Shandee’s Story: ‘The most gruesome murder I ever saw’

Policeman Peter Cowan had just dealt with the drowning of a five-year-old girl when he heard the radio call about a savage knife attack on a young woman, Shandee Blackburn, on a public street| LISTEN

The murder of Mackay hospitality worker Shandee Blackburn is being investigated in The Australian’s new podcast, Shandee’s Story.

“It’s going to end up a murder mate, she’s not going to make it.”

Paramedics were still desperately trying to save Shandee Blackburn’s life on the street when Sergeant Peter Cowan ­realised she wouldn’t survive.

With his digital recorder running, he phoned in his blunt advice to the police communi­cations hub – that the job first reported as a ­serious stabbing was going to ­become a homicide.

Peter and his brother Anthony Cowan, also a policeman, performed separate but key roles the night Shandee was murdered. Both saw things that eight years later they can’t forget after the ferocious, cowardly attack just after midnight as she walked home from work in Mackay, a tight-knit coastal community in central Queensland.

Senior Sergeant Anthony Cowan, head of Mackay’s Northern Beaches Police Station. Cowan was woken at home and had to tell Shandee’s mother, Vicki, of the murder. Picture: Damien Carty

The explosion of violence targeting Shandee’s face and neck led Peter to believe at the time it was a personal attack and that she was specifically targeted.

He says he has never encountered a crime like it before or since, despite seeing many stabbings in his 19 years in policing.

“It was just a prolonged attack of rage and anger. That was viciousness at its worst,” he told The Weekend Australian.

His older brother Anthony was then acting officer-in-charge of Mackay’s Criminal Investigation Branch. Before dawn, he had to wake Shandee’s mother, Vicki, with the news her daughter, 23, had just been murdered on the same street only 100m away.

Police officer Peter Cowan, previously based in Mackay. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen / The Australian

“I remember clearly kneeling down in front of her on the couch, telling her. It’s something you just don’t forget,” he said.

Shandee’s murder is being reinvestigated in The Australian’s new podcast series Shandee’s Story, by national chief correspondent Hedley Thomas. The roles of the two brothers feature in the first episode, Sugar Town.

Episode one of Shandee’s Story, Sugar Town, was released Friday

On the night of Shandee’s murder, Peter had been at Mackay Base Hospital dealing with the tragic aftermath of a five-year-old girl’s drowning death in a bath.

“I had just left the hospital thinking that my night couldn’t get any worse when the job came over the radio for the ­incident with Shandee,” he said. The message was that a woman had suffered multiple stab wounds in Boddington Street, close to the CBD. It had just turned Saturday, February 9, 2013.

Peter was the Mackay station shift supervisor and headed straight to the scene, activating his digital recorder as he arrived.

Paramedics and a couple of other police officers had just turned up. Peter could see by the look on the face of a colleague, a mature and reliable hand, that it was bad. Then he saw Shandee.

“The number of stab wounds inflicted on her and the blood was just a horrific sight,” he said.

At 12.37am, four minutes later, he phoned the police comms centre to deliver his prognosis that Shandee wasn’t going to live.

“It was just surreal. It was so close to a 24-hour McDonald’s. I could see a service station open at the main road,” Peter said.

“What should have been a safe place, people around and not a problem. I just couldn’t believe that you would find a girl in that state right there.”

Peter’s brother Anthony was home in bed when the comms centre called. He went to the scene, then the hospital, and viewed Shandee’s body to assist in identifying her.

With her handbag missing, police were able to find Shandee’s name through her iPhone.

It was locked, but when ­officers used the emergency feature to call triple-0 they had her number and details.

Just after 4.30am, Anthony and other officers walked from the crime scene to the Boddington Street townhouse Shandee shared with her mother.

To be woken like this is every parent’s worst nightmare. A digital recorder was running.

Like Peter Cowan’s earlier call to the comms centre, the recording forms part of the Shandee’s Story podcast with Vicki’s full support – she wants all the facts out there.

Vicki was dazed as she walked down her stairs. “What is it? What is it? Shandee?” she asked.

“There’s been a … been an accident tonight. And we believe she has passed away,” Anthony said.

Anthony, now a senior sergeant in charge of Mackay’s Northern Beaches station, has since got to know Shandee’s family well. He has worked with Vicki to raise personal safety awareness. But at the time, he had officers covering the back door.

Shandee’s mother Vicki, sister Shannah with Senior Sergeant Anthony Cowan, right. Picture: Peter Holt / Daily Mercury

“For all we knew at this stage, the offender could have been ­residing with her in that same house,” he said. “Once we had it safe, I vividly remember kneeling down in front of Vicki … and explaining to her as best I could.”

Mackay might be a city in name but it still had the feel of a country town, and Shandee’s murder hit the community hard.

“For a young girl to be walking home from work and to be murdered in the fashion that it occurred, I think it set alarm bells through the whole town,” he said.

“And the fact that it wasn’t solved immediately obviously put some concerns into the community that it could happen to anyone.”

Anyone with information about the murder of Shandee Blackburn can contact Hedley Thomas confidentially at
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