Roger Rogerson to Anita Cobby: Crimes that shocked Sydney
FROM Australia’s first serial killer with a badge to heartbreaking revelations from Anita Cobby’s husband, Daily Telegraph journalists revisited the crimes that shook Sydney.
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Daily Telegraph journalists have covered some of Sydney’s most haunting crimes, from the savage murder of Anita Cobby, to Roger Rogerson’s final act and Farhad Qaumi’s journey from refugee to Sydney supervillain.
These are the cases that shocked a city.
‘BASTARD COP’ TURNED SERIAL KILLER
He was the ‘bastard cop from Bankstown’ who loved booze and women and saw himself as Australia’s answer to Dirty Harry. Cold, pragmatic, evil, Roger Rogerson loved nothing more than killing crooks and boasting about it.
Daily Telegraph Crime Editor Mark Morri has covered the life and crimes of Rogerson for decades and his six-part special report tells the definitive story of Australia’s only serial killer with a badge.
EXCLUSIVE: JOHN COBBY, 30 YEARS ON
Just days before the 30th anniversary of one of Australia’s most shocking crimes, John Cobby — the husband of murdered nurse and beauty queen Anita Cobby — spoke for the first time about his love for her and how he still blamed himself for her death.
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph, the 57-year-old revealed that within hours of Anita’s badly beaten body being found in a paddock in Prospect, on February 4, 1986, he was hauled into Blacktown police station and accused of killing her.
The questioning was so intense and he was so distraught by what had happened that he broke down and collapsed in the police interview room.
“I told them ‘Yep, I did it.’
WARLORD: FROM REFUGEE TO SUPERVILLAIN
AT seven years old, Farhad Qaumi was a kid in Afghanistan watching Soviet fighter jets bomb his school.
By 31, he was a supervillain: a self-styled gangster king of Sydney, charismatic and in control of the most ambitious criminal enterprise the city has ever seen.
This is the story of his rise and fall
REMEMBERING EBONY: 25 YEARS ON
On August 19, 1992, Andrew Garforth abducted nine-year-old Ebony Simpson as she walked home from school, sexually assaulted her, packed her bag with rocks and threw her into a dam to drown.
Twenty-five years on, Detective Inspector Rodney Grant of the NSW Police Force is still haunted by that day, and the decisions he made during the case.
Nicole Hogan’s special report revealed for the first time the crime scene photos and footage of the murderer’s chilling confession, revealing the true extent of the horrific crime.
And in a heartbreaking interview with Ebony’s parents, her father Peter Simpson, revealed how he believed his daughter would still be alive if the justice system had locked up Garfoth for his prior crimes.
SAMANTHA KNIGHT: THE FULL STORY
Thirty years years after her disappearance, David Meddows took an in-depth look at the case of Samantha Knight, whose 1986 disappearance captivated and terrified a nation.
For the first time, we revealed the identity of the inmate who heard her murderer’s confessions in jail and whose testimony eventually helped crack one of the most high profile missing persons cases in NSW history.
HOUSE OF HORRORS: ROYLESTON
Using boys as young as five for slave labour, floggings so severe many were left with permanent disabilities, horrific sexual torture and told that nobody loved them — this is not some third world country. This happened in Sydney’s suburbia.
From the outside, Royleston Home for Boys in Glebe looks like a majestic Victorian manor, with magnificent arched windows and a sweeping veranda. Yet behind the facade, the secrets of hundreds of young boys were hidden for almost 60 years.
