Crimes that shook the Riverina: from mafia executions to the death of Stephanie Scott
Country NSW is known for its rolling hills, picturesque farmland and friendly faces but there is a darker underbelly. These are some of the chilling crimes that shook the Riverina.
The Wagga News
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The cities of Australia might be seen by some as unsafe, but what happens when a murder comes to town?
From a notorious mafia shooting of an aspiring politician, to a murdered farmer, these are the chilling crimes that have rocked the Riverina and western NSW.
Teenager stabbed over 20 times
On Easter Sunday, April 19, 1987, 18-year-old Sally Ann Jones was raped and murdered by Kenneth Barry Cannon in Wagga.
Cannon abducted Sally and brutally raped and murdered her before dumping her body in the Murrumbidgee River.
Sally’s body was found with 20 stab wounds.
Canon, a 27-year-old mechanic at the time, told police he made the discovery while out jogging.
It took four years of investigating before Cannon was arrested in 1991.
DNA results confirmed it was his semen located on Ms Jones’s body.
It was the first time in Riverina history that DNA evidence was used to solve a Riverina case and one of the first DNA solved cases in NSW.
Kenneth Barry Cannon’s prison term is due to expire in December 2022.
Farmer murders family
It was a crime that sent shockwaves through the Riverina.
On September 9, 2014, Geoff Hunt, murdered his entire family before killing himself.
Kim Hunt, 41, Fletcher, 10, Mia 8 and Phoebe 6 were all shot dead at their farm in Lockhart.
It is believed that Geoff Hunt was depressed and going to commit suicide when he killed his entire family in an attempt to ‘spare them pain.’
Geoff was found dead in a dam on the property, a suicide note was left at the scene.
Lifeline: 13 11 14.
Bride-to-be murdered one week before her wedding
It’s a crime that struck the hearts of thousands across the country, a young, beautiful bride-to-be with the world at her feet disappears in a small town of little more than 10,000 residents.
Stephanie Scott, 26, was a week away from her wedding to her high school beu when she was beaten, and raped before being stabbed and later burned by a cleaner at the school she worked at.
Ms Scott, 26, grew up at Canowindra in New South Wales, On April 7, 2015 she went to Leeton High School to prepare lessons ahead of taking leave for her upcoming wedding.
Vincent Stanford, a cleaner who worked at Leeton High school, saw her at the school preparing lessons in her staff room while he was cleaning.
Details of the crime revealed Stanford, 25, then drove home to the house he shared with his mother Anneke Noort and collected what he called a “rape kit” before returning to Leeton High School.
As Miss Scott was leaving the school, the pair bumped into each other and Miss Scott wished him a Happy Easter, but as she tried to open the metal gate at the school’s entrance, Stanford grabbed her and pulled her into a storeroom, threw her on the ground and locked the door.
Stanford sexually assaulted her, punched her unconscious and then stabbed her in the neck with a knife “to make sure she was dead”.
He later dumped her body in the Cocoparra National Park where he burnt her body.
Standford was sentenced to life behind bars without parole.
The torture and death of an infant
It was a horrifying crime that shocked a community and a nation when a man tortured and killed seven-month-old Jordan Anderson-Smith at his mother’s Ashmont home in Wagga.
During a party at the home in February 2000, Christopher Hoerler plucked Jordan Anderson-Smith from his pram, took him into a room where he tortured and killed him.
Hoerler was in a domestic relationship with Jordan’s mother, Louise Anderson, and he had been introduced into the family home just three weeks before the killing.
Jordan suffered multiple injuries, including fractured ribs, a lacerated liver, a bruised pancreas, his toes were crushed by a clamp.
Hoerler hit the infant so hard, that the infants his bottom teeth went through the roof of his mouth.
Jordan’s injuries were so extensive that they took four days to document.
Hoerler was found guilty of manslaughter was sentenced to 14 years in Sydney’s Long Bay prison before being deported back to Papua New Guinea.
A politician gunned down by Calabrian mafia
Donald Mackay’s death brought international attention to Griffith.
The world was fascinated by the mysterious disappearance of the anti-drug campaigner who disappeared, never to be seen again.
Mr Mackay was an aspiring local politician in Griffith who became a police informant, blowing the whistle on the illegal drug trade in the area and a large crop of marijuana nearby in Coleambally.
The trial of the illicit drug crop resulted in several arrests and the conviction for four men of Italian descent.
On July 15, 1977, Mr Mackay disappeared from a Griffith pub carpark after having drinks with friends and has never been found.
On his van and the ground nearby were blood stains of his blood type, and stains from his car keys were located underneath the van.
Nearby were drag marks, hair, and three spent .22 calibre bullet shells.
In 1986, the suspected hit man – James Frederick ‘Machine Gun’ Bazley – was jailed for nine years for conspiracy to murder.
It is believed that the late mafia boss Robert “Bob” Trimboli paid the hit man to kill Mr Mackay.
In 2018, Bazley died in a Melbourne nursing home aged 92, leaving many questions unanswered.
A drug deal gone horribly wrong
Allecha Boyd was 27 when she was murdered by Samuel Shephard on August 10, 2017.
Ms Boyd had initially arrived at Shephard’s home to purchase drugs, but just a few hours later she was driven about 5km to the outskirts of town before being callously gunned down.
Ms Boyd was shot three or four times on a dirt road in Coolamon before her body was then taken deep into the Lester State Forest and buried in a shallow grave.
After three years of searching in the forest, in December 2020 Shephard was able to successfully lead police to her body.
Ms Boyd was gunned down after she got into an argument with Shepard’s lover, whom at the time was jealous of Allecha.
Samuel Shephard, is serving a 27-year-sentence for her murder and other charges.
The Albury Pyjama Girl
In 1934, the badly burnt and battered body of a young woman wearing distinctive silk yellow pyjamas was found in a culvert along Splitter’s creek in Albury.
The case baffled police, and with no leads and in a bid to crack the case, the preserved body was displayed to the public for a decade, becoming a macabre tourist attraction.
Her bright silk pyjamas with a Chinese dragon on them, were considered luxurious and exotic in Depression-era Australia, so the media at the time quickly dubbed her as the ‘Pyjama Girl.’
From 1934-1942 the ‘Pyjama Girl’, was displayed to the public in a bath of ice in Albury and then in a bath of formaledhyde at Sydney University.
A decade after the discovery of her body, forensic evidence was re-examined and the dental analysis was matched to Linda Agostini.
Toni Agostini, Linda’s husband then confessed to her murder admitting that he had accidentally shot and killed his wife while they were living in Melbourne.
Agostini told police he was worried about being accused of murder, so he drove to the boarder where he dumped it and poured petrol over her body in an attempt to destroy evidence.
Agostini was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to six years imprisonment, he was released in 1948 and deported to Italy where he died in 1969.
The arrest was a media sensation as the famous ‘Pyjama Girl’ had been identified, however mystery and theories still surround the case.
In 2004 a book, The Pyjama Girl Mystery: A True Story of Murder, Obsession and Lies by criminologist Dr Richard Evans that claimed discrepancies with the evidence, calling Antonio Agostini’s conviction the result of “police corruption and a miscarriage of justice.”
Dr Evans also pointed out that The Pyjama Girls eyes were brown and Agostini’s were blue, as well as different shaped bust size and nose.
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