbag or something, you know, like it's probably not something he's got access to, you know.
Clare:Yeah, very good point. Yeah.
Benny:Plus no printers, you can't, you know, you can't just r run down to an office works and print out 100 copies of flyers missing, you know, like it's it's so hard to think like what you what you would do back in 88 pre-all that technology. Where do you start?
Clare:It that's exactly right. So Gary does go to the police station with a photo of Anita, and he so I mean that's really proactive thinking, I guess. And again, like that could be a sign of the times of going, I'd better take a photo with me. At the like, that's maybe not something that I would have thought of initially, of I'd better bring a photo with me. So um, yeah, so he does that. So once the police are involved, the search kind of like ramps up pretty quickly from here. So, as I mentioned before, the friends that Anita had been with, they do confirm that they did drop her at the train station, Central Sydney station, um, where the train for Blacktown was um headed. And what the the distance between where they had been eating dinner and where the train station was a really short distance amount of time. And Anita kind of going to Blacktown, like to catch the train into Blacktown Station wasn't out of the norm. She did use to catch the train a lot. So it's not like she didn't know the train lines or anything. That's a pretty common space that she'd been before. So remembering, as we were just saying, it is the 80s, so there are no mobile phones. But the Blacktown train station did have pay phones, um, about 12 payphones. But the night that Anita went missing, those all 12 phones had been vandalized and none of them were in service. So, as I mentioned, it wasn't uncommon for her to take the train home. But usually, if she was arriving at the train station late, she would have called Gary to come and pick her up because the walk, I guess, home, while it wasn't super far away, it was, I think, only like 12 or between 12 and 15 minutes to actually get home from the train station. She would not normally, she's not somebody who would have just walked home. Um, the police had suggested could she have maybe called a taxi? Um, but they were kind of adamant that like she would have, she probably wouldn't have called a taxi, so she would have walked home is kind of what they were thinking.
Carrie:This is another heartbreaking part of the story, and it's probably the saddest part to me is this night would potentially be totally different if those payphones were working, or if we did have mobile phone technology at that time.
Clare:Yeah, you're absolutely right. And just one of those like sliding doors things, like what if they what if you know her and the friends had decided to just get because they they're when their shift finished, they sat around in the um, they sat around in like the cafeteria for a while and just like drank coffee before then going to dinner. So like if they hadn't gone to dinner, like it's just so hard with these types of cases where it's like if I just made one different decision, maybe the whole trajectory of the night could have been different, because maybe the phones wouldn't have been vandalized until later in the evening. It's kind of hard to tell on those types of things.
Benny:This might be a bit cynical, but when I when I heard that there were 12 phones there and they'd all been vandalized, I doubted that, to be honest. I wonder if they weren't maintained and they had been broken for a long time. That's a great way to escape liability. I think they probably said, Oh, they were just vandalized. I suspect it was poor maintenance because 12 phones all vandalized, all that's a really good point, Ben.
Clare:That's very, very true. So obviously at this point, Gary, Grace, John, all of the friends, they're all feeling pretty destroyed. They've exhausted every lead that they can think of, and they've looked at not only everybody that she could have communicated with, but also where she would have gone willingly, noting that obviously, to your point, Carrie, the friends knew she was heading home or her intent was to head home. So there was nothing that they could point to that she might have gone somewhere else. So the following day, still keen to pursue leads that he could think of, John started to head to Shelley Beach, where a party had been planned where him and Anita and John's sister Gaina had intended to attend. So they were always going there. So John had kind of his thought process was, well, maybe she's already there. You know, it is the 80s, they don't have mobile phones. Maybe she's already gone there and she was just waiting for me to meet her there and they just haven't thought to call. So he starts heading there. Um, but while he's on the road, he hears a chilling story on the news, on the radio, that the naked body of a young woman has been found in Prospect. So Prospect is not too far from Blacktown where they live. John quickly found a payphone and immediately called Gary and Grace's house. When an unfamiliar female voice said to John, You need to get back here, he immediately turned around and headed to their house. So we're now going to take a slight detour to Prospect. A local farmer who, on the morning of the 3rd of February, is staring out at his paddocks to notice a very unusual sighting. All of his cows were standing over in one spot huddled together. He went about his business. That's pretty unusual behavior for a cow, for cows. He went about his business, and about two hours later or three hours later, he noticed that they were still doing that. So intrigued by the behavior, the farmer headed over to the spot, and sadly, there in the paddock laid the naked body of a young woman who was deceased. It appeared that the young woman had had a number of horrific injuries, including her throat slit. When the police arrived, they described the crime scene as one of the worst they had seen. They all commented that it was hard to imagine the horrific things that had happened to the young lady, and the image of her body would stay with them for the rest of their lives. Given the extent of the injuries, the police were actually unable to identify the woman, like or defining features, noting that she had significant bruising and beating to her face. She had no identification with her, no bag, no nothing. But what she did have was a wedding ring. And it was one of those. I've heard I in some of the references I saw, it was described as a Russian ring. I actually didn't know that, but it's like the three interlocking different coloured bands. So it's kind of like a, it's not, it's not a it's not a ring that lots of people have. So they kind of took that in as evidence of like that might help them identify who they are. They asked the farmer about whether or not he'd noticed anything unusual. The farmer explained that the night before he did hear yelling or screaming sort of early hours of the morning that was coming from Rain Road, which was very close to the paddock where they found the body, but didn't think much of it because kids actually had used that as a quiet spot for teenage hangouts on the weekends because it was kind of like one of those like small lanes that's kind of hidden by trees, so you could go there and drink, and it's kind of remote.
Benny:So Lover's lane.
Clare:Exactly. The heartbreaking wait for Anita's family was over when the police informed them of the young woman's body being found. They did show the family the wedding ring and also had Gary come in and identify the body. Their worst fears realized Anita was gone. But not just gone, it was clear that Anita's final hours had been horrific. So the hunt is now on for Anita's killer, with police wasting no time. As expected, and we've called this out in a number of cases, they always zero in on the family first. So it's not surprising that John, Anita's husband, would be the first person that they take in, particularly given the time frame of their split to split up, there's tension with the family.
Carrie:Yeah, exactly. Statistically, it's likely you can see why they make come to that conclusion.
Clare:Totally.
Benny:She's just had a night out without him with some girls, maybe, you know, like it could have been could have been a jealousy thing.
