Murder of Anita Cobby

As of 2022, John Travers was housed in Wellington Correctional Centre in maximum security. In 1988 he was transferred to Maitland Gaol and was housed there until 1992, when he was transferred to Goulburn Correctional Centre. In 1996, he and another inmate were being transported from Goulburn to Long Bay Hospital at Long Bay Correctional Complex when they attempted to escape from the prison van by hacksawing through and kicking in the back door. When the attempt was noticed, the van pulled over at Bowral Police Station, and the two were arrested and charged. Travers was regularly kept in protection at the Goulburn because he was often involved in bloody fights with other inmates and threatening prison staff. From 2005 to 2015 Travers was housed in Lithgow Correctional Centre. Travers was eventually transferred to Wellington Correctional Centre.

As of 2022, Les Murphy was housed in Goulburn Correctional Centre in maximum security. There was a long list of associates in the Goulburn Centre he was not allowed to have contact with. In 2005, he got into trouble for failing a urine test.

Michael Murphy was housed in Long Bay Correctional Complex in maximum security. In 1988, Michael was housed along with his brother Gary in the newly built Special Protection Unit in Long Bay Correctional Complex. In 1992, he was transferred to Lithgow Correctional Centre, where he undertook Year 10 studies and did weekly work. A few years later Michael Murphy was transferred to Goulburn Correctional Centre, where he spent most his imprisonment and he usually kept to himself and stayed out of trouble. In May 2015, he was reclassified to medium security until July 2015, when he was reclassified back to maximum security. In 2018 Murphy was transferred from Goulburn to Long Bay due to deteriorating health. In September 2018 it was reported that he had terminal cancer and was living in palliative care. He died in Long Bay Hospital on 21 February 2019 at the age of 66.

As of 2022, Gary Murphy was housed in Goulburn Correctional Centre in maximum security. In 1988, he was housed along with his brother Michael Murphy in the newly built Special Protection Unit in Long Bay Correctional Complex. A few years later, Gary Murphy was transferred to Maitland Gaol Correctional Centre, where he was housed till the prison's closure. In 2005 he was placed in Goulburn Correctional Centre and was housed there until June 2019. In mid-June 2019 he was transferred from Goulburn to Long Bay Correctional Complex. On the morning of 25 June 2019, he was severely beaten by several other prisoners in shower block of 10 Wing in Long Bay and was transferred to hospital in a critical condition. On 23 August 2020 it was revealed by the Daily Telegraph that Murphy at some point had been moved back from Long Bay to Goulburn.

After the death of Michael Murphy, as of 22 February 2019, NSW Corrective Services confirmed the four other offenders were still alive and were still serving their life sentences in various maximum-security correctional centres across New South Wales, but it could not be revealed where they were currently being housed.

The murder has been covered by several true crime television series, including Crime Investigation Australia in 2006, Crime Stories in 2008, and Australian Families of Crime in 2010. The case was covered by Casefile True Crime Podcast on 22 July 2017. It has also been the subject of several books (see Further reading).

The Australian public reacted with anger upon hearing details of Cobby's murder. On 6 February, the NSW State Government posted a A$50,000 reward for information leading to the capture of Cobby's killers. Also on 6 February, morning radio host John Laws obtained a leaked copy of Cobby's autopsy report, which contained explicit details of her injuries, and read it live on the air, both shocking and galvanising public sentiment. In a 2016 interview with Seven News, Laws said he did it because he felt "the general public ought to know" and that "it incited anger in the public that murders like this were happening and we weren't being given the full details".

In February 2016, at the time of the 30th anniversary of the murder, police released the taped confessions of Travers and Murdoch that were obtained by Miss X. Seven News broadcast a documentary, 7 News Investigates: Anita Cobby — You Thought You Knew It All, which included the newly released taped confessions and John Cobby's first televised interview about his wife's murder.

A 90-minute documentary titled Anita was released in 2016, on the 30th anniversary of the murder.

