The discovery of missing Melbourne woman Maryam Hamka’s body in bushland two years after her disappearance brought back a flood of devastating memories for another Victorian family.
The body of Kathy Snowball’s daughter Kobie Parfitt was found by police down a mine shaft near Ballarat in December 2020, months after she vanished.
Watching another family go through that this month took Ms Snowball back to the night in December 2020 when police broke the news in her living room that her daughter, a 42-year-old mum and grandma, was dead.
The crushing grief she felt, learning that the final hope her daughter would come home alive had been snuffed out, rushed back.
Her hope that the horror of the past months was just a bad dream was gone.
But it was also replaced with relief that the family could finally bring Ms Parfitt home to bury her with the respect she deserved, Ms Snowball told the Victorian Supreme Court.
Ms Snowball came face to face with her daughter's killer on Thursday when Shannon Jeffrey faced a pre-sentence hearing after pleading guilty to manslaughter.
Jeffrey killed Ms Parfitt on April 28, 2020 and, with the help of her friend Brendan Prestage, disposed of her body.
Details of the circumstances of Ms Parfitt's death were not detailed in court.
Prosecutor Jeremy McWilliam said it was clear for Ms Parfitt's family that not only the unlawful killing inflicted trauma upon them, but the cruel deception that extended beyond.
Jeffrey and Prestage, who has previously been jailed for assisting an offender, initially staged Ms Parfitt's death to look like a suicide, before moving her body to a disused mine shaft.
They covered her with towels and dirt, where she remained until December.
In May 2022 Jeffrey tried to cover her tracks further and took over Ms Parfitt's lease, telling a real estate agent she had gone to Queensland.
She even signed a statutory declaration at Ballarat police station, claiming Ms Parfitt had "moved out of the property".
The court heard Ms Parfitt and Jeffrey had previously been friends.
Through early 2020 the relationship soured when Jeffrey accused Ms Parfitt of stealing and selling her belongings, and of dobbing her in to police and landing her in custody.
Jeffrey was released from custody on April 17, 2020 and within days Ms Parfitt had concerns for her safety.
In a text message Ms Parfitt said she had been warned something was being planned soon and Jeffrey was behind it.
"I can't sit inside watching cameras with doors locked fearing who coming," she wrote in one text.
"I'm dead if I stay alone," she said in another.
Jeffrey, who was supported in court by her father, will be sentenced on September 8.