Clare:Yeah, absolutely. And I think some of the friends also had kind of like described his behavior of like calling her kind of quite a lot, wanting to see her and stuff. But at the same time, if we take it out of this crime, is that that's probably not that unusual for like a very recently young, separated couple that are maybe not because from what I read, it wasn't like a definitive, we are completely done. I think it was a let's just go and live life and see what happens type of situations. So, you know, that's kind of tricky. So I I want to kind of like get this out of the way straight away, that they do rule John out. So we're not gonna do any suspense there because this poor man has been through enough in his um his experience with this case. So John had a pretty ironclad alibi at uh for where he was at the time. But that certainly doesn't mean that the police didn't take stuff seriously, take this whole case very seriously. They pushed him super hard, they interviewed him for hours. And I think at one point, a couple of times I've seen read that he kind of either said that he had killed her, but I think that's more of one of those like guilt things of like he should have been there, he should have been there to protect her, he should have picked her up. So I don't know that the police necessarily took that as a any kind of confession or any kind of like indicator that he was actually involved.
Benny:I think they did initially, and that was yeah, it's one thing I did want to skip over, is because I did find that fascinating that obviously they were applying a lot of pressure to him, you know. They it's common for to think it's the husband or the lover, but for him to say, Okay, I did it, or you know, after however long it is, he says, Okay, I did it, I must have done it. He says kind of in those sorts of words or something close to that, which is a confession to the police. Like, I I mean it's it's very important.
Carrie:It happens a lot more than people realise. And yeah, we've t we've talked about this on the pod before, but I do think people really underestimate how often the police might break someone and you might confess to a crime that you haven't committed. People seem to find that really hard to believe, but it happens and it's more common than you think.
Clare:I also did read that Anita's death, John had like a very visceral reaction to it. He was very emotional, lots of emotional outbursts. He did kind of, from what I've seen, rely on drugs and alcohol straight afterwards as well. So, like his kind of I guess exactly what. You're talking about Carrie, of like this kind of element of guilt or responsibility, plus that kind of pressure from the police. And if you've gotten to a breaking point that you think maybe you were involved, I don't know how you mentally compartmentalize that of like then acknowledging that you weren't. Like, I don't know how your brain kind of computes that or moves on from that.
Carrie:And it's again this thing that that we've come back to many times, where you can't judge really how someone responds to trauma.
Benny:I think it's sort of like in a way, it's almost like he's it this is life-shattering for him, and it's almost like self-sabotage now. It's almost like destroying himself because she's gone. It's like, alright, I did it. It's almost like my life's not worth anything anyway. And as you say, maybe it's like, well, I wasn't there for her, or because we were breaking up on this break, I wasn't there to protect her, and so maybe in a way he feels some sort of responsibility. Yeah.
Carrie:Yeah, but that all makes so much sense, doesn't it? Like if you were him, you'd be thinking, if we were together, she may not have even been on that dinner. She wouldn't have been in Blacktown, she would have been in a different suburb, she would have been going home to him. Like again, those sliding door moments.
Benny:Or if I'd let her holiday for a year or two more and not be rushing for a family, like if you know, if I You would drive yourself crazy, it's really good.
Clare:Yeah, the the what ifs in your life for a case like this, I don't know, even for her friends, right? Where you go, I dropped her at the train station, I should have walked her there, I should have just driven her home, I should have taken a detour of 40 minutes to get her home. Like, there's just so many elements of that of again, like such a normal night, like nothing out of the ordinary and to your children.
Carrie:Which would have happened hundreds of times before without incident.
Clare:Yeah, totally.
Carrie:Do you think that's another reason it struck such a chord with the Australian public? I mean, the horrific, the horrific injuries she sustained, which I'm sure we'll talk about later in the media's influence there, but also that it is a normal night that we've all taken part in millions of times in our lives. We've all gone out to dinner and walked home.
Clare:We've all Yeah, yeah, absolutely right, Carrie. It kind of echoes even of because we've obviously pointed out a few times that this is in the 80s, so there's like you know, the the technology that sits around it is much more minimal. But if we use the, you know, another Australian case that's that's um quite well known around Jill Ma, who who this was in the 2000s that she was abducted on the street, and that's a main street. I lived on that street in Melbourne, and there are people everywhere, and there's cameras everywhere, like it's just such a normal night to just walk home.
Carrie:Well, that very night that that occurred, I lived close to bars and places to go out, and my friends and I had been out that night, and I did walk home alone, as did they, and it was I think women in particular really felt that it shakes you.
Clare:So once the police kind of start sharing publicly about a crime, they also search through neighborhoods, they do door-knocking appeals, and they also start going back through any complaints that they might have received the night of her disappearance to kind of connect if if there's any crimes or anything that anyone put in, like a like a noise complaint or anything like that, that might be able to connect some pieces for them. So when they do that, they actually find a call that came in from a sibling duo that had reported seeing, uh hearing screams of a woman from the street outside their house, which was Newton Road, which is kind of near Blacktown, right near, sorry, right near the station. Um the siblings then said that they saw a woman being pushed into a white sedan or a white, white, I guess we would describe it as a sedan, right? A white sedan car. The son had then run over to try and help, but didn't reach in time. He then called the police. So after they call the police, their older brother also comes home. They tell him and his girlfriend of what's happened. They jump straight into their car and they start tracking down the way down the road that the siblings had described. Um, so they start going and searching to see what they can find. They do find a vehicle pulled over that they, again, describe slightly differently than the than the other siblings had. So they said that it was kind of like a white sedan ish type of car. The brother and uh his girlfriend describe it more of like a grey, kind of longer car. So I think that there's confusion there of like, are they the same thing? They kind of see a vehicle, but they don't know if that's actually it. Also, during this time, the police do respond to the call from the sibling. In the meantime, he's also let their neighbour who's come home or come out of his house, what's happened, and he also jumps in his car trying to track it down, track this car.
Carrie:How brave are these people? Like it's a real vigilante neighborhood watch situation.
Clare:Yeah.
Carrie:It's pretty amazing.
Clare:Yeah, absolutely. You're absolutely right. And when the police arrive, they they arrive pretty quickly after this. So as soon as the call's made, the police arrive pretty quickly after this. They patrol the area though and they can't find anything. Um, so that's like heartbreaking, but it certainly does confirm to police that there could be a clear link between these two because the so the train journey from central station to the Black Town station is roughly 45 minutes. So, based on the timing of when these people think they saw a woman being pushed into a car, it's kind of like 9.45. So that for the police, they're kind of sitting there going, it's too coincidental to be a coincidence. Um, so that helps them start to kind of like narrow down maybe her movements from here. So now that they've got this information, they then do a continued kind of knocking down Newton Road. A young boy and his mum confirmed that they did hear female screams again around 9.45. They also confirm that they saw what they think was a white car with its lights off heading down the street. So another woman also confirms that they hear screaming.
