John Raymond Travers

Case record: John Raymond Travers

Background

John Raymond Travers (born February 27, 1967) was an Australian murderer. He was sentenced to life imprisonment along with four others in his gang for the 1986 Anita Cobby murder in New South Wales. Travers was the oldest of eight children and was considered the ringleader of the gang of attackers responsible for the murder.

Travers was raised in Mount Druitt, a suburb of Blacktown in Sydney. He grew up in an area with a high rate of unemployment at the time.

His early life was troublesome. He was caught using marijuana at 13 years of age, and by 14 he was an alcoholic. He had a reputation for extreme violence and often carried a knife.

During his teenage years, he engaged in further criminal activities that were often reprimanded by local police and courts. His parents had little or no control over him. He was expelled from high school during Year 10 for being continually disruptive to other students.

Beyond schooling, Travers held very few jobs and preferred to claim unemployment benefits to provide means for income. He was eventually committed to Boys Town, a juvenile detention facility, by his mother, who found him difficult to manage.

His father Ken left the household in 1981, leaving Travers as the head of the family. Travers did not share a close relationship with his father.

Finding it difficult to support the family, Travers relied on crime to provide food, stealing animals such as chickens and ducks from nearby households for food.

Travers’s mother’s health deteriorated, and he and his siblings were sent to live with foster families while she was hospitalised.

Travers was also known to display cruelty to animals from an early age. He was described as a zoosadist and was known to have had sexual intercourse with animals he had stolen before slitting their throats.

Travers had a distinctive teardrop tattoo under his left eye.

The offence

Anita Lorraine Cobby (2 November 1959 – 2 February 1986) was a 26-year-old Australian registered nurse and beauty pageant winner. She was abducted from Blacktown, and raped and murdered at nearby Prospect on the evening of 2 February 1986.

Five men, including three brothers, were convicted of her murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, never to be released.

Investigation

On the day of the murder, Anita Cobby finished work at Sydney Hospital at 3pm and met friends for dinner in Redfern, New South Wales. She then caught a train from Central Station to Blacktown Station. Aside from her killers, only two witnesses saw her after she left the train: a young brother and sister who witnessed the abduction.

The young boy unsuccessfully attempted to chase after the car. Anita was walking alone along Newton Road, Blacktown around 10pm when a gang of five youths drove up alongside her and stopped their stolen Holden Kingswood.

Two men leaped from the car, dragging Anita kicking and screaming into the car. She was ordered to strip off her clothes but refused, begging her attackers to let her go and saying she was married and that she was menstruating.

Her attackers continued to punch Anita repeatedly. They then drove to a service station to purchase fuel using money stolen from Anita’s purse. She was then driven to a secluded paddock, while being held down in the car and raped and beaten by her five attackers.

Anita was reported missing by her family on 3 February.

After the police report and discovery, a police media frenzy occurred with many reporters parked on the steps of the police station hoping for information. The details of Anita’s wounds and murder outraged the public, and they called for police to swiftly find the killers and bring them to justice.

On Sunday February 9, exactly a week after Anita’s murder, police staged a re-enactment of Anita’s last known movements as she boarded the train from Central to Blacktown. The media filmed the event and it was televised in the hope it may jolt someone’s memory. Police received a call following up on a call they had made the night of Anita’s abduction. A family witnessed a woman being dragged into a white and grey Holden Commodore at around 9.50pm; a witness ran to the car but it sped off.

John McGaughey told his older brother Paul when he came home about what he had seen, and the pair decided to drive around to see if he could see the car John had described. Paul drove down the desolate road where Anita would eventually be found and stopped next to an empty car that vaguely matched his brother’s description. On closer inspection he saw it was not the same model, and so he drove on.

Police assumed that the incident witnessed by John McGaughey fit the time frame of Anita’s final moments and was the abduction of Anita.

On 6 February, the NSW State Government posted an $50,000 reward for information leading to the capture of her killers.

