The Age

Woman jailed for teenager's murder

AAP
The Age (Melbourne)
2000-11-29 14:53:44

A 22-year-old woman was today jailed for 20 years for murdering a teenage dancer with whom she was infatuated.

Caroline Reed Robertson, formerly of Prahran, bowed her head as Victorian Supreme Court judge Justice Frank Vincent announced the sentence.

Robertson had pleaded guilty to the murder of 15-year-old Rachel Barber, whom she used to babysit.

The body of the young dancer was found with a black cable knotted around her neck in a shallow grave at a Kilmore property owned by Robertson's father on March 13 last year.

The court heard that the introverted Robertson drugged, strangled and then buried Rachel in the lonely spot because she wanted “to become Rachel Barber”.

In fixing a non-parole term of 14-and-a-half years, Justice Vincent said he suspected the “twin fires of a powerful obsession with the perceived attributes of Rachel Barber and an intense hatred of her for possessing them, increasingly consumed your thoughts ...”

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