The twelve-year-old girl who became Britain's youngest convicted female murderer

Cultures · Published 10 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: In 1992, a twelve-year-old girl randomly murdered a stranger in Surrey. Her crime remained unsolved for two years until she attacked a classmate and began boasting about her previous killing. Her case remains a chilling anomaly in forensic psychology, marking a rare instance of a child murdering an adult stranger.

Sharon Carr was born in Belize in 1979 and moved to England in 1986. By 1992, at age twelve, she committed a random, brutal murder of eighteen-year-old Katie Rackliff. The attack was exceptionally violent; the victim was stabbed over thirty times with a large knife and her body was later discovered near a cemetery. Because the crime scene suggested a sexually motivated attack, investigators initially assumed the perpetrator was an adult male, leaving the case unsolved for two years.

The truth emerged in 1994 after Carr attacked a fellow student at her school. Following her arrest, she began detailing the earlier murder to family, friends, and prison staff. Her diaries revealed a disturbing obsession with violence, including admissions of sexual excitement derived from the victim's suffering. She was convicted of murder in 1997, becoming the youngest female in Britain to receive such a conviction. Unlike Mary Bell, who was convicted of manslaughter in 1968, the jury in Carr's case unanimously rejected the lesser charge.

Despite a minimum tariff of fourteen years, Carr has remained incarcerated for decades. Her time in custody has been marked by persistent aggression toward staff and other inmates, leading to multiple transfers between psychiatric facilities and prisons. Authorities have repeatedly denied her parole, citing her continued status as a danger to the public. Her case is frequently cited in discussions regarding juvenile violence and the rarity of children who kill adult strangers, serving as a grim reference point for subsequent criminal investigations involving minors.

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