Benny:So the police are kind of like so many witnesses, like so many people right there, so close, isn't it? Yeah.
Clare:So for all of these people to kind of independently describe very similar scenarios roughly around the same time period, too, kind of helps police pretty quickly start to set of the odds of this being Anita are pretty high.
Carrie:It also just shows you at so many points in this case, it's a hair away from stop like not happening.
Clare:Because to your point, like if the older brother had come home half an hour before that, would they have been parked on the street and this car would have just kept driving? Like it's just so hard to know.
Benny:Yeah, I can't recall the time between when they saw the woman being grabbed and when the brother came home. It was it was quite short, wasn't it? Like it uh maybe even just a few minutes. I can't recall. Like it wasn't it wasn't long.
Clare:Yeah.
Benny:Um, hence why he gets back on the road and tries to find this car because he thinks like it probably can't have gotten far.
Clare:Yeah, I think that when the younger brother first runs out on the road to try and stop and the car takes off. I think you're right, the older brother does get home within minutes of that occurring. So it's it's a pretty good turn.
Benny:He gets yeah, he gets straight in his car and well, I think I don't think he even gets out of his car. I think they run up to his car and be like, we just saw this, we just saw this, and he drives off in that direction hoping to find them.
Clare:Yeah. So in Australia, um, any Australian would know John Laws. Um, he's been he was on our airways for many, many a decade. In the 80s, in particular, he was a very popular um sort of like AM radio host back then. Um, so he actually shares Anita's autopsy details on air in full description. Um so you can find the autopsy online. I'm not gonna go into like the full details of it, but he when he describes why he did this, he basically is like the public deserve to know what's happened to this person and also kind of what we're talking about about women being understanding like the risks, I guess, is kind of I think the angle he was trying to take of like if you're walking home alone, be be careful.
Benny:I I don't really know the motivator, if that's actually the motivator, or is it just I think it was to bring attention, I think it was like to shock people, like to I think the attention, because we've got to remember in that I mean, we're so used to and desensitized by crime podcasts and TV shows and the autopsies. This is 88. Sharing an autopsy or hearing an autopsy is unheard of. So that's kind of why it was so shocking that that he shared on the radio, because it was not something normal people were exposed to.
Carrie:Do you think it was the right call? Or do you think it was really kind of traumatizing for the public, for her family? Or do you think it was the right call because it it got people looking and potentially uh getting attention to help find who you know who committed these acts?
Benny:I mean it certainly upset people and it also upset there were also people on the other side saying, like, great work bring attention to this and getting people talking. So whether or not people liked it, it certainly I mean they got the news.
Clare:I did read in some sources that he did this prior to the family having an opportunity to see it, and I I don't agree with that decision. I also wonder if if they needed to if he needed to give all the details, because this story is is like what happened to her is absolutely heartbreaking without going into the physical or even just like giving an overview of like the you know, like as awful as that sounds.
Benny:There is also the angle that you you talked about media and misinformation and stuff a second ago. I I do recall, and I don't know the specifics, but I do recall that her injuries were misrepresented by the media as well, so there were a lot of um inaccuracies talked in terms about what happened to her and how she was found. Part of the autopsy could have been to clarify those reasons maybe like maybe like just sort of maybe there was other things like I don't know, I don't know what the specifics were, like beheaded or whatever, you know, whatever people were saying in the media that was untrue, maybe it was about correcting that.
Carrie:I mean, the cynic in me feels like it's just for ratings, and yeah, he certainly would have gotten that and he would have gotten a lot of attention. Yeah, um, and I do wonder what you said, Claire, which is could he not have got this attention anyway without with sparing some of the horrific nature of the crime itself?
Clare:Yeah. So Anita had been severely beaten across most of her body, including blunt force trauma to her head. She had also been raped and tortured. The cause of her death was the slit to her throat that heartbreakingly had almost decapitated her. So, to your point, Ben, about the media misrepresenting, I think it was represented that she was beheaded, but technically she was not. It was a near decapitation. Um but it was um the slit to her throat that was the main kind of injury. Um they also did say that that uh that cut and she did have lacerations through her body, but the actual slip to the throat was the cause of death, but that it was not immediate. So it's heartbreaking to think how long Anita suffered for because all of these uh crimes that had occurred to her had occurred while she was in maybe in and out of consciousness, which is just heartbreaking to think about that being your final night on this earth. Um she her body was also found um that she'd been dragged through a barbed wire fence. So she was kind of there was a barbed wire kind of still hanging off her and things like that. So um, again, like I said, you can find the full autopsy online. So Lynn confirmed that she dropped her around 9 p.m. at the Central Sydney station. The police decided to do a reenactment in the hopes that they could jog the public's memory of anybody who might have seen her. So they have a they have a detective dress as Anita. They even work with Anita's friends to kind of like pick an outfit out that's like similar to what Anita was wearing. And then basically they also invite the media to come with them to take the route that she took home or back to Blacktown Station, where they know that she must have gotten off at the station. The reenactment does actually work to some extent, it does tighten the timeline. When Lynn suggested she was dropped at the train station, they thought that the next train that she would have taken was 9-12 p.m. But the journey was about 45 minutes on the train. So if she took that train, it would have landed her at Newton Road too late for all of those um uh witnesses that saw somebody getting in the car. However, there was a train at 8:48 p.m. If she took that train and she walked from the station to Newton Road, which was roughly about 10 minutes-ish, that would have landed her right on Newton Road when all those witnesses saw a woman pushed into the car. So again, like it's probably not something we see a whole lot now where there's active police like reenactments or anything. Again, we have so many cameras and like technologies that probably place a timeline more conveniently now. Um, but even just something as simple as that of taking the full route and saying actually there's like a 10-minute window, and that 10-minute window is actually going to be significant. So it's kind of it's it's a very interesting tact. You can actually see photos as well online of the detective dressed as Anita taking the train as part of this reenactment as well.
Benny:It is smart because yeah, yeah, you're drogging people's mind memories from like, oh yeah, I I did see women who looked like that. But it'll it's also a good way to be like, okay, well, these might be people who regularly catch this train home from work at the same time every week. So you are getting people who likely would have seen her. It's smart.
