State Prison

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Carr was born in Belize on 21 December 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 Carr's mother poured boiling fat over her stepfather. At school, Carr 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 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. By the time she started secondary school, her mother had a new partner who already had two daughters.

In Their Own Story

In the early hours of 7 June 1992, Carr randomly stabbed 18-year-old apprentice hairdresser Katie "Kate" Rackliff to death as the latter walked home from Ragamuffins nightclub in Camberley. Carr stabbed Rackliff—who was a stranger to her—32 times with a six-and-a-half-inch knife through her ribs, in her heart and in her vagina and anus. Some of Rackliff's 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. A group of boys found the body later that morning. Owing to the nature and severity of the injuries inflicted and that the attack appeared to be sexually motivated, police believed the attacker to be an adult male. In part because of this, the real killer went unidentified, and the case went initially unsolved. On 7 June 1994, the second anniversary of Rackliff's murder, Carr attacked a 13-year-old fellow pupil with a knife, for no apparent reason, in the toilets at Collingwood College Comprehensive School. Carr stabbed the victim in the back, causing a lung puncture; the attack was stopped when five students entered the toilets and intervened. The victim said that Carr was smiling and appeared happy during the attack. After arrest, Carr was sent to a medical assessment centre, where she tried to strangle two members of staff. She was convicted in December 1994 and sentenced to be detained "at Her Majesty's pleasure". Soon after her transfer to Bullwood Hall, staff discovered that Carr was talking about the killing of Katie Rackliff to friends and family on the telephone and in her diary. Her diaries were found to contain details of her sexual excitement at the thought of Rackliff's death, and Carr also commented that she felt "jealous" of her victim and remarked about the devil and the forces which motivated her. One passage read "If only I could kill you again [...] I promise I would make you suffer more this time, you fucking slag. Your terrified screams turned me on." Carr had also written "I swear I was born to be a murderer", and in a letter to a friend, wrote "I'm a killer. Killing is my business. And business is good." Detectives questioned Carr on the murder, and she confessed to the killing, admitting that she had repeatedly stabbed Rackliff. She graphically described one particular injury and provided details that the police had deliberately withheld, meaning that she had knowledge that only the killer would have. Carr also knew that a bracelet had been stolen from Rackliff, which police had not revealed. Carr helped police film a reconstruction of the murder in which she acted out the murder and, when questioned about the attack, repeatedly laughed about the details. On 25 March 1997, after a month-long trial at Winchester Crown Court, Carr was convicted of murder. The jury had deliberated for five hours before reaching a unanimous guilty verdict, choosing to convict her for murder and not manslaughter. The conviction meant that Carr was officially Britain's youngest ever female murderer, having been only 12 at the time of the killing. When sentencing Carr, Mr Justice Baker remarked: "What is clear is that you had a sexual motive for this killing and it is apparent both from the brutal manner in which you mutilated her body and chilling entries in your diary, that killing, as you put it, turns you on. You are in my view an extremely dangerous young woman." Carr was smiling as she left the dock after the conviction. She received a minimum tariff of 14 years imprisonment after her trial. Following her murder conviction, Carr was held in HM Prison Holloway. She was later transferred to Broadmoor Hospital in 1998. While in Broadmoor, she continued to assault staff and other residents and admitted wanting to kill a fellow inmate by slitting her throat. On occasions, she also claimed to believe that she was a lizard and tried to cut herself to attempt to find out whether she was still human. In 2004, it was reported that Carr's defence team were challenging her 14-year minimum tariff as well as her conviction, with Carr wanting her murder conviction to be replaced with one of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. However, the appeals were dismissed. In 2007, Carr was moved again to the medium-secure Orchard Unit but was sent to HM Prison Bronzefield in Surrey in 2015 as a Restricted Status prisoner, as she was presenting a risk to patients and staff. Her warrant stated that she no longer required treatment or that no effective treatment could be given. In December 2018, she was moved to HM Prison Low Newton in County Durham but was quickly moved back to Bronzefield after a violent incident with another inmate in August 2019. In the same year, her application for her Restricted Status to be downgraded was denied. She appealed against this decision in 2020, but this was also denied on the grounds that she

Reader's Guide

Carr's case is documented through court records, psychiatric reports, and media coverage. Key locations include: Ragamuffins nightclub in Camberley, where Rackliff was last seen alive; Collingwood College Comprehensive School, site of the 1994 stabbing; Winchester Crown Court, where Carr was convicted in 1997; HM Prison Holloway, Broadmoor Hospital, the Orchard Unit, HM Prison Bronzefield, and HM Prison Low Newton, where she has been held at various times. Notable figures include Mr Justice Baker, who sentenced her, and criminal psychologist Gordon Tressler, who noted the extremely unusual nature of the case, saying: "This is a difficult case to understand. One can find precedents of young children killing other young children, but in this case it was a child killing someone who was almost an adult." Carr's diary entries and letters provide direct evidence of her mindset, including passages expressing sexual excitement over the murder and boasts about being a killer. The source does not cover any fictional elements such as "Smiling Friends" or a facility called "State Prison".

Did You Know?

• Carr was 12 years old when she murdered 18-year-old Katie Rackliff, stabbing her 32 times with a six-and-a-half-inch knife.
• She was convicted in 1997 as Britain's youngest ever female murderer, having been younger than Mary Bell at the time of the killing (Bell was convicted of manslaughter, not murder).
• Carr's diary contained the line: 'If only I could kill you again [...] I promise I would make you suffer more this time, you fucking slag. Your terrified screams turned me on.'
• While in Broadmoor Hospital, Carr claimed to believe she was a lizard and tried to cut herself to find out if she was still human.
• As of 2020, Carr's application to have her Restricted Status downgraded was denied, and she remained imprisoned long after her 14-year minimum tariff expired.