Police sting snares killer 24 years on
Teenager Michelle Bright’s fate was sealed the night she crossed paths with an evil predator on her way home from a party
High school student Michelle Bright had big dreams. She loved animals and wanted to be a vet. The 17-year-old had also told her family she planned to have six children one day, so it was no surprise to them that she planned to devote her life to caring for others.
The compassionate Australian teenager, who had two older brothers, lived with her parents Greg and Loraine in Gulgong, New South Wales. But the small, close-knit community, with its population of 2,500, was about to be rocked by tragedy.
On 26 February, 1999, Michelle went to a friend’s 15th birthday party. She was given a lift part of the way home in the early hours of the next day. She was dropped off at a pub in the centre of Gulgong at 12.45am. It was a three kilometre walk back to her house, but she never made it.
At first the police believed Michelle had run away or was simply staying with friends somewhere. But three days after her disappearance, her decomposing body was discovered by a member of the public who was out walking their dog.
Her body was found in long grass, by the side of the road, less than a kilometre from her home. The teenager, who was just four months from her 18th birthday, had been left half-naked and face down in the dirt.
A post-mortem revealed she had been sexually assaulted and had died either by strangulation or suffocation.
The murder led to the biggest manhunt the area had ever seen, during which the police turned up thousands of leads. The number of suspects was narrowed down to a handful, but no arrests were made.
For two decades, Michelle’s family were in torment, knowing her killer was walking the streets somewhere. And an inquest in 2009 heard that “a black cloud” had been hanging over Gulgong since the murder.
Sexual assault
A reward of A$500,000 for information was offered by the police, but although the investigation remained open, it became a cold case. Then, in 2019, it was looked at again in depth and a prime suspect, who’d been interviewed at the time of the murder, was identified. Truck driver Craig Rumsby had been a neighbour of the Brights in 1999 and was 31 at the time of the killing. Two weeks after Michelle’s murder, he quietly moved away to the outskirts of Sydney – and his car was destroyed in a mysterious fire. Rumsby had a history of sexually assaulting and harassing women. He’d been convicted of indecent assault and non-consensual sexual touching in 2014 and in 2020 he was arrested for groping and licking a retail worker and
forcibly kissing a woman on a train. He also performed a sex act in a Sydney park in
2019 and was involved in a number of offences, from drink-driving to robbery.
But there was no evidence to connect him to Michelle’s murder.
Needing a different approach, the police launched a nine-month undercover operation in which a group of officers posed as members of a criminal gang.
Although many details of the sting have been suppressed by a court order, it was revealed that in 2020 Rumsby was introduced to a fake “corrupt cop” and during a conversation claimed the police had tried to pin Michelle’s murder on him.
After gaining his trust, the undercover detective told Rumsby his name had come up
in a cold murder case and gave the impression that the police were closing in on him.
In a text exchange, Rumsby said, “I hope they’re not going to question me about Michelle Bright at Gulgong from 1999.”
As pressure mounted, the reward was raised to A$1million – and Rumsby posted a comment on the New South Wales Police Force Facebook page. “It’s so sad they haven’t caught her killer… Michelle was like a sister to me I feel sorry for the family,” he wrote.
Ferocious attack
But he also told an undercover policeman that he was responsible for Michelle’s death and in August 2020 he was arrested and finally charged with
Michelle’s murder.
The year before the killing, Rumsby’s wallet was found near the scene of another attack in Gulgong. On New Year’s Day in 1998, an 18-year-old woman was attacked outside her house in an attempted rape. Rumsby would go on trial for that assault, too.
After hearing of the breakthrough in the murder case, residents of Gulgong draped the town in purple and yellow streamers in Michelle’s honour. They were her favourite colours.
During Rumsby’s trial at NSW Supreme
Court at Dubbo in June, his defence team argued his confession was unreliable and should be dismissed. But the court was told that as part of his admissions, he’d described how he’d held his hand over Michelle’s mouth for 10 minutes. He’d also told police officers things only the killer could have known.
In the January 1998 attack, his victim had been punched in the head and throttled. She was only saved when her boyfriend heard her screams and went to her aid.
In June, Rumsby was found guilty of both Michelle’s murder and of attempted choking with intent to have sexual intercourse without consent.
Two months later he was sentenced to 32 years in prison. The judge said Michelle’s death was probably horrific and terrifying and that Rumsby had killed her so she wouldn’t be able to identify him. He also described the 1998 attack as ferocious.
Cruelly murdered
Michelle’s family spoke of the pain of 20 years without answers about what had happened to their “Shell” and described Rumsby as a monster.
“I can never have the one thing I want: my daughter back with me,” Michelle’s mother Loraine told the court. “I know she would have made a wonderful mother, but she never got that chance in life. All her dreams were stolen and shattered and as her mum, my dreams were shattered too.”
She said losing Michelle had left a gaping hole in her heart and revealed she’d had to leave Gulgong a year after her daughter’s murder because she felt that anyone she looked at in the town could have been responsible for the crime.
“It was too painful to keep driving past the place that Michelle had lain for three days after she was so cruelly murdered,” she admitted tearfully.
The unidentified survivor of the 1998 attack said she had been unable to stop reliving the horror of the event. “I couldn’t stop the flashbacks of his dirty face, his black teeth and him choking me, even to this day,” she told the court.
The courtroom broke out into applause as Rumsby was sentenced for both crimes and told he would serve at least 24 years in prison before being considered for parole.
Outside the court, Loraine, wearing her daughter’s favourite colours and clutching a photo of her, told reporters, “We’ve got the justice that we wanted.”
‘Her dreams were stolen – and so were mine’