Clare:That's a really good point because the amount of people that you probably, if you go to the same place or you you travel the same bus every day, you probably are seeing familiar faces. So if you see a face that's maybe not a part of the regular ones, you probably would remember that. And she was, you know, a knockout, very tall, very attractive young lady as well. So there's probably that element as well. Post reenactment, the police also hit another breakthrough. They did receive a tip off about a stolen HT Holden Kingswood. Now, guys, I don't know anything about cars. It's not our strong suit on this podcast. I don't know. It's a white car that's similar. It's a white car. Um, so this was stolen earlier in the day of Anita's disappearance. So when they put this car, this stolen car, alongside the witnesses' testimonies, they kind of narrow in that this is likely a matching description to the car that most members of the public that referenced a car about a woman being pushed into a car or seeing a woman in a car with men, um, that it was likely this car. So the police then quickly narrow their search to five men. So this is kind of through, I'm kind of summarizing here, but this is through a number of different tip-offs. The tip-offs to police pointed to this group of five stealing the car. So those five men are John Travers, Michael Murphy, Leslie Murphy, Gary Murphy, and Michael Murdoch.
Carrie:And yes, all those Murphys are brothers.
Clare:Yes, the Murphys are brothers. I forgot to add this in. There was a $50,000 reward for information, and that's how they got the like the tip-off, all the tip-offs about the stolen car.
Benny:And it was very unusual to give a reward for such at such a short amount of time, like after murder as well. Use it the long, unsolved ones where they need more information. It was very unheard of to offer up a reward.
Clare:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Benny:How much anger there was to solve it.
Clare:Earlier that night, the five of them had been at a party and a number of people had seen them there. They then all disappeared from the party together, and then they come back several hours later, and they all have slightly different stories about where they'd been, what they'd been doing, and it was all quite suspicious. So they have the tip-offs of the stolen car, they were able to place these men near the car to your point, Carrie. They were also drinking at a pub earlier that day. So they could place these five people together. One of the things that as they started to kind of investigate who were these five men, all of them had quite a lengthy kind of history of violence and also just crime in general. So petty crimes, robbery, breaking and entering, stealing cars. And they had roughly about 50 convictions between them. Even one of the men, uh, Michael Murphy, he was actually on the run after escaping prison while he was serving for armed robbery. And that was only, I think, six, did you say six weeks, Carrie, before the murder? So again, very, very kind of intense group of people. One of the men as well, John Travers, he was kind of infamously known in local circles for lots of things with knife crime and also sexual violence crimes. So he had been known to carry a knife everywhere with him. And he also had several kind of outstanding warrants for his arrest, particularly for the rape of a young man who he held at knife point. So the police kind of instantly kind of start seeing some connections between the brutality of what happened to Anita, the history with these men. And it's probably worth noting as we're going through this story, we're kind of narrowing in on these five men really quickly. But it is worth stating that the police did actually investigate several other suspects before they narrowed in on these five men. So I think sometimes with these cases, it's really easy to go, oh, because they were, they had a history of violence or they were from like a low socioeconomic area, they lasered in on them. That's not the case here. They were actually able to connect them through the evidence, through the cars, placing similar-looking men to the crimes and the witnesses that they'd seen.
Carrie:Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Travis also had a reputation for harming animals.
Clare:Yeah.
Carrie:For committing acts of bestiality.
Clare:Yeah, you're right, Carrie. Um, there were several stories of him. Uh, and maybe a trigger warning for people, this does describe bestiality, but there were several stories of him actually having uh sex with sheep before killing them, again holding knives to their throats before killing them and then eating them.
Carrie:Do we know? Because I I wasn't sure if these were just stories that had kind of gone around or if there was much evidence about it.
Clare:I don't know.
Benny:I was gonna say the same thing. I was getting real um like satanic panic vibes from it. Yeah, I was getting real like he's a bad boy, he does crazy things. But when I was from well, I say all my research is in like the few podcasts I listened to and a bit of Googling, all I could find was kind of rumors. It was kind of like this person told a woman who wrote a book, but there was very little and that he did it all the time, is what this guy said.
Clare:Yeah.
Benny:But it's not like a lot of people are coming forward with this. So is it just is it is it a rumor? I do yeah, I do put a bit of grain of salt to the bestiality stuff. It's not out of out of the realm of possibility, but it's yeah, it's very hard to prove. It and it just sounds like stuff that makes him sound like a wild guy.
Clare:I was gonna say it could be one of those scenarios too where like stories are exaggerated, right? Where like maybe he was like, you know, they lived in farmland, so maybe he was killing animals, he was doing it in a really brutal way. That that then story evolves to he had sex with sheep and things like that. Again, like can't really confirm it. It is what's kind of reported on again. Yeah, I guess we'll never truly know the answer to that.
Carrie:And it doesn't change the other crimes that he committed. Yeah, true.
Benny:And he certainly doesn't deny that he slaughtered animals, like I said. That's true, yeah. But he says, like, but I cook them to eat in rural communities. That's a that's a perfectly normal thing that people do with their livestock, you know.
Clare:That's very true.
Benny:He himself has never admitted to the sexual angle with animals.
Clare:So they do again move swiftly, as the police have been through this whole case. On the 1st of February, they work in two teams to raid two houses that were then known to house the five men. So they're kind of split between these two houses. One of the raids is undertaken on John Travers' uncle's house, where they locate Travers and Michael Murdoch. And both of them do come willingly and they don't ask for a lawyer. So they kind of just fall in line, double with the police, and then that's it. In the search for, they do a search of the house, that initial house that they're in, they do find a blood stained knife, which they did take into evidence. So when the police bring them in, they don't charge them initially, they don't even really reference Anita's murder at this point. They're Kind of bringing them in to ask some questions around the stolen car. Um, so they play their position pretty well around that of, you know, what do you know about the car? Like, how did, you know, where did the car come from? Things like that. So at this point, the men who kind of like are in custody at this point are okay, get the names right. John Travers, Michael Murdoch, and Les Murphy. They're the ones that are in jail at the moment being being questioned about the cut the stolen car. So Les Murphy and Michael Murdoch kind of fold instantly about the stolen car. They're like, yep, we stole the car. They do try and press them a little bit about the crime around Anita, but they don't say anything about that. They sign written statements about the stolen car and their role in the stolen car, and they are then let out on bail. Um, this was kind of the intent of the police all along. They knew that they weren't going to be able to hold them really for anything, but they wanted to put them under surveillance. And now that they've kind of given them an indicator, I think this is kind of the police's like that push and pull element of, I guess, investigating of like maybe if we give them like a little nugget that we're we're watching you now, maybe they'll like self either identify or start doing something that gives them an indicator of a mistake. Yeah, make a mistake, take them to evidence, that type of thing.
Benny:Turn on each other.
Clare:Turn on each other, exactly.
Carrie:Try and get rid of some evidence.
