Anita Cobby killer dying in Sydney hospital

JOHN Cobby, whose wife Anita was raped, tortured and murdered in a crime that shocked Sydney, has reacted to news that one of the animals responsible is close to death.

• Cobby’s savage murder rocked Sydney
• ‘I dreamt of killing her murderers’

JOHN Cobby, whose wife Anita was raped, tortured and murdered in a crime that shocked Sydney, has reacted to news that one of the animals responsible is close to death.

Michael Murphy, one of five men responsible for the 1986 killing, is dying of liver cancer under police guard in Prince of Wales Hospital.

Murphy was one of five men, including his younger brothers Gary and Leslie, who abducted the beauty queen as she walked home from Blacktown Station before they raped and murdered her.

Anita Cobby was brutally raped and murdered in 1986.

Cobby had been having dinner with friends,

Anita Cobby with husband John at a friend’s wedding.

The crime outraged the nation and led to wild scenes when the five were arrested three weeks after the murder, with protesters demanding the return of the death penalty.

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The three brothers — along with 19-year-old ringleader John Travers and Michael Murdoch, 18 — were sentenced never to be released from jail.

Murderer Michael Murphy is terminally ill.

Michael Murphy was jailed for life.

Michael Murphy covers his face as he visits the scene with police where Anita Cobby’s body was found.

Michael Murphy, now 65, is understood to have been in and out of hospital in recent months for treatment for liver cancer but his condition has deteriorated in recent days and he has reportedly been moved to palliative care.

Nine News reported yesterday that Murphy doesn’t have long to live.

A reluctant teen beauty pageant winner, Cobby had rejected a promising career as a model to study nursing.

Angry crowds turned out when the murderers were arrested.

Ringleader John Travers.

Michael Murdoch.

Leslie Murphy.

Gary Murphy.

She had been to dinner with friends when she was snatched off the street.

The 26-year-old’s body was found in the middle of a farm in the Western Sydney suburb of Prospect two days later.

The extent of her ­injuries shocked even the most hardened of homicide detectives.

Cobby had been severely beaten, repeatedly raped and had her throat cut before she was dumped in the field. Her injuries suggested she had been dragged through a barbed wire fence.

A week after her body was found, an informant came forward and pointed police in the direction of Travers and his sick gang.

John Cobby yesterday said he has no sympathy for Murphy at all.

“You can’t print what I wish happens to him,’’ he said.

“When I heard he was in palliative care I shared a message with someone who was very close to Anita saying, ‘one down, four to go’.”

In handing down life sentences to the killers, Justice Alan Maxwell described Cobby’s murder as “one of the most horrifying physical and sexual assaults”.

Originally published as Anita Cobby killer dying in Sydney hospital