SHOCKING BEAUTY QUEEN MURDERS
For these stunning young women, the dream off being a pageant star became the stuff of nightmares
ANITA COBBY Miss Western Suburbs
As evil killer Michael Murphy lay dying of cancer in a secure hospital palliative care ward late last month, sections of the public called for no mercy for the man who viciously murdered Sydney nurse Anita Cobby.
Demanding Murphy, 65, receive no pain relief as his life ebbed away, one woman asked, “Why should he have the comfort of palliative care when that poor woman was made to suffer as she did?”
Such was the public disgust at the murder of Anita 32 years ago, the photos of her winning the Miss Western Suburbs beauty pageant still fresh in the minds of many Australians touched by the death of such a caring and beautiful woman.
Anita, 26, was gang-raped and murdered at the hands of Murphy and four other men on February 2, 1986.
Walking home in Blacktown, Sydney, after a night out with friends, the 1979 winner of the Miss Western Suburbs Pageant was kidnapped by crazed psychopath John Travers, Michael Murdoch and brothers Leslie, Michael and Gary Murphy.
The deviant group tortured the Sydney nurse, breaking her fingers and dislocating other bones before dragging her body across barbed wire.
Her throat cut to the point of decapitation, Anita was found in a field in a neighbouring suburb two days later.
Police worked around the clock for a month to bring Anita’s evil killers to justice. All five men were give life sentences.