Content warning: The following article contains disturbing details of violence and sexual assault
A judge called Anita Cobby’s 1986 rape and murder “a calculated killing done in cold blood.”
For the 26-year-old Australian nurse, the barbaric beating and gang rape on the night of Feb. 2, 1986, that left her dead in a rural field with her throat slashed was the stuff of nightmares.
Just before 10 p.m. that night, Cobby, who worked as a nurse at Sydney Hospital, got off the train in the quiet suburb of Blacktown and started walking home, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
As the former beauty queen walked along the side of the dark road to her parents’ house, the unthinkable happened.
Five men in a car pulled up and forced her inside a stolen vehicle, according to reports in outlets including the Sydney Morning Herald, News.Com.auand The Guardian.
Anita Cobby.
Adrian Greer Michael Short/Fairfax Media via Getty
For the next few hours, they raped her and beat her inside the car before dragging her body through a field and a barbed wire fence, and sexually assaulting her again.
Fearing she would be able to identify them, one of her attackers, John Travers, then 19, slashed her throat, leaving her to die, police said, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
The paddock in Prospect, New South Wales, Australia, where the body of Anita Cobby was found.
Gary Mclean/Fairfax Media via Getty
Soon after, police tracked down Travers and the other four men: Michael Murdoch, also 19, and three brothers, Leslie Murphy, 22, Gary Murphy, 28, and Michael Murphy, 33.
Convicted in 1987 of killing her, they were sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Her brutal death left the nation in shock and disbelief and still haunts her loved ones today.
Here’s what to know about Anita Cobby’s murder.
Who Was Anita Cobby?
As a teenager, Cobby took part in many beauty pageants, winning the Miss Western Suburbs pageant in 1979, News.com.au reported.
She considered a career as a model but opted instead to become a registered nurse, like her mother, according to the Gold Coast Bulletin.
Cobby was living with her parents, Garry and Grace Lynch, in Blacktown, New South Wales, after separating from her husband, John Cobby, whom she married in 1982, according to The Guardian.
Father Usually Picked Her Up — But Phone Wasn’t Working
After finishing her shift at the hospital in Sydney, Cobby went out to dinner with friends before taking the train home to Blacktown, News.com.au reported.
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She was unable to call her father to tell him to pick her up at the station, like she usually did, because the pay phone wasn’t working, The Guardian reported.
A witness said she saw a woman being dragged kicking and screaming into a car near the train station on the night Cobby vanished, police said, according to the Gold Coast Bulletin.
Detectives with then-suspect Garry Murphy at the murder scene in Prospect.
Barry James Gilmour/Fairfax Media via Getty
Her attackers drove from Blacktown to a desolate farm, where they beat her further, leaving her with bruises all over her body and broken bones, and took turns raping her, police said.
After leaving her in a field, they burned her clothes in one of their back yards to hide evidence, police said, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Cobby’s father notified police that his daughter was missing when she failed to return home or show up at work the next day.
Where Are Killers Today?
Informants provided police with information about the men a week after Cobby’s remains were found, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
After the five men were arrested, protesters held demonstrations calling for the return of the death penalty.
Murphy died in prison in 2019 after a long battle with cancer, The New Zealand Herald reported.
The others remain in prison.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.
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