After her teenage daughter was murdered on the way home from a birthday party, Lorraine Bright felt haunted in her quiet country town.
Her 17-year-old daughter Michelle Bright was killed in the early hours of February 27, 1999, after leaving the party in Gulgong, in central west NSW.
The teenager’s body was found three days later hidden in long grass by the side of Barneys Reef Road.
Mrs Bright told Rumsby’s sentencing hearing she had to leave Gulgong exactly a year after her daughter’s murder because the constant reminders were too much to bear.
“It was too painful to keep driving past the place that Michelle had lain for three days after she was so cruelly murdered,” she told the court in Dubbo on Friday, her voice cracking with emotion.
“It was too hard to see different men pass our local RSL where I worked, wondering and worrying to myself: ‘Was it you?’.”
Mrs Bright said her daughter was a loving and caring girl, who had dreams of working with animals and wanted to have six children of her own.
“I know she would have made a wonderful mother, but she never got that chance in life.
“All her dreams were stolen and shattered and as her mum, my dreams were shattered too.
“Losing Michelle in the way we did has left a gaping hole in my heart.”
After Rumsby’s arrest in August 2020, Mrs Bright said she was overwhelmed to return to Gulgong to find it adorned with purple and yellow streamers in her daughter’s honour.
“It has touched the whole community of Gulgong and Mudgee, they have never forgotten her.”
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Michelle’s father and brothers told the court of the horror of living through two decades wondering what happened to her and whether her killer would ever be brought to justice.
The woman who was suddenly attacked by Rumsby when she was 18 as she stood outside her house on January 1, 1998, said she lived with terrifying flashbacks and fear.
“I couldn’t stop reliving it,” she said in a victim impact statement, read aloud by crown prosecutor Lee Carr SC.
“I couldn’t stop the flashbacks of his dirty face, his black teeth and him choking me, even to this day.”
The woman reported the attack and police spoke to Rumsby, but she did not complete a statement out of fear she would not be believed.
“As a result, I kept this attack secret for 24 years,” she said.
Carr told the court Rumsby’s crimes were sexually motivated and involved some form of planning.
Rumsby intended to kill Michelle, having made alleged admissions of covering her mouth for 10 minutes.
“A 17-year-old girl is entitled to walk home … safely and not subjected to this kind of behaviour,” Carr said.
Acting Justice Robert Hulme will sentence Rumsby at a later time.
