Gold Coast murderers and their horrific crimes exposed

The Gold Coast has been the backdrop of some of the state’s most harrowing murders. We take a look at the shocking crimes – and name those responsible.

In the past two years there have been 10 murder offences recorded in the Gold Coast local government area.

Six of these were in central suburbs and the other two occurred in the northern suburbs, according to the Queensland Police Service online crime map.

The locations of the other two were not indicated.

The Bulletin has taken a look back at the horrific murders detailed in court over the past two years.

Cases still going through the court system have not been included for legal reasons.

Five Gold Coast murderers and their horrific crimes

Andrew John Cobby

Andrew Cobby is taken into Southport Watch house. Picture: 9 Gold Coast News

Andrew John Cobby will serve out life in jail for the murder of his estranged wife Kym Cobby.

In November, Cobby, 59, was found guilty by a jury of murdering the mother-of-three.

Her bloodied body was found outside her Gold Coast hinterland home in 2017.

She had been attacked with a hammer and choked to death in the driveway of her own home.

Justice Peter Callaghan sentenced Cobby to life imprisonment and urged him to reveal his motive for the murder.

ANDREW COBBY FOUND GUILTY OF MURDERING WIFE

“I’m not sure there was much else in your life for which you will actually want to be remembered, but it is still possible that you could do one remarkable thing in your life, and it would be truly remarkable if even now at this point you found it within yourself to simply tell the truth. You can still do that and you will have time to think about whether you will,” he said.

He labelled the crime as “sickening”.

Troy James O’Meara

Troy James O’Meara was arrested after a DNA breakthrough in 2018. Picture: AAP Image/Dave Hunt

The man who killed Gold Coast woman Linda Reed 37 years ago was last year jailed for 20 years.

Troy James O’Meara had earlier pleaded guilty to the rape and murder of Ms Reed on December 13, 1983, when he was 17.

Just 18 months later, O’Meara raped and killed Vanessa O’Brien, 22, whose body was discovered at a north Brisbane refuse tip in 1985.

DETECTIVE TALKS MURDER PROBE THREE DECADES ON

He is serving a life sentence for Ms O’Brien’s murder.

The court heard that on the day of Ms Reed’s death, the jewellery sales assistant at Pacific Fair shopping centre had taken her lunch break but colleagues became concerned when the “reliable” employee failed to return to work.

Three days later, police discovered Ms Reed’s abandoned vehicle in bushland at Helensvale. The court heard Ms Reed’s body was found face down in a creek bed.

Mark Vincent Dayney

Mark Dayney arriving at Southport Watchhouse. Picture: Kit Wise

A Gold Coast man who beat his partner’s drug-dealer ex-boyfriend to death was convicted of murder and sentenced to life behind bars.

Mark Vincent Dayney denied murdering Mark “Zeb” Spencer during a botched robbery in 2014.

HOW THE DAYNEY MURDER TOOK PLACE

Spencer’s bloodied and battered body was found on the patio of his Gold Coast home.

The Brisbane Supreme Court was told Dayney beat the man with a bat and tennis racquet so violently it shattered the weapons.

In December, Dayney was found guilty of murder for the second time and given a life sentence after he won an appeal of his 2018 murder conviction.

Carl William Sedgwick Bloomfield

A “sadistic” prisoner at the Woodford Correctional Centre lured another inmate to the jail laundry with the promise of a massage before he wrapped a bedsheet around the man’s neck and strangled him to death.

Carl William Sedgwick Bloomfield then went to play a game of basketball, leaving his victim’s body to be discovered by another prisoner.

The harrowing details of the death of Duke Schafer were revealed in the Brisbane Supreme Court last year after Bloomfield, 26, pleaded guilty to murdering his fellow inmate.

Crown Prosecutor Dzenita Balic said the victim had only been in prison for about six months serving a sentence for drug offences when he was killed by Bloomfield who provided an “irrational” explanation for the murder.

SADISTIC PRISON KILLER STRANGLED INMATE TO DEATH

Bloomfield, a former Gold Coast Titans under-16s squad player, claimed Mr Schafer had said something in jest the day before which he took exception to, prompting him to kill the man the next day in May 2020.

The prosecutor said Bloomfield was a “dangerous man” with a history of violence who was serving time for a horrific attack on two teenage boys.

The court heard Bloomfield had pushed a pair of scissors through one boy’s tongue before slicing off the other child’s ear during a “particularly violent robbery”.

Bloomfield was sentenced to life in prison and was jovial throughout his court appearance, waving and smiling at people in the gallery and telling his supporters he loved them.

Trung The Ma

Trung The Ma.

A financial planner tried to get his murder conviction downgraded because he had a blackout and could not remember picking up the hammer used to bludgeon his victim to death.

Trung The Ma killed Gold Coast man Huegio Bonham, 63, in February 2014 after Mr Bonham discovered Ma had embezzled more than $700,000 from him.

In 2018, a Supreme Court jury found Ma guilty of murder and interfering with a corpse. He was sentenced to life in prison.

TRUNG THE MA GETS LIFE FOR HAMMER MURDER

Ma, who was 35 when convicted, took the decision to the Court of Appeal, arguing mental health issues.

He said he felt like he was talking to his father just before he attacked Mr Bonham, “the room became blindingly bright, time slowed down”, felt as if he was “outside of myself looking at myself” and did not remember picking up the hammer.

In July last year, the Court of Appeal rejected Ma’s story, backing the Crown’s case at trial that Ma was “switched on and on the ball”.

– Additional reporting by Lea Emery and Vanessa Marsh

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Originally published as Gold Coast murderers and their horrific crimes exposed