The murder of Rachel Barber.

Rachel Barber

Rachel Barber was a beautiful 15 year old girl.  A talented dancer, she had the whole world in front of her.  Unfortunately for Rachel this made her the target of a deranged woman who wanted to take all that away from her.

Caroline Reed Robertson was only 19 herself.  Their families were friends; Caroline had babysat Rachel and her younger sisters.  Caroline was chubby, and suffered from teenage acne, which led to a very negative self-image. As a teenager Caroline was a prolific writer, documenting her inner torment.

In Rachel, Caroline saw everything she was not, and an obsession began.  In Caroline’s twisted thoughts, the fact that Rachel was beautiful automatically meant that she would be happy, something she desired so badly for herself.  The obsession with Rachel festered and grew for several years.  As early as 1997, two years before the murder, Caroline would take photos of Rachel, supposedly for school projects.  It seems that for Caroline, coveting what Rachel had was not enough.  She had to take it from her, and somehow transfer it to herself.

In the months leading up to the murder, Caroline decided that she needed a new identity. She spoke to Rachel’s younger sister and asked her for Rachel’s date of birth.  The police believe she used this to get a copy of Rachel’s birth certificate.  Still a prolific writer, hand written notes later found at Caroline’s flat showed that Caroline planned to kill and disfigure Rachel, and then create a new identity for herself as “Jem Southall” a wild 16 year old, a “total revhead”.   She wrote detailed plans of how she was going to kill Rachel, and create a new life for herself as “Jem”.

Eventually Caroline’s plans were put into action.  She lured Rachel to her flat in the trendy Melbourne suburb of Prahran under the guise of getting her assistance in a psychology assignment.  It was a secret study, so Rachel had to not tell anyone what she was doing.  Rachel was last seen on the afternoon of February 28^th 1999 on a tram with a woman resembling Caroline. 

Sometime that night Caroline strangled Rachel with a telephone cord and, according to her later statement, she kept her body in her flat for a couple of days before taking it in a taxi to be disposed of.  She buried her body on a property at Kilmore, just outside Melbourne, which was owned by her father. 

Caroline’s attendance at work over the next two weeks was sporadic.  On one of her sick days she applied for a car loan.  She didn’t drive, so it is suspected she wanted the money to fund her new life.  The loan was declined.  She pressured a colleague to return a small amount of money that she had lent her.  For all of her careful planning for the murder itself, she left a lot of the details of the next stage of her plan to chance.  The police now wanted to talk to her.  The net was closing in. 

After several unsuccessful attempts on March 12^th to talk to Caroline, police gained entry to her flat and found her apparently unconscious, next to an empty bottle of Tegretol (which she took for her epilepsy). Upon searching her flat, police found clothes that would not have fit Caroline, but would have fit Rachel.  After being treated at hospital, Caroline was questioned by the police.  She confessed everything.  The police retrieved Rachel’s body from her shallow grave the next day.

The questions which occur to me are: why not just create a new persona?  Why did a beautiful girl have to die for this to happen?  I’m sure Rachel’s friends and family have asked those questions repeatedly for the past 16 years.  She specifically mentioned wanting to disfigure Rachel after she killed her.  To hate someone so much, for a physical attribute that they have no control over, blows my mind just a little. 

This week Caroline Reed Robertson was released from prison, much to the horror and anxiety of the Barber family as well as Rachel’s boyfriend Manni Carella.  While the Barber family don’t want Caroline to contact them, they don’t wish her harm.  However, they are very concerned that Caroline will reoffend, and put another family through the same torture that they have had to endure over the past sixteen years.  Time will tell if their fears are justified.

I don't like Mondays - Brenda Spencer, the first school shooter.

The silicon chip inside her head,
Gets switched to overload.

Brenda Spencer lived with her father after her parents divorced.  It would be a massive understatement to say it was not a normal relationship.  Not many 16 year old girls sleep in the same bed as their father.