Clare:Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So kind of quickly early on, and I mean we've we've spent a little bit of time talking about John Travers. So it's kind of pretty early on that the police kind of established he must be either some kind of ringleader. And through the all those tip-offs that they got and those kind of known associates, a lot of people do point that John Travers, even though he was one of the younger of the group, he was kind of like 19 at this time. He was certainly one that was kind of like driving what they were doing or where they were going and things like that. So the police kind of then consider well, it's Travis's uncle's home. They found the knife there. So maybe there's something in being able to kind of press him, especially with the history of his crimes, including the outstanding warrant for the um rape of that young boy. They hold him obviously in a different cell. They keep them separate. So now with the other two out on bail, they take Travers it into an interview and they bring the knife that they've found. And when they kind of present the knife, he instantly kind of volunteers the line. I've seen this kind of variations of this, but something along the lines of, I didn't slit that slut's throat, is what he says. Which straight away, one, it says so much about, I guess, like the brutality of maybe his attitude about this from the get-go, but also the police have not said anything about Anita. They had just said, We found this black soak knife, what can you tell us about that? Um, and he kind of volunteers that kind of side bit. His attitude about women. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. But he says, Well, that's sheep's blood. It's, I don't know anything about that. Like, you know, kind of very ambivalent to the police's questioning. And to your point, Carrie, like that attitude that like to women and just in general about being around the police. Again, they've got long rap sheets at this point. It's not his first rodeo. It's not his first rodeo. He knows what he's doing in terms of the way he speaks to police and things like that. So they do, they are able to hold him. Obviously, with the outstanding charges, they are able to take him. They do take some blood samples as well for those previous matters. So I think that's kind of significant as well. Again, they haven't really pressed him much about Anita's death at this point. But the fact that they then have a blood sample, I I don't know in terms of like the like procedural justice of that, of like if you take a blood sample for one crime, can you test it on other crimes? I I actually don't know the legalities or something like that.
Benny:I don't Lizzie would know the answer to this, but I can't recall 1988 in terms of DNA and how it. I mean, it's probably a great question. Infancy blood types is probably a big thing, but I don't know that it's really a a database to compare or anything like that. Very true, DNA types.
Clare:Yeah, very true.
Benny:Or at least not being used by police at this stage. So it's probably more just to confirm blood types, very basic stuff.
Clare:Yeah, very good point. So after his arrest and he's now back in his cell, he very quickly asks for the police to contact his auntie. Through this case, we will refer to her as Miss X, which will become clear in a little while. So he wants them to bring her in because she he wants to get some some items from her, some so like cigarettes and clothes and things like that. So the police hoping that maybe they can use Miss X to kind of gain a bit of understanding about John and maybe they can get some insight. They do contact her on behalf of him. Um and it's pretty quickly that she kind of through, I guess like volunteers for the police that she is quite afraid of John and she has strong concerns, not only about his uh attitude towards women, but she does have a fear that she thinks he is involved in Anita's death. Um, they also talk, she talks a little bit about his lack of compassion and empathy for women, the way that he describes treating women in the past, and also just his rap sheet in general. So she does kind of volunteer that pretty quickly with the police of that she has genuine concerns that he's not telling the truth of he's actually involved in this crime.
Benny:Isn't it weird that she's the one that he said, I'll call her and get her to bring me some cigarettes? The woman who's strange who goes straight to the police and says, like, this person dodge you. I think you did it. Exactly. Surely you get someone who's a bit more on your side.
Carrie:Yeah.
Benny:Speaks well of you.
Carrie:Yeah, I I wondered why he didn't call like a friend or a peer, someone his age even.
Benny:Someone who's got your back who's not going to talk to the police.
Carrie:Yeah. Maybe none of them can drive, like it was just a practical thing. That's a good point. Yeah. Maybe she's the only one with a car. Like it just doesn't make sense, does it?
Clare:Yeah. I couldn't find anything about her history with him around because he, from what I could see, he kind of split his time between he had his own house that he lived in, but he also spent like half a week, you know, like half the week at his uncle's house as well. So like maybe she was also in a position of like they were either beating her or treating her badly, or she was kind of like being pushed around of like, you know, so him being like, you know, bring me me, bring me this stuff. She might have been forced into that role in the household as well, potentially.
Benny:Yeah, that's a good point.
Carrie:That would make sense.
Clare:Yeah.
Carrie:That would make a lot of sense.
Clare:Now that they've shared, she shared all of this with the police. The police are really supportive of her and they kind of encourage her and they work with her to go and actually speak with him. So act casually, go and just have a conversation with him and just see if he will if he'll tell you anything. Um, so like she's so brave because knowing all of this and just telling the police that you're so scared of this person to go in and like obviously he's still in his cell, but to go in and try and act casually like it's any other day must be so unbelievably tricky. Um, so she goes and she starts asking him questions and she says, you know, what do you know about this the the death of this girl? And this says so much about his character, I think. But he basically, according to her, he basically starts uh unloading all the details of the crimes that have been um inflicted on Anita in in intimate detail. And not only does he admit, I guess, the responsibility for the murder, but he doesn't uh seem to show any kind of remorse. It's almost like he's gloating or sharing a story. It's just like a story. So Miss X, after she meets with Travers, she relays everything that he's told her to police. Um, they get her to sign a statement around this, but obviously it's a bit of a he said she said right now. So the police, I mean, again, like the bravery of this woman to then say, Yep, okay, I'll I'll keep helping. They get her to go back in with Travis and wear a wire this time so that they can actually have it on tape. So she she wires up and she asks for the details what happened to Anita. And again, he just kind of like uh rattles off all the stuff and again admits his um his not only role in it, but I guess like his lead role in everything that took place. When Miss X asks him, well, why did you have to kill her? He said, We were drunk and she'd seen all of our faces. He asks Miss X to get rid of the jeans that he was wearing and to take his knife, take the knife, not dispose of the knife, but just take it because he loves that knife, which I just thought was just such a sick thing to say.
Benny:And this is a different one to the one that the police have seized, isn't it? This is one that we found, I believe. So he's like, you know, you look in this place, there's a knife, that's my favourite knife. Go get rid of or don't get hide it, but don't get rid of it.
Clare:Yeah, so those so the jeans and the knife are at his house. So they've the police have already raided the uncle's house, they have not raided his house. So he he that's where he tells Miss X to go and get his stuff.
Carrie:I mean, he's got a lung wrap sheet, and he's also still been out in the public living life. So in his mind, you can see he probably thinks this is just another thing he's gonna get away with. Yeah, and you know, let's just manage it.
Clare:Yeah, even just the fact that he kept the clothes and the the jeans are kind of like blood soaked, which we'll talk about a bit later. But the fact that he kept those, it's a very kind of like cocky move to make. I don't know, or like just that confidence of I can keep these.
Benny:Because not all of them kept their clothes, but he did, which we'll get into. So it is it's cockiness, isn't it?
