A Gold Coast man accused of murdering his estranged wife is set to become the first convicted criminal to use the failings of Queensland’s troubled DNA lab to mount an appeal.
Andrew Cobby claims fresh DNA testing, prompted by an inquiry into the lab, has shown samples of an unidentified person on the handle of the hammer used to kill his wife.
Kym Cobby was brutally killed in the driveway of the couple’s Worongary home in the Gold Coast hinterland in November 2017.
Her estranged husband was found guilty of her murder and jailed for life in November 2021, with the court hearing Cobby beat her with a claw hammer before choking her to death.
But Cobby has always maintained someone else attacked Kim and is currently appealing his life sentence, claiming the results of new forensic testing on the hammer will form part of his case.
It’s the first high-profile case that’s been called into question since Commissioner Walter Sofronoff KC released a scathing report into the failings at the state-run DNA lab.
Andrew Cobby will return to court at the end of this month.