She had been depressed for quite some time, but her father refused the doctor’s advice to admit her to a psychiatric facility.  She asked for a new radio for Christmas, instead he gave her a gun.

Brenda had already been in trouble for shooting her BB gun out of her front window at the school across the road, shooting out the windows.  Now she had a real gun.

And nobody's gonna go to school today,
She's going to make them stay at home.

Unfortunately for many students, they were already at Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, lining up outside, waiting for Principal Burton Wragg to unlock the gates and let them in.  It was January 29^th 1979 and Brenda Spencer was about to become the first school shooter.

She used her Christmas present, a Ruger 10/22 Semi-Automatic .22 calibre rifle with telescopic sight, to shoot at the children lining up across the road.  Principal Wragg tried to protect his charges, and was fatally wounded in the process.  The school janitor, Mike Suchar, came to assist his boss protect the children, and paid for his heroism with his life.  One of the first responding officers, Officer Robert Robb, was wounded in the neck.  The shooting was only stopped because another brave police officer drove a garbage truck between Brenda’s house and the school, blocking her view of the children.  After 30 rounds of ammunition, 2 men lay dead, and a police officer and 8 children were wounded. 

Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.

Brenda then barricaded herself in her house for nearly seven hours.  She told police negotiators that she was going to “come out shooting”.  A journalist began ringing all the local phone numbers, to ask residents of the area if they had witnessed the events, trying to get a scoop.  He unintentionally managed to call Brenda, and so he asked her “Tell me why?”  Her response, according to that journalist, was the now iconic “I don’t like Mondays”.  She ended the conversation by saying “I have to go now.  I shot a pig, and I want to shoot some more”.  The journalist had his scoop.

Brenda claims to not remember this exchange, but it would be safe to say that on that day she was not strongly connected to reality. 

Eventually, she surrendered, and walked outside, dropping her rifle on the front lawn.  The person terrorising an elementary school and a whole neighbourhood was a 5’2”, very thin girl, with long red hair.  Police searched the run-down house, finding evidence of beer and whiskey, although Brenda tested negative for any substances in her system.

Brenda was tried as an adult.  She pled guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon and was sentenced to 25 years to life.

Brenda clearly had a mental illness at the time of the crime, which doesn’t seem to have ever been effectively treated.  At her first parole hearing she told the parole board that she was hoping that the police would kill her.  She claims to have attempted suicide the previous year, and she felt that her father wanted her to kill herself, which is why he gave her a gun.  She also claimed to the parole board that she was under the influence of drugs, but the police conspired to falsify the drug test results.  She has self-harmed several times in prison, once using a heated paper clip to burn the words “courage” and “pride” into her chest after a relationship break up.    Brenda has been treated for epilepsy and depression while in prison, but still seems to be significantly disconnected from reality.

At her parole hearing in 2001 Brenda claimed her father had sexually abused her.  This was the first time she had mentioned it to authorities, so they did not believe her.  After Brenda’s arrest, her father went on to have a relationship with Brenda’s 17 year old roommate from juvenile detention, later marrying her.  Brenda’s roommate looked just like her.  In a cruel twist of fate for one of the children shot by Brenda, a child of Brenda’s father and Brenda’s roommate – Brenda’s half-sibling – attended the child care centre where the now adult victim worked.

Brenda has expressed concern that she is responsible for the school shootings which have occurred since. 

“With every school shooting, I feel I’m partially responsible,” she told the parole board back in 2001. “What if they got the idea from what I did?”

Sadly, I suspect that even though Brenda was the first, she did not create nearly four decades of copy cats.

