THE COBBY killer walked through the yard, the loose coins rattling in his pockets. Soon he was at the phone, the change in his pants now in the slot, and the number dialled.

Ring. Ring.

“Hello,’’ said the woman. “Hi,’’ Michael Murphy, one of five men who would go on to rape and murder Anita Cobby, replied. “I have some great news. I am getting out this weekend. I’ll see you on Sunday.’’

Click.

Murphy was wrong. His 15 cent jail yard phone call had blown what would have been Australia’s greatest ever prison escape.

This is the untold story of how a call from an infamous killer prompted the search that would stop a “Shawshank Redemption’’ style jail break 18 months in the making.

And how seven men, from 1978 to 1979, dug a WWII like tunnel using knives, forks and eventually a shovel.

“He would go down there and tunnel all night, only having an hour or so sleep. During the day each of the six would go down for a couple of hours, one at a time so they wouldn’t be missed. They had seven separate shifts going in the tunnel. It was quite extraordinary." PO Roy Foxwell

media_camera View of escape hole leading to a tunnel, cut through solid sandstone.

The lifer walked up to the Long Bay prison guard and asked if he could be returned to Parramatta Jail.

‘‘I can’t stand it in here boss,’’ said Anthony Lanigan, an armed robber and two time murderer.

“I still have nightmares about this place and I was comfortable at Parramatta. Do you reckon you could get me back there?’’

Lanigan was one of only a handful of prisoners that had been locked up in Long Bay’s infamous Katingle, a house of horror’s that was closed after four years.

PO Roy Foxwell thought his request was reasonable.

“I had known Tony for some time,’’ Foxwell said.

“He had always been polite and straight up and down with me. He had been at Parramatta for a while but was back at Long Bay on a medical escort.

“He wanted to go back to his old cell so I rang Harry Duff, the governor at Parramatta, and told him that Lanigan was here and he wanted to go back to Parramatta. And Duffy said he would take him back.’’

media_camera Never before seen images of the tunnel at Parramatta Jail, during a foiled breakout in 1979.

But his good rapport with the bearded crim did not stop Foxwell from being suspicious.

“I told Duff to be careful of Lanigan because he was a cunning bugger,’’ Foxwell said. “I told him he could be up to something.’’

Lanigan was back in Parramatta, but not in his old cell. Someone else was in the nine by 10 foot cell, exactly the same as every room in the wing except for the cupboard fixed to the wall.

"They ripped off a cupboard that had been fixed to the wall and there was the tunnel directly underneath. It was bloody amazing.’’ PO Roy Foxwell

media_camera William Munday

“He went back there and Michael Murphy was in his old cell,’’ Foxwell continued. “He was put elsewhere but he was desperate to get back in to the one he had before.’’

Lanigan approached Murphy and demanded he move to an other cell.

“Why would I do that?’’ he said. “I like this one, it has a big hole.’’

Murphy had found the tunnel, now a year in the making and half done. Lanigan eventually convinced the convict to give him his room back, but he was no longer getting out of jail on his own.

“Lanigan had been spooked by the move to Long Bay and he new he was running out of time,’’ Foxwell said.

“He had a lot of work left and he was in a hurry. So he didn’t mind including Murphy because he needed the help. He told Murphy he could go with him if he helped him dig the last half.’’

The Parramatta prison guards were suspicious of the cell change.

“Duff rang me and he told me Lanigan had settled back into his old cell,’’ Foxwell said.

“We are breaking out on Saturday night. We will go down after lights out and breakthrough in the dark. You will be home for breakfast on Sunday.’’ Anthony Lanigan

“I asked him if he had searched it because Lanigan was smarter than he looked and he could have wanted the cell for a reason. He told me that it was thoroughly searched and nothing was found.’’

They looked everywhere, well… everywhere but under the cupboard.

Lanigan became nervous, the cell search making him paranoid. They did not find the tunnel, not this time, but what about next? His escape was now urgent.

So he formed his very own chain gang, a murderous group of “Lifers’: killers, rapists and a pedophile.

media_camera Anthony Lanigan

Lanigan identified those in the cell that would be most desperate to get out and recruited the five prisoners serving life sentences for their shocking crimes. Among those believed to be included were rapist and murderer Bill Munday, armed robber Stephen Shipley and Leslie Wakefield.

The identities of the others has never been revealed.

Somehow, and still no-body knows, Lanigan stole, was given, or cut six keys to his cell and gave them to Murphy, now his foreman and second in charge.

Murphy gave the keys to the other inmates and they went about digging the most extraordinary tunnel in penal history.

“Lanigan would work the night shift because it was his cell,’’ Foxwell said.

“He would go down there and tunnel all night, only having an hour or so sleep. During the day each of the six would go down for a couple of hours, one at a time so they wouldn’t be missed.

“They had seven separate shifts going in the tunnel. It was quite extraordinary.’’

Following months of digging, smashing and clandestine trips into the ground, the job was almost done.

media_camera Never before seen images of the tunnel at Parramatta Jail, during a foiled breakout in 1979.

