After dumping her body down a disused mine shaft, a killer moved into her victim’s house and spread rumours about the disappearance in an effort to avoid detection, a court has been told.
Shannon Lee Jeffrey returned before the Victorian Supreme Court on Thursday after pleading guilty to manslaughter over the death of Kobie Parfitt, 42, also known as Kobie Snowball.
Ms Parfitt, a mother and grandmother, vanished from Ballarat in April 2020 but was not reported missing until four months later.
It would be another four months before police found her remains almost 5m deep in an abandoned mine shaft in December the same year.
Outlining the case, prosecutor Jeremy McWilliams said Ms Parfitt confided in those close to her that she was terrified in the last week of her life.
“I need to get out of this house asap, I’ve just been warned and I can’t take it,” she texted her former partner Paul Williams.
“They do laps every night … They’re going to come when they know I’m alone.”
Jeffrey, her former friend and housemate, had been released from prison less than two weeks earlier, developing an “increasing animosity” towards Ms Parfitt while incarcerated.
Mr McWilliams told the court that Jeffrey had been communicating with friends and family while in prison, telling them she believed Ms Parfitt had stolen or sold her belongings and was “somehow” responsible for her arrest.
“She’s a guilty dog,” Jeffrey told a friend a week before her release.
“She f–king lagged on me to the jacks (police).”
Jeffrey appeared at Ms Parfitt’s rental property with several associates on April 28. For three hours they were seen loading up a car with Ms Parfitt’s property.
A neighbour came over and, after seeing Ms Parfitt looking terrified, asked if they were going to hurt her.
Jeffrey laughed and said no, she just wanted to talk to her.
Later the same afternoon, one of Jeffrey’s associates returned to the home where co-offender Brendan Prestage said Ms Parfitt was “gone”.
Jeffrey said Ms Parfitt had died after an assault and she was “strung up in the house to make it look like a suicide”, Mr McWilliams said.
That night Prestage and Jeffrey wrapped Ms Parfitt’s body in bedding, plastic sheets and green foam.
They then drove her body in Prestage’s car about 30km away to Snake Valley and dumped her in a mine shaft.
Several weeks later, Jeffrey began living in Ms Parfitt’s rental after telling the property manager she had “f–ked off and gone to Queensland”.
Ms Parfitt was reported missing by concerned family in August and police began searching Snake Valley in December after phone records indicated Prestage’s mobile had “pinged” at that location.
Due to the state of decomposition, forensic pathologists were unable to identify how she died.
Reading victim impact statements to the court, members of Ms Parfitt’s family said that while she had made “poor choices”, she was “dearly loved” by so many.
They called on the court to send a message, saying there had to be “strong consequences” for the horrific circumstances in which Ms Parfitt died.
“Today you sit here and say yes you killed her,” her aunt told the court.
“It’s been 1207 days since you took her life and I don’t think you’ve thought about anyone but yourself.
“We’ve all been living through this nightmare for you to try and get away for killing her.”
Ms Parfitt’s mother, Kathy Snowball, said she felt both grief and relief when police found her daughter’s body.
“Part of me died the day Kobie did, but she lives on in her children and her grandchildren and she will never be forgotten,” she said.
Parfitt’s barrister told the court that the mother of two spent a great deal of time thinking about her actions.
“She struggles to understand why she acted the way she did,” he said.
“It makes her feel awful … she now says she should have been honest with what occurred earlier.”
He revealed Jeffrey planned to study geology when she was released from prison.
Justice Michael Croucher will hand down his sentence at a later date.
Prestage, who pleaded guilty to assisting an offender in relation to manslaughter, was sentenced in July to two years and three months’ imprisonment.
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