❤️HER NAME IS: KOBI SHEPHERDSON!❤️
The 36-metre high perfect partial circle allows words said gently at one end of 144-metre wall to be heard at the other end.
It’s this place that chose for his final act of abuse. This would be the place where he would hold the little baby against his chest and jump.
Her name is Kobi Shepherdson. Henry Shepherdson killed Kobi in the Barossa Valley, South Australia on April 21, 2021. She was only nine months old. He ended his own life.
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Shepherdson abused Kobi’s mother throughout their short relationship and was ultimately arrested for domestic violence offences in December of 2020.
The court placed him on remand but while in custody he was able to use the prison phones to call his former partner 149 times.
During these calls, which were recorded but went unchecked by Corrections staff, he manipulated the terrified woman into having all the criminal charges dropped.
Hours after a court lifted the no-contact order, allowing him access to Kobi and her mother, Shepherdson murdered the baby.
Within hours of the order being lifted, Shepherdson had taken Kobi to the wall.
He called her mum to say he would not be returning home with her baby girl.
“I knew what that meant and I said ‘please don’t do this’,” Kobi’s mum would later tell police.
“I said: ‘she’s just nine months old, you can’t do this’.
“Henry told me not long after we first met, if he ever had thoughts of killing himself he would go to the Whispering Wall.
“I asked if he was at the Whispering Wall but he wouldn’t answer me.
“I then said: ‘please don’t do this, not my baby girl’.
“He just said: ‘this is the way it has to be’ and then he hung up.”
In the wake of Kobi’s death, the South Australian Commissioner of Police refused to accept responsibility for failures by both SA Police and the Department for Correctional Services, saying instead Kobi’s mum should have ‘simply refused to answer calls from him (the killer)’.
“Shepherdson had a very poor reaction when his calls went unanswered and always demanded an explanation,” Acting South Australian Deputy State Coroner Judge Ian White said in his inquest findings this week.
“I was extremely disappointed by the submissions on behalf of the Commissioner of Police that Kobi’s mother could have simply refused to answer calls from him.
“I challenged these submissions … as being totally inappropriate considering what was heard in these samples of calls.
“It should not be forgotten that he (Shepherdson) was a dangerous man with a bad criminal record who had a constant focus on Kobi’s mother doing everything for his own selfish benefit.
“She was highly damaged by his treatment of her, whether in custody or not.”
Judge White said if SA Police had deemed Kobi’s mum to be at risk a ‘myriad of opportunities would have opened up for her to consider, thereby enhancing the chances for her to more meaningfully engage’ with protection services.
“Had this been done, then many different procedures and protocols would have been enacted by SAPOL to include other government agencies so that his illegal and manipulative behaviour would have had a significantly higher chance of being detected and prosecuted successfully,” Judge White said.
He recommended the prisoner telephone service be reviewed and that strategies be rolled out to prevent protected persons and victims of domestic violence from being contacted illegally by prisoners.
The Judge also said a raft of recommendations from South Australia’s Royal Commission into Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence should be put in place.
The SA Government is yet to clearly say what changes it will make in the wake of Kobi’s death.
KOBI SHEPHERDSON MATTERS!❤️
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