Sharon Carr

Sharon Louise Carr (born 1979), also known as "The Devil's Daughter", is a Belizean British woman who, in June 1992, aged 12, murdered 18-year-old Katie Rackliff after picking her out at random as she walked home from a nightclub in Camberley.

Carr was born in Belize in 1979, and was brought up by her mother and stepfather.

She was one of four children, and grew up in great poverty.

She never knew her biological father.

After moving to England in 1986, the family settled in Camberley, Surrey.

Her parents' marriage soon ended, following a serious domestic violence incident in which Sharon's mother poured boiling fat over Sharon's stepfather.

The incident caused the couple to be hospitalised with burns and Sharon's mother charged with assault.

At school, Sharon was initially described as polite and helpful by teachers.

Friends said that she was a sociable girl who preferred the company of older boys, and also said that she occasionally showed flashes of aggression.

Later, she became much more badly behaved, becoming disruptive and attention-seeking, and she had problems relating to authority.

In 1990, her headteacher at Cordwallis Junior School in Camberley contacted social services over her behaviour.

Sharon was briefly put into foster care, but she returned home after only one month away.

By the time she started secondary school, her mother had a new partner, who already had two daughters.

On 7 June 1992, Carr randomly stabbed 18-year-old apprentice hairdresser Katie Rackliff to death as she walked home in the early hours from Ragamuffins nightclub in Camberley.

In total, Carr stabbed Rackliff, who was a stranger to her, 32 times with a 6 and a half inch knife through her ribs, in her heart and in her vagina and anus.

Some of her jewellery was then stolen.

Rackliff's body was taken by Carr and some accomplices and driven to Farnborough, where she was dragged along a road and then dumped by a cemetery wall.

The body was found later that morning by a group of boys.

When police investigated the killing, they noted the brutality of the attack.

Some of the knife blows that Rackliff had suffered had gone straight through her body.

Her sexual organs had been mutilated, and officers found that her clothes had been pulled up, but there was no sign of sexual assault.

Due to the nature and severity of the injuries inflicted, and the fact that the attack appeared to be sexually motivated, police believed the attacker to be a fully grown male.

In part because of this, the real killer went unidentified and the case went initially unsolved.

The murder initially went unsolved until June 1994, when Carr attacked and stabbed another pupil at Collingwood College Comprehensive School for no apparent reason, and then repeatedly boasted about the murder of Rackliff to friends and family and in her diary entries made in prison.

With Carr not apprehended, she returned to school, but was excluded twice in early 1994.

Two years to the day after Rackliff's murder, on 7 June 1994, Carr attacked 13-year-old fellow pupil Ann-Marie Clifford with a knife for no apparent reason in the toilets at Collingwood College Comprehensive School, Surrey.

Clifford was stabbed in the back, which punctured her lung, and she nearly died as a result of her injuries.

The attack was only stopped when five students entered the toilets and intervened, which probably saved the victim's life.

Clifford said that Carr was smiling and appeared happy during the attack on her.

Carr was quickly arrested and told officers that she enjoyed stabbing cats and had beheaded a dog.

After arrest, Carr was sent to a medical assessment centre, where she tried to strangle two members of staff.

She was charged with two counts of actual bodily harm for this in addition to the charges for her attack on Clifford.

She was convicted in December 1994 and sentenced to be detained at Her Majesty's pleasure.

She was initially held in various psychiatric units but continued to regularly seriously assault other females, and so was transferred to an all-boys unit at Aycliffe Secure Centre.

In September 1995, she was transferred to Bullwood Hall young offenders' institution, where it was thought her aggressive and sexualised behaviour could be better managed.

She was convicted of the murder in 1997, attracting much media interest due to her young age and the brutality of the killing.

She was ordered to serve at least 14 years imprisonment but remains imprisoned long after this minimum tariff expired due to her disruptive behaviour in prison.

A Restricted Status prisoner, she has continued to regularly attack and attempt to kill staff members and fellow inmates and has regularly expressed her desire to kill others.

In September 2022, it was reported that her case would again go before a parole board.

The case of a 12-year-old child killing an adult stranger has been described as unique.