Killed just 300m from sleeping children
IT is 10.30pm on Sunday and a man is wailing in the darkness of a sleepy suburban Gold Coast street.
“It sounded like he was distraught,” Worongary resident Cliff Meyer tells the Bulletin. “I couldn’t understand what he was saying. He was in a flustered state.”
The wailing goes on for a few minutes before dying off.
At 11pm another resident at Arthur Payne Court, returning home from a late shift at work, stops as a body lays on the road.
Kym Cobby is dead, her face battered. She is found 300m from her home where her teenage children are sleeping.
Paramedics and police arrive at the scene within 15 minutes, but it is too late.
The mother of three, who turned 51 just 10 days ago, has been bludgeoned to death by someone.
Police choppers light up the sky in the early hours of Monday morning, waking up residents as they search for Ms Cobby’s alleged killer.
Her estranged husband, Andrew Cobby – the man allegedly wailing in the dark hours earlier – is found one street away on Harry Mills Dr, around 2am.
He is transported to hospital with injuries police describe as “consistent with walking through the bush” and is questioned while under police guard.
After being questioned by police yesterday, he is later charged with his wife’s murder.
Back at the Worongary street, the search begins for the murder weapon that may have delivered the fatal blow to Ms Cobby.
The dog squad, SES and homicide team from Brisbane are all called to assist while hitech drones are deployed for aerial searches.
Police also seize a red chrysler as evidence.
Detective Inspector Marc Hogan, head of the Gold Coast police Domestic Violence Taskforce, says Mrs Cobby suffered a “brutal death”.
“I’ve been there (to the scene) and I’ve seen the deceased and it would appear to me ... that the injuries are significant,” he says in the daylight of yesterday.
Det Insp Hogan says the Cobbys had been separated for “some time” but there is no recorded domestic violence incidents between the pair.
However, Mr Cobby had come to police attention and was charged this year with failing to appear in court on a warrant.
Ms Cobby shared the house with her mother Olwyn, sister Kaye, brother-in-law Craig Robert Eden and two teenage children.
Located at the end of the cul-de-sac on a block of land twice the size of others in the leafy Hinterland street, it has been the family home for years.
It features a long driveway which leads to the house, a swimming pool, tennis court and two sheds.
The 500m-long street is popular with families, with dozens of parents making the early morning dash to school around 8am in their BMWs and people-movers.
Residents who woke up to the horrific details of the killing describe the news as “far too close to home”.
Jim Odlum and Wendy Marquenie, who live on The Pinnacle adjacent to Arthur Payne Court, say the death has rocked the quiet, family friendly pocket of Worongary.
“It was a hell of a shock,” Mr Odlum says. “We’ve been here since 2011 and never had any issues.
“There are lots of kids in the area, and it’s so safe. It’s just hard to believe this happened.”
Mr Cobby is expected to face Southport Magistrates Court today.