Clare:Mm-hmm. So he also explains that everyone had agreed that they would kill her, that all the others had told him to do your bit, Johnny, egging him on. I think that also kind of indicates that if if that's true, that those kind of like knife crimes of like killing animals and things like that, that he was obviously clearly known for slaughtering animals. So, also on these tapes, he does try and get Miss X to help plan his escape from prison. So apparently he has like several ideas for this. So one of them is that she needs to go and derail a train from the train station. And yeah, of course, just like go and derail it, angle it towards the the wall of the prison, and I'll just hop out of the cell is kind of one of his ideas.
Benny:And the other one is that he wants to- You should point out that this track does go fairly close past the prison. So there's some there's a method to the madness here. Yeah, yeah, it's true. Did you hear about that woman whose whose husband was in jail and she learned to fly helicopters and then flew a helicopter onto the roof and escaped with him? Did you read that? It's a true story.
Clare:Oh, that's amazing.
Benny:She went and got a helicopter license to break her husband out of prison and did it, but they were caught almost immediately at a hotel. But she got him and flew him away.
Carrie:A lot of low effort partners into a coma out here. Put some effort in.
Clare:That's so funny. Okay. His second plan is to get Les and Michael, who are now out on bail, to come back to the police station with guns in the middle of the night between the police's parole so that they can light it up and he can just walk out of jail. So again, he's just clearly, this is another crime. We'll get out. If I don't get out legally, we'll get me out illegally. But again, I think it also speaks to his role of even if it's a self-appointed leadership role, the way that he speaks and kind of like almost like barks orders is kind of like the tone of these tapes.
Benny:The ego, like that these people are gonna put their lives in danger, they're gonna turn up at a prison with guns and break him out and derail trains. Like, no, mate.
Carrie:Well, he obviously trusts Miss X because he's asking her to do this. Yeah, exactly.
Benny:On that note, I'll get more into this later. Um, but have you read a transcript of these tapes or seen the full tapes? Because I couldn't find anything but a small fragment.
Clare:I think they might be suppressed because the reason why, and maybe it's a good point to reveal this, we have been referring to her as Miss X because she is in witness protection. So I don't know if there's like a correlation between that of like her voice is distinctive, or maybe he's using her name through it. I actually don't know why we don't have copies of that.
Benny:Well, the version I saw had her voice, her voice was dubbed over, so that shouldn't be an issue. But I did find it really interesting that all this stuff that's come out about what he apparently said, I haven't read it or heard it. It was apparently said, Yeah, that's interesting. The bit that they have released says very little. And I will say I don't know if this is deliberate or not, but the way she approaches him is very clever. She doesn't say, Did you kill her or did you rape her? She says, Did you have sex with her? Like it's a very open way for him to admit that he I don't know if it was deliberate or not, but I thought that was so clever if it was for her to put to phrase it like that makes it so much easier for him to say yes or no, or kind of almost angles it around um because you know.
Clare:And like not angling it of like you've done something that's wrong.
Benny:It's like yeah, it's not rape, it's sex. It's very clever. So obviously the voice was replaced there with someone else's, but you can you get the gist of it. Um you really need subtitles, so I'll put a link in the episode description if people want to kind of view the the longer clip.
Clare:But you're right, Ben, of kind of walking in and framing it like, oh, this is not a big deal. So, like, you know, like did you have sex with her? Like, that's a real that's really. I wonder if she was coached or not.
Benny:I wonder if the police gave her advice, but it was very smart, and obviously he he opened up and said that he did. And she also doesn't say, Did you kill her? The way she I can't recall her wording, but the way she sort of asks and why did she have to go or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Was another very soft way of saying why did why did you have to kill her.
Clare:Absolutely. And it must have been also just like the bravery to sit there and listen to somebody tell that and to keep your composure of like not looking shocked, not looking disgusted, of just looking interested in more of the story. Like that, even that in itself, in real time, is such an interesting psychology of how did she manage that?
Benny:Of keeping it, controlling every little micro expression to not give anything away, that you're that you're thinking anything or reacting in it. Yeah.
Clare:Yeah.
Benny:And apparently she was terrified. She was shaking. She's just about to say out of shaking as she was heading there and heading back. So she controlled it very well when she was there.
Clare:Miss X's work for the police doesn't end here, though. She then agrees to wire up again and she heads over to Michael Murdoch's house. So again, just a reminder, there are two Michaels, Michael Murdoch, Michael Murphy. So we're still on Michael Murdoch, um, in the hopes that he would also divulge some more so that they could also have him on record of admitting about the murder. Um, so she kind of goes in and she basically kind of lays it out for him of, you know, John's told me everything, I know everything, to just see how that would land. Um, he does, he keeps it pretty tight here. He doesn't really divulge anything, he doesn't admit anything about the murder or anything like that. But certainly, like again, the bravery of her being able to kind of go in and especially because she said she's scared of these people.
Carrie:She knows what they're capable of. She's probably witnessed things that she's not told the police that they've done.
Clare:I was gonna say it makes me wonder, it makes me wonder about what her life was like. Like maybe she needed to get out from these guys, and she said to police, if you put me in witness protection, which is where she ends up, maybe that's part of this of going, I'm willing to risk my safety if it means that I can get out of here.
Carrie:Yeah, because she's probably already very unsafe and in a precarious situation. Well, if they've done that to one woman, what's gonna happen if you annoy them or totally do the wrong thing or yeah, exactly.
Clare:Yeah. So after this, after this happens, the police um certainly thank Miss X for all of her help. But at this time, they decide to move in and they arrest Michael Murdoch and Les Murphy, and they then start the hunt for the other two Murphy boys. Um, it might also be worth pointing out in the tapes, John places all five there. So he does reference all four. So Michael Murdoch, Les Murphy, Gary Murphy, and Michael Murphy all present in these recordings. So it gives police enough to now kind of say we've got enough to kind of bring all five in, but they get those two initially.
Carrie:Okay, and that's the recordings where it's with Miss X, so it's not like he would be like saying a fake story of who was there.
Clare:Yeah. So the police conduct the search of Travis' house, and as he suggested to Miss X, they did find a pair of bloody jeans and the knife as described to her. Following the arrest of the men, they were all quick pretty quick to kind of turn on each other. They all did indicate that Travis was the ringleader, that he was the one that killed Anita, and they both say that they weren't witnesses to the murder. So they say that they didn't see anything like that. After the police have Michael and Leslie's statements, Michael Murdoch's statement and Lesa's statements. Um, they then went to Travis again and said, Hey, so we know now we've got this tape, we've got your mates who are kind of confirming and they're pointing to you. And he's really not surprised. He's kind of like, Who gave me up? Like, who who gave you the info? So again, like I I don't know how seriously he's taking all of this because he's just kind of like, Oh yeah, well, you know, maybe it's like one of those, like, well, sooner or later you guys are gonna try and get me or get me, or I don't know. It's not even like a contempt for the police, it's just like an indifference to police.
