The Murder Of Anita Cobby: Australia's Worst Crime

The Search Begins ... and Ends

After work, at 5.30 on the afternoon of Sunday, 2 February 1986, Anita Cobby and two nursing sister friends went to a Lebanese restaurant in Redfern for an early dinner. Lyn Bradshaw and Elaine Bray had done their training with Anita and they had all been friends for years. They shared some wine and Lyn dropped Anita off at Central Railway Station to catch the train home. Both of her friends offered to put Anita up for the night, but she declined their offers, said goodnight and walked up the ramp to the station. Except for her murderers, that was the last time that anyone could recall seeing Anita Cobby alive.

Anita Cobby

When his daughter didn't call that night, Garry Lynch wasn't concerned. Anita often got caught late at work and stayed overnight with workmates in the city. She was a sensible, responsible woman and there was no reason in the world for Garry Lynch to be worried. When the duty sister from the Sydney Hospital rang early in the afternoon wondering why Sister Cobby hadn't turned up for work, Mr. Lynch suggested that they try her friends' homes. He was told that her friends were already at work and they were concerned as well. Garry Lynch started to worry. He rang his wife at work. No, she had heard nothing.

Mr. Lynch rang every place that his daughter was likely to be. By late afternoon he decided to report his daughter missing to Blacktown police, and by the following day, the Lynch family was frantic. John Cobby had joined the search and every hospital, friend and working colleague was checked. Nothing. All the family could do now was wait and pray that Anita would walk through the door.

What the tough homicide detectives saw in the Boiler Paddock on John Reen's farm that day will live with them forever. Farmer Reen told them that his cows had been acting suspiciously and were milling around an object on the ground when he left his property in the morning. When he returned they were still in the same circle and he decided to investigate. Loud yelling and screaming from the paddock had woken him on the Sunday night.

The Boiler Paddock, which is a fair distance from the Reen farmhouse, is so named because John Reen kept all his old cows (the boilers) in it. The paddock runs alongside Reen Road, in Prospect, a rural suburb only a few minutes drive from Blacktown Station. Anita Cobby's body was discovered about 100 meters in from the fence. It appeared that her murderers had dragged her through the barbed-wire fence into the paddock. Since Reen Road was a notorious lovers' lane, a car parked alongside the Boiler Paddock on the Sunday night would not have been unusual.

When Detective Sergeant Kennedy and Detective Constable Heskett knocked on the Lynches' door that day, Grace and Garry Lynch instinctively feared the worst. The policemen told them that they had found the body of a young lady in a paddock at Prospect. The body answered the description of their missing daughter. Sergeant Kennedy showed Mr. and Mrs. Lynch a wedding ring that they identified as being similar to the one that their daughter wore.

The detectives asked Garry Lynch to accompany them to the morgue to identify his daughter. The detectives supported the sobbing Mr. Lynch as he said goodbye to his daughter for the last time. The detectives knew that they would not rest until Anita Cobby's murderers were brought to justice. Two local detectives, Senior Constable Kevin Raue and Detective Sergeant Graham Rosetta, were called in. Both were tough street cops who knew the area backwards. From that moment on, John Travers and his gang of savages didn't stand a chance. If it took the rest of their lives, Detective Kennedy and his team weren't going to let them get away.