{"id":827315,"date":"2026-07-27T16:59:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T16:59:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/827315\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T16:59:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T16:59:24","slug":"matthew-james-cox-faces-court-for-alleged-murders-of-wife-and-baby-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/827315\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthew James Cox faces court for alleged murders of wife and baby daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man accused of murdering his wife and baby told his employer he could not attend work because his mother had died, a Queensland court has heard.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Mid<\/p>\n

Matthew James Cox has been charged with two counts of murder.\u00a0 (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Matthew James Cox is charged with murdering his wife Tayla Black, 30 and their 11-week-old daughter Murphy in August 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Police found their bodies at the couple’s Rockhampton home in central Queensland on August 10.<\/p>\n

It is believed they had been dead for two days before they were found.<\/p>\n

Mr Cox appeared in person on Monday for the committal hearing at Rockhampton Magistrates Court.<\/p>\n

The court is expected to hear evidence from 19 witnesses over three days.<\/p>\n

Crown prosecutor Joshua Phillips told the hearing before Magistrate Peter Kuskie that cross-examination of witnesses would focus on their interactions with Mr Cox in the months leading up to the deaths.<\/p>\n

Mr Cox’s former manager at Southern Cross Austereo, Mitchell Harris, told the court Mr Cox called him on August 8 and said his mother had been involved in an accident and he could not attend work.<\/p>\n

“I believed he was telling me the truth that his mother had been involved in an accident,” Mr Harris said.<\/p>\n

“He wasn’t crying but he wasn’t cheerful and happy.”<\/p>\n

Mr Harris told the hearing he received a text message from Mr Cox later that evening which said his mother had passed away.<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

Joshua Jones and Jade-Ann Reeves leave court on Monday.\u00a0 (ABC Capricornia: Vanessa Jarrett)<\/p>\n

Defence barrister Jade-Ann Reeves questioned Mr Harris about knowing “two different Matts”, before and after Mr Cox was admitted “to the mental health system” in 2022.<\/p>\n

“He was less outgoing, not as loud, not as sociable \u2026 not unusually quiet, we just socialised less,” Mr Harris replied.<\/p>\n

\"Family<\/p>\n

Anmaree and Gerald Black (front) leave the Rockhampton court. (ABC Capricornia: Vanessa Jarrett)<\/p>\n

Tayla Black’s mother, Anmaree Black, gave evidence that her son-in-law was “a hands-on dad”.<\/p>\n

When asked by defence barrister Joshua Jones if Mr Cox had become withdrawn, she replied: “No, to me he was just Matt.”<\/p>\n

Anmaree said she did not notice anything unusual about her last interactions with Mr Cox on August 6, when Tayla drove her parents to the airport for a holiday to Bali.<\/p>\n

“To us it was a normal day,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"Group<\/p>\n

Half of the courtroom was filled with supporters for the Black family.\u00a0 (ABC Capricornia: Vanessa Jarrett)<\/p>\n

Tayla Black’s father, Gerald Black, gave evidence that he noticed Mr Cox had become withdrawn in the months before the deaths.<\/p>\n

He told the hearing he received a “cryptic” message from his daughter’s phone on August 10 but the details of the message were not read to the court.<\/p>\n

A witness who the ABC has chosen not to name for privacy reasons told the hearing he met Matthew Cox at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in December 2022.<\/p>\n

He said Mr Cox had “an ego”.<\/p>\n

“He would come to the meetings regularly,” he said.<\/p>\n

“He was willing to share but wasn’t reading literature or going through steps with a sponsor.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Tayla Black and her daughter Murphy.\u00a0 (Supplied: Facebook)<\/p>\n

Former colleague Carla Mulholland told the court she had not noticed anything unusual about her conversations with Mr Cox in the months before August 2023.<\/p>\n

“He would come in smiling, cracking jokes,” she said.<\/p>\n

“He mentioned how different life was now that bub [was born].”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man accused of murdering his wife and baby told his employer he could not attend work because…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":827316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[240614,651,1108,43,191,75642,400509,2968,44,1158,10589,41,39,42,40,22639],"class_list":["post-827315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-baby-daughter","tag-brisbane","tag-court","tag-headlines","tag-home","tag-killed","tag-matthew-james-cox","tag-murder","tag-news","tag-police","tag-rockhampton","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-wife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/827316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}