Benny:I think so.
Clare:At this point, they take Travis in for another interview, and he just literally just gives them the clear details. He tells them everything in a full confession. In his summary of it, he says that the five men were driving around in a stolen car. So the Kingswood that had been found earlier that day. And then they spotted Anita walking home from the train station. When he described this moment, he explained that they were initially just going to rob her, but they thought they may as well abduct her while they're at it, kind of thing. So then Travis explains that two of them forced her into the car. And this is this is what the witnesses uh, sorry, those sibling witnesses had had seen. Um, Anita was resisting and screaming, and basically they just beat her. Like once she got in the car, they just started attacking her, removing her clothes. Um, even how they he describes Anita at this point, like he's openly sharing that she was begging and pleading and saying that she was married and had said she was on her period and all this sort of stuff. Like, he's just it like again, like just the absolute indifference to human suffering is and that fear of somebody in your presence, just it's just nothing that would even doesn't even seem to cross his radar as a as an issue, really. So once they leave, they then take the car to fill it up with petrol. Um, they actually hide Anita in the car, several of them. Well, what he describes they're like sitting on top of her body so that they can't see her and basically threaten her not to make a sound. So then they drove up Rain Road to the remote farm paddock, where they all forced her to give them oral sex, and then they all took turns raping her. They then dragged her through a barbed wire fence into the paddock, and this is where John slit her throat. After Travis' confession, all three were taken to court for the first time. So this is this is the first time that the public have now got an indicator of we found the men, they're going to be charged. And it's this huge kind of like scene outside of the courtroom. There are actual mobs of people standing outside with signs. There's even somebody with like a dummy that they've like hung from a tree of like calling for the death penalty to come back. Like it's really quite a big like fanfare, I guess, of the outpouring of like just vicial rage against these men at this point. I don't know if you guys have seen photos of that because you can find photos online of that that's a simple footage, yeah. Even what we were talking about earlier about those media reports of like sharing of the autopsy and things like that. To our point now, we we hear podcasts. And things all the time. So these kind of details are not as jarring potentially, but in in the 86, like hearing those things and then seeing the men who did it, uh you know, like that outrage and that ability to kind of voice your opinion. Maybe I think that kind of speaks to a very different time, maybe.
Carrie:It's kind of base level of humans, isn't it? We we want justice, we want to feel, and that kind of mob mentality can take over where that's so true. You know, to cry crying for blood, I guess.
Clare:That's very true. So after there's the hunt for the elder Murphy brothers, so Michael and Gary Murphy are still on the run or hiding in hiding. But this actually, again, doesn't last long. The police get a tip off pretty quickly from some of the informants and known associates. And by the 26th of February, the final of the five were arrested, Michael and Gary Murphy. So when they pick up Michael and Gary, they get them at the same location. It is again another kind of like media swarm. There is footage and there is photographs of these arrests and these raids. Um, Gary did try and to evade police. Um, he did um wet himself, like again, like this kind of like very public imagery of these, of the police nabbing these five men, they kind of like feed into that media frenzy, I think. Um, not necessarily the police, but the media kind of like pick up the story and like getting the final men that were involved. That's kind of a big element of this. So at this point, the Murphy brothers are put in different police cars and they're traveled back to the police station. So once they're in the cars, Michael starts kind of divulging pretty quickly to police about what's happened. They don't really kind of give any indicator of that. They wait till they're back in the police station so that they can get this on record. And once they're in interview with Michael, he points to Travers again as being the ringleader, but he also gives a lot of detail about the crimes again, like going through the events of the evening and how they played out. He does um place himself as the driver of the car initially and that initial abduction of Anita. He does say that later on he does swap driving out with Gary. So he kind of places the two of them in the car with the other three men. Um, Michael does point to Travis, Les, and Michael Murdoch being the ones who did all the attack. Here claim he claims that he was the only one who didn't rape Anita. Uh, what I really didn't like about reading this is that the reason he gives for that, though, is because he couldn't get an erection. It wasn't that he was against the attack. Well, he doesn't imply that. Yeah, it's a it's an odd kind of framing to put that. He then says that they left her naked and unconscious in the paddock. He says that they all thought they could hear a car or they could hear some sounds. So the four of them, bar John Travers, were leaving the paddock. They were yelling out to John that he needs to leave, like, you know, that they've all got to go. And John yelled back, but she's seen our faces, so we need to kill her. So he implies, and that's kind of like the biggest difference between his statement and Travers' statement, is that Travers indicates that all four of the men were standing around him, kind of egging him on to kill her. Whereas Michael Murphy's statement, which is kind of like pointed out as kind of a detailed statement, um, that that they were not there present for that. Um, he does say that once they all get back in the car, they go back to Travis' house and they burn all their clothes in the backyard, except for Travis, which explains why the bloody jeans are still in Travis's house when they find them.
Carrie:His his statement rings more true to me because it's actually using the same phrasing that Travis himself told Miss X, which was she's seen our face. Yeah.
Benny:Isn't it sad to, or isn't it awful to think that the car that they heard while they're in the paddock that scared them could have been someone out looking for them, it could have been the people who were driving around looking for that car, it could have been the police by this stage, I'm not sure. But isn't it awful to think that that car could have been someone looking for it?
Carrie:Again, another near close call piece of time.
