After dumping her body in a disused mineshaft, a killer entered her victim’s home and spread rumors of the disappearance in an attempt to avoid detection, a court has said.
Shannon Lee Jeffrey returned to the Victorian Supreme Court on Thursday after pleading guilty to manslaughter for the death of 42-year-old Kobie Parfitt, also known as Kobie Snowball.
Ms Parfitt, a mother and grandmother, disappeared from Ballarat in April 2020, only to be reported missing four months later.
It would be another four months before the police found her remains almost 5 meters deep in an abandoned mine shaft in December of the same year.
Prosecutor Jeremy McWilliams outlined the case, saying Ms Parfitt confided to 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 ex-partner Paul Williams.
“They go round every night… They’ll come when they know I’m alone.”
Shannon Lee Jeffrey returned to the Victorian Supreme Court on Thursday after pleading guilty to manslaughter following the death of Kobie Parfitt, 42 (pictured)
Jeffrey, her former boyfriend and roommate, had been released from prison less than two weeks earlier and developed an “increasing animosity” toward Ms. Parfitt during her imprisonment.
Mr McWilliams told the court Jeffrey had communicated 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 stayed with me with the peasants (police).”
Jeffrey showed up at Ms. Parfitt’s rental property with several associates on April 28. For three hours they were seen loading a car with Mrs. Parfitt’s property.
A neighbor came by and after seeing Mrs. Parfitt look terrified, asked if they would hurt her.
Jeffrey laughed and said no, she just wanted to talk to her.
Later that same afternoon, one of Jeffrey’s associates returned to the home where co-perpetrator Brendan Prestage said Mrs. Parfitt was “gone.”
Jeffrey said Ms Parfitt had died following an attack and was ‘hanged in the house to make it look like a suicide’, Mr McWilliams said.
That night, Prestage and Jeffrey wrapped Mrs. Parfitt’s body in bedding, plastic sheets, and green foam.
They then drove her body into Prestage’s car about 20 miles away to Snake Valley and dumped her in a mine shaft.
Several weeks later, Jeffrey began living in Mrs. Parfitt’s rented house after she told the property manager that she had ‘got lost and gone to Queensland’.
Ms Parfitt was reported missing by a concerned family in August and police began searching Snake Valley in December after phone records showed Prestage’s cell phone had been ‘pinged’ at that location.
Due to the state of decomposition, forensic pathologists were unable to determine how she died.
Members of Ms Parfitt’s family read victim impact statements to the court, saying that although she had made “bad choices,” she was “dearly loved” by so many.
They called on the court to send a message, saying there should be ‘strong consequences’ for the horrific circumstances in which Ms Parfitt died.
Shannon Jeffrey (pictured) pleaded guilty to manslaughter and admitted to assaulting the 43-year-old on the belief that Ms Parfitt had sold some of her belongings while in prison
“Today you sit here and say yes, you killed her,” her aunt told the court.
“It’s been 1,207 days since you took her life and I don’t think you thought of anyone but yourself.
“We’ve all been through this nightmare of you trying to get away because you killed her.”
Ms Parfitt’s mother, Kathy Snowball, said she felt both sadness and relief when police found her daughter’s body.
“Part of me died the day Kobie died, but she lives on in her children and grandchildren and she will never be forgotten,” she said.
Parfitt’s lawyer told the court that the mother-of-two spent a lot of time thinking about her actions.
“She struggles to understand why she acted the way she did,” he said.
“It makes her feel terrible … she now says she should have been honest with what happened before.”
He revealed that Jeffrey was planning to study geology when she was released from prison.
Justice Michael Croucher will pronounce his sentence at a later date.
Prestage, who pleaded guilty to assisting an offender in connection with manslaughter, was sentenced in July to two years and three months in prison.