On 9 February, police re-enacted Anita’s movements on the night of her disappearance. Constable Debbie Wallace wore similar clothing to Anita and travelled the 9:12 p.m. train to Blacktown. Detectives interviewed the passengers and showed them photos of Anita while Constable Wallace walked the length of the train during the journey.

Following a tip-off from a police informant regarding a stolen vehicle, police started searching for John Travers, Michael Murdoch and the Murphy brothers after discovering that some of them had a history of violence and Travers had a reputation for carrying a knife.

Arrest

On 21 February, police found and arrested Travers and Murdoch at Travers’s uncle’s house, and arrested Les Murphy at Travers’s house. Murdoch and Les Murphy were charged with offences relating to stolen cars and released on police bail.

Travers admitted that he had stolen a car and made conflicting statements about the murder. He was detained in police custody.

While in custody, John Travers requested that a friend be called so she could bring him cigarettes. The phone number was handed to investigating police, who contacted the woman. Although she was terrified of Travers, she agreed to help with the investigation and met with an officer, providing details of Travers’s sadistic and violent background. The woman, who became known as Mrs. X, talked to Travers and he confessed the crime to her.

Mrs. X was sent back to talk to him with a recording device, and she obtained a confession on recording.

Eventually, five men were arrested and charged with the murder. In total, 22 days elapsed from the time of the murder to the time all suspects were taken into custody.

The accused

The five accused suspects had over 50 prior convictions for offences including armed robbery, assault, larceny, car theft, breaking and entering, drug use, escaping lawful custody, receiving stolen goods, and rape.

John Raymond Travers was considered the ring-leader of the gang of attackers.

Michael Murdoch was a childhood friend and criminal associate of Travers. Murdoch spent a great part of his childhood in juvenile prisons where he experienced sexual assaults, and he had written to politicians during that period seeking protection from such assaults.

Les, Michael and Gary Murphy were brothers from an Irish family of nine children.

• Michael Murphy was 33 at the time of the murder and the eldest of the nine Murphy children. He was sent to live with his grandmother when 12 years of age.
• Gary Murphy was five years younger than Michael and had his schooling affected by a hearing impairment, which led him to leave early to seek work. He was noted as an able and willing worker before the crimes. He was described as likable. His interest in cars led to automotive theft-related charges prior to the murder, and he was known to have a very violent temper.
• Les Murphy was the youngest of the Murphy children and was known for the worst temperament. He faced Children’s Court on many occasions for theft related offences before being accused of the Anita Cobby murder. Les was 24 years old at the time of the murder.

Trial

The trial began in Sydney on 16 March 1987. Before proceedings began, Travers changed his plea to guilty.

A Sydney newspaper The Sun published a front page story on the day the trial began, carrying the headline “ANITA MURDER MAN GUILTY” alongside a large image of Travers. A follow-up story in the same paper detailed Michael Murphy’s recent escape from Silverwater Correctional Centre and a history of his criminal convictions.

The jury was discharged. The trial for the remaining members of the gang lasted 54 days. The men’s defence relied on convincing the jury of their minimal involvement in the beating and murder.

On 10 June 1987, all five men accused of the murder were found guilty of murder.

On 16 June 1987, in the Supreme Court of New South Wales, all were sentenced to life imprisonment, never to be released.

Justice Maxwell described the crime as:

“One of the most horrifying physical and sexual assaults. This was a calculated killing done in cold blood. The Executive should grant the same degree of mercy they bestowed on their victim.”

Aftermath

Anita Cobby’s parents were the founders of the Victims of Homicide Support Group, a community support group that helped families deal with heinous crimes. They also campaigned for tougher sentencing and truth in sentencing laws that eventuated after Anita Cobby’s murder.

A September 2006 episode of Australian television series Crime & Investigation Australia featured the Anita Cobby murder. The first episode of a new Channel 9 show, Crime Investigation Australia, hosted by Steve Liebmann, detailed the crime. Several police officers involved in the investigation and subsequent solving of the case were interviewed for the show. The show was broadcast on August 14, 2007, and a repeat was screened on Sunday 29 June 2008 on WIN Television (Australia) at 10:30pm.