Clare:Even like when the farmer, like if we go all the way back to the start where the farmer did confirm that he hurt thought he heard screaming but didn't think it was a big deal, if it was, if it was something that he hadn't heard very often, he might have put floodlights on, he might have gone out to the paddock or something like that. That doesn't necessarily mean that things would have changed, but again, all those sliding door moments that could exist as well. So one of the biggest indicators, again, is that Travis kind of owns his his role as the leader. He admits that he committed the murders in his confession. The other four kind of like play down their roles pretty quickly in the statements and the interviews that they do give with police. So when the trial finally begins, so this is now 1987, um, when the trial begins, there's so much public outrage. Again, there's protests outside of the courts, there's people with signs saying things like hang the bastards, bring back the death penalty, that they did have to start to like pat down people for weapons, all sorts of things are coming into the courtroom because they were so worried that some or multiple people were going to either try and attack the four the five men or kill them or something like that. So they were intending to try all five together as well. But then the first day of the trial, there is a bit of a um twist, I guess, um, with John changing his plea. So he initially was coming in like the others with a not guilty plea, despite despite doing the confessions, despite the recordings and the bloody genes, they all came in with a not guilty um plea. Um but first day of trial, John changes his plea to guilty on all charges. And as a result, he is removed from the trial. Okay, so this is March of 1987. So the four remaining, so the three Murphy brothers and Michael Murdoch all face trial. So the tactic for the defense really starts to downplay their role in the crimes. Obviously, they can't completely remove their involvement based on the evidence that's been provided, the now guilty plea from Travers, and also the signed confessions from several of them. What they try to downplay is their role in the actual murder. So they can't deny that they were either there or partook in some of the other crimes that happened to Anita, but they all are kind of pretty adamant around that not guilty plea around murder. And so the defense, I think what they were trying to aim for is maybe like a lower sentencing of maybe manslaughter or something like that. Um, that again, it was that throughout throughout all of their statements and throughout everything that happens, they do speak a lot about, you know, it was John who wanted to um abduct her. It was John who wanted to, you know, like attack her, it was John who wanted to take her to the paddock. Another element that is raised in the trial, and then again, probably further indicates or like confirms some of the details that they put in some of their confessions, was that the neighbor to the back of John's house did um confirm that he had seen the five men drinking in the backyard and burning things and that it had an unusual smell. Um, so again, if we go back to the confessions, they do confirm that they were burning Anita's items. So it would have been her clothes, their own clothes, her ID, her bag, just trying to get rid of anything related to what they've been doing. So on the 10th of June in 1987, the jury shared their verdict with all fair all five men being found guilty of murder of Anita Cobby. On the 16th of June, 1987, all five men were sentenced to life with no option for release. In his in his judgment, Judge Maxwell noted in the sentencing the circumstances of these prisoners and the circumstances of the murder of Anita Lorraine Cobby prompted me to recommend that the official files for each of these prisoners should be clearly marked never to be released. The sentences were met with cheers from the large crowd in and around the courtroom. For Anita's family and friends, justice had been served. Gary and Grace Lynch in the years that followed established the homicide victims support group alongside Christine and Peter Simpson, the parents of Ebony Simpson, whose case we covered, Lizzie covered in episode 61 of Death and Taxes. They also remained very close with several of the detectives who'd brought justice for Anita. They have both since passed away. One of the really heartbreaking parts of this story, as we've talked about throughout, is John Cobbie, Anita's husband. He obviously and justifiably had a really hard time post-Anita's death. Um, and with the weight of what had happened, too heavy to bear, in an attempt to restart his life, John did change his name and he did build a new life. He got married, he had children, he continued to live a new life under a new name. However, as the anniversaries of Anita's death kind of rolled around towards the kind of 30th year anniversary, John did reclaim his name and went back to uh his referencing as John Cobbby and reclaiming that name. He also shared his story for the first time in the book Remembering Anita Cobbie by Mark Maury. But he also shared his first on-screen interviews in the on-screen interview in the documentary Anita Cobbby, you thought you knew it all. The men remain in maximum security prisons across Australia. In 1996, John Travers did attempt to escape jail with another inmate. On a train this time or close in another vehicle. During transportation from one prison to the other, um, they tried to hacksaw through the door of the van that they were in, but the um the guards saw what was happening, pulled it over, had them arrested instantly. So that didn't last very long.
Benny:It's not a quiet process, hacksawing through a door. Plus, how long's this journey? Yeah, that's exactly right. It can't be that far.
Clare:Um Michael Murphy passed away in 2019 of liver cancer. He was still incarcerated at the time of his death. In August of 2025, Michael Murdoch, who was 19 at the time of his crimes, had sought to have his conviction overturned, stating that he was set up by police, saying that evidence was manufactured by the police and was trying to obtain details of police records, his recordings, um, any um police files, all of the details. So he had attempted this a couple of times as well. It's probably worth pointing out. But the new civil and administrative tribunal rejected his claims several times, stating that he was seeking previously denied information and that there was no reasonable grounds that a different outcome would be found. I think we I've I've pointed this out a couple of times, but it is worth noting the quick turnaround of the police work in this case. Um, so from the date of Anita's murder to the arrest of the five men, it's around three weeks, which is pretty quick. And I think, as we said, it's following up lots of leads, it's embracing the public interest and outrage, using that to help identify extra witnesses, nail down that timeline using the recreation and also providing that really strong relationship with the Cobbie family. They kept them very much instead, and I think that's something that sometimes kind of wavers with these types of cases. And that's the sad, very, very sad and unfortunate story of Anita Cobbie just after the 40th anniversary of her passing.
Carrie:Well, I feel devastated for Anita's family and friends. It obviously impacted their surrounding community and Australia as a whole. People still talk about this case 40 years down the track. So, Anita, you're not forgotten.
Clare:So, my sources for today is Case File Podcast. They've got a great episode on this uh case. Um, Disturban, which is a YouTube channel.
Benny:I love Disturban, he'si really good. You're talking about the 'this case takes place' guy? And he's hot.
Clare:Yeah, it's a YouTube channel. Australian True Crime Podcast, True Crime Conversations podcast. Um, as I mentioned before, you can watch uh John Cobbby's interview on the on Binge in Australia. I don't know in America where you would find it. So apologies to our overseas listeners. Um, Anita Cobbie, you thought you knew it all, and also uh Emma Kenny on YouTube. She's got a great channel on there as well. What reality show would you be in? I said drag race. Lots of people said traders, but I think I'd be really good at drag race. Like I'm lip syncing for my life every day.
Carrie:Look, I think I'd have to be Vanderpump. Like working a shitty job, pretty poor. I actually thought you were gonna say below deck, Carrie.
Benny:Don't you remember her cruise fiasco?
Clare:Well, yeah, that is true.
Benny:Just the vibes, yeah.
Clare:I could have seen you in the vibes, I guess. Carrie and I are also watching ER again. Noah Wiley. Good God.
Carrie:Oh, so it's it's Noah Wile. Not Wiley. I couldn't look, that's not the greatest photo of him, Carrie.
Benny:Oh, very cute.
Clare:Very cute. But he's more rugged in the pit. You know, like he's seen things, you know.
Carrie:Just a sec. I made those cookies for the kids' lunchbox. So you stop eating them. Oh myway. Does he need the recipe, Carrie? No, they look really bad. They went really badly. Anyway. They just went.
Benny:Oh, Carrie. I know. I know. Let him eat them. Might.
Carrie:Good night. I've got nothing else for the lunch boxes, so that would go bearing it.
Benny:Just saying, don't don't let any other kids see them. Eat them quickly.