Beginning with a three-foot hole in the one wing cell floor, the tunnel now ended just 30cm below the turf of the linen company next door. Lanigan gathered the troops.

“We are breaking out on Saturday night,’’ he said. “We will go down after lights out and breakthrough in the dark. You will be home for breakfast on Sunday.’’

Murphy shook with excitement. This was the day he had been dreaming about since looking under the curious cupboard and finding the hole.

He had to tell someone so he grabbed a fist-full of silver coins, jammed them into his pocket, and ran to the phone.

media_camera Stephen Shipley

Oh how he wished he never made that call.

“And the truth is they almost got out,’’ Foxwell said.

“I got word that something wasn’t quite right out at Parramatta and I rang Duff and told him he should search the cells.

He told me that it was funny that I said that because he just had a phone call from Murphy’s grandmother. She had rung the jail and asked what time he was being released and told him that he had called to say he was getting out.

“Duffy thought ‘what’s all this about?’’ and went in to search his cell.’’

The guards went in and found the six keys to Lanigan’s cell. Murphy quickly cracked, the prospect of being beaten by three prison guards making him sing.

“They were going to escape on the Friday night and Murphy called home to tell them he was getting out,’’ Foxwell said.

“The idiot ruined it.’’

The guards walked back into the cell they had searched just months before. But this time they pulled off the cupboard, firmly fixed to the wall.

“They ripped off a cupboard that had been fixed to the wall and there was the tunnel directly underneath,’’ Foxwell said.

“It was bloody amazing.’’

media_camera Area of cells known as The Circle at Parramatta Jail in Sydney.

The guards locked down the prison, and called for torches and police. They stood proudly before going back down the hole, knowing they had stopped what would have been the greatest ever-Australian escape.

They found the tunnel on the morning of Saturday , September 8, 1979, the day of the scheduled escape.

Foxwell was soon called to the prison. Working for the Establishment’s Division, it was his job to investigate the attempted escape. He went armed with his polaroid camera and took nine photos, an incredible sequence of pictures exclusively obtained by the Sunday Telegraph.

"The tunnel was almost finished and they would have come out at the Parramatta Linen Service, which we owned and operated. Crims worked there and it was quite secure but they would have been able to get out. No doubt about it.’’ PO Roy Foxwell

He then went to see Lanigan, his old mate.

“He filled me in on all the details,’’ Foxwell, now retired said. “He told me everything. Lanigan reckons they were digging for 18 months all up.

“He did most of it but brought the rest in at the end. They used everything and anything to dig.

“They used screwdrivers, knives, a shovel they pinched from the maintenance shop. They improvised and used whatever they could.

media_camera Michael Murphy

“They even knocked off wood from the stores to make support beams, electric lights and extension cords. They took bits and pieces from all over the jail.

“All the flooring in Parramatta Jail was sandstone, same as any old building in those days. It was soft enough for him to get through.

“And once he was in, he didn’t have to dig the whole way, because there were tunnels in the foundations. But still he had to get through three of four walls, and over a mote before getting under the main wall.

media_camera Aerial view of Parramatta Jail complex in Sydney.

“The tunnel was almost finished and they would have come out at the Parramatta Linen Service, which we owned and operated. Crims worked there and it was quite secure but they would have been able to get out. No doubt about it.’’

Lanigan was sent back to Long Bay Jail after being given another five years for the attempted escape. He once again walked up to Foxwell, but this time he wanted to stay.

He said: “Mr Foxwell, I am screwed. That has destroyed me. You won’t have any trouble from me again. That has just shattered me. I really thought I could do it and I came so close.’’

media_camera Anthony Lanigan had started the tunnel in his cell.

Lanigan stuck to his word and never caused trouble.

A shadow of his former self, he quietly and anonymously grew old. Then in 1995, 16 year’s after his failed bid for freedom, Lanigan finally escaped.

There was no digging this time, no tunnels or trenches, no cohorts and their phone calls. Lanigan, now 47 and a minimum security prisoner, simply turned his back on the Long Bay farm, a place where low risk prisoners worked, and walked through a hole in the fence.

A search was launched but the one time killer was never found.

“Most reckon he killed himself,’’ Foxwell said. “But I sometimes imagine him sitting in a cabin somewhere, maybe by a fire, saying “I finally fooled you Roy’’.

Unofficially, Lanigan is considered dead, most likely throwing himself off a Malabar cliff.

media_camera Inmates fill in the tunnel, that was dug by inmate Lanigan and co.

Two years earlier the man once desperate to escape had sabotaged his parole because he was so scared of being released.

About to be freed with his sentence to expire, he absconded from work released before handing himself in the next day.

He got an extra two years for the “escape’’ and was due to be released again in 1995 when he disappeared.

As for Murphy, he escaped from Silverwater in 1985, after also being given an extended sentence for his role in the escape. But he was back behind bars the following year after being arrested for taking part in the rape and murder of Anita Cobby with his brother’s Les and Gary, John Travers and Michael Murdoch.