Cobby's parents would join forces with Christine and Peter Simpson, the parents of murder victim Ebony Simpson, to create the Homicide Victims' Support Group (Aust) Inc.—a community support group that helps families deal with heinous crimes. The Lynches also campaigned in seeking tougher sentencing and truth in sentencing laws, which eventuated after Cobby's murder. Cobby's father Garry Lynch died on 14 September 2008, aged 90, suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Her mother, Grace, died of lung cancer in 2013, at the age of 88. The Lynches had been married for 54 years at the time of Garry's death.

Michael Murdoch was formerly a maximum-security inmate at Goulburn Correctional Centre until December 1999 when he was reclassified to medium security and transferred to Bathurst Correctional Complex. In 2002, Murdoch was reclassified as maximum security and transferred to Lithgow Correctional Centre.

The Australian social-realist film The Boys (1998), directed by Rowan Woods, is, in part, inspired by the Cobby murder and follows the journey of three brothers leading up to a similar crime.

Two days after being reported missing, Cobby's body was discovered on a farm in Prospect. Investigations led to the arrest of five men who were later convicted of her abduction, rape and murder on 10 June 1987 and each sentenced to life imprisonment, without the possibility of parole, on 16 June 1987.

The trial began in Sydney on 16 March 1987. Before proceedings began, Travers changed his plea to guilty. Sydney newspaper The Sun published a front-page story on the day the trial began, carrying the headline "ANITA MURDER MAN GUILTY" alongside a large image of Travers. The news story also referred to Michael Murphy as an unemployed prison escapee of no fixed address, and another in the same paper detailed Murphy's criminal convictions and his recent escape from Silverwater Correctional Centre, where he was serving a 25-year sentence for a string of burglaries and thefts. The jury was discharged due to the potentially prejudicial information published about Murphy.

The trial for the remaining members of the gang lasted 54 days, with the men's defence relying on convincing the jury of their minimal involvement in the beating and murder. On 10 June 1987, all five were found guilty of sexual assault and murder. On 16 June, they were each sentenced in the Supreme Court of New South Wales to life imprisonment plus additional time without the possibility of parole. Justice Alan Maxwell described the crime as, "One of the most horrifying physical and sexual assaults. This was a calculated killing done in cold blood. The Executive should grant the same degree of mercy they bestowed on their victim."

She met her future husband, John Cobby, while studying for her nursing degree at Sydney Hospital. They married on 27 March 1982. At the time of Cobby's murder in 1986, the couple had separated and Cobby was living with her parents in Blacktown, New South Wales. According to John Cobby, he and Anita were on good terms and, when she was murdered, had been planning to reconcile.

John Raymond Travers, considered the ringleader of the gang, was raised in poverty in Blacktown, the oldest of eight children from unmarried teenage parents. By age 14, he was already an alcoholic, and was expelled from high school during Year 10 for being continually disruptive to other students. Beyond schooling, Travers held few jobs and relied mostly on unemployment benefits as a source of income. He was eventually committed to Boys' Town, a juvenile detention facility, by his mother. His father, with whom he never shared a close relationship, left the household in 1981. Finding it difficult to support the family, Travers relied on crime to provide food, stealing animals such as chickens and ducks from nearby households. The health of Travers' mother eventually deteriorated, and he and his siblings were sent to live with foster families while she was hospitalised. Travers had a history of violent sexual behaviour and bestiality. Witnesses have recounted that on several occasions, he had bought a live sheep for a barbecue and slit the animal's throat as he sodomised it before roasting its carcass on a spit.

Anita Lorraine Cobby (née Lynch) (2 November 1959 – 2 February 1986) was a 26-year-old Australian woman from Blacktown, New South Wales who was kidnapped while walking home from Blacktown railway station just before 10:00 p.m. on 2 February 1986, and subsequently sexually assaulted and murdered.

Anita Lynch was born in Sydney on 2 November 1959, to Garry Bernard Lynch, a graphic artist with the Royal Australian Air Force, and Grace "Peggy" Lynch, a nurse. As a teenager she participated in beauty pageants, including winning the Miss Western Suburbs Pageant in November 1979, and had a promising career as a model. However, she decided instead to follow in her mother's footsteps and also become a nurse