Long before my interest in crime, I loved the song “I don’t like Mondays” by The Boomtown Rats.  The first two songs I asked for on vinyl, aged 5, were ”I don’t like Mondays” and “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles.  I clearly had excellent taste.  It was more than 30 years later before I discovered the story behind the music, after watching the documentary about Brenda titled “I don’t like Mondays”.  If you get the chance, I recommend watching it.  It gives a fascinating insight into Brenda, both at the time of the crime, and throughout the years in prison.  It really is a story of a mentally ill person who needed help, but didn’t know how to get it.  As a result two heroic men died, 9 more people were injured, and psychological scars were inflicted on scores of innocent people, many of them children.  She is still in prison, and I doubt she will ever be released.  At her last parole hearing in 2009 the parole board decided that she would not be eligible again until 2019. 

The Somerton Beach Man.

 

At 6:30am on December 1^st 1948 Adelaide police were called.  A local resident had found a man sitting on Somerton Beach, leaning back onto the seawall.  His feet were crossed and pointing toward the sea.  An unlit cigarette was tucked behind his ear, and one which was half smoked was tucked into his collar.  He was wearing a modern grey double breasted jacket, crisp white shirt, red and blue tie, brown pants and a brown knitted pullover.  His shoes were clean and shiny.  The strangest part of his appearance was that he was missing a hat, which was unusual for such a well-dressed man.  Also, he was dead.

The X marks the location of the body.

Witnesses had seen the man sitting on the beach the night before, stretching his left arm out and dropping it limply, where it continued to lay.  His right arm was curled up towards his face.

In his pockets were a used bus ticket, a used train ticket, a comb, cigarettes and matches and half a packet of Juicy Fruit.  The bus ticket would have taken him to the bus stop about 1,100 meters up the road. 

No form of identification was found. 

An autopsy was ordered, which found no apparent cause of death.  The coroner ruled that the man had died of probable poisoning, most likely an untraceable barbiturate, although he ruled out the pasty which remained in the man’s stomach as the cause.  The man was described as between 40 and 45, of “Britisher” appearance and in top physical condition.  His dental records could not be matched to anyone in Australia.  His clothes were searched, which revealed that all the clothing labels had been removed.

Police circulated the man’s photo and fingerprints to no avail.  Some people came forward, believing they knew the man’s identity, but upon investigation they were all mistaken. As he could not be identified his body was embalmed, which was the first time in Australia’s history that this was necessary.

On January 14^th 1949, staff at the Adelaide Railway Station found an unattended brown suitcase which had been checked into the cloakroom on November 30^th.  The suitcase contained clothes, sharpened scissors and a merchant marine stencilling brush.  It also contained a needle and thread.  The thread was an unusual brand and matched a repair made to the pants of the dead beach man.  All the labels of the clothing had been removed bar three which read the name “Keane” or “T Keane”.  Police renewed their search with this information, searching internationally as well, but could find no T. Keane reported missing from any English speaking country.  The only other clue from the suitcase was that it was a style which could only have been made in America due to the type of machine work.

An inquest was held into the man’s death, and during this time, his belongings were searched again.  This time police found a tiny piece of paper rolled up inside the fob pocket in the man’s trousers.  The paper had two words on it – Tamam Shud, which is Persian for “ended” or “finished”, written in a distinctive font.  It was the last two words from a book of Poetry called The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.  The book had been extremely popular in Australia, and now police searched for a copy that was missing a section of its last page.  The media joined in the search, and the very next day a man found a copy of the book had been placed in the backseat of his unlocked car in Glenelg, a beach side suburb of Adelaide.  He recognised the book from the newspaper story.  The copy of the book was missing a section which exactly matched the piece of paper in the dead man’s pocket.

In the back of the book were faint pencil markings of five lines of capital letters with the second line struck out. The strike out is now considered significant with its similarity to the fourth line possibly indicating a mistake and thus, possible proof the letters are code:

WRGOABABD

MLIAOI

WTBIMPANETP

MLIABOAIAQC

ITTMTSAMSTGAB

Code experts, including the department of defence, were unable to decipher it.

Also written in the book was an unlisted phone number, which belonged to a former nurse who lived in Glenelg.  She appeared very shaken when shown a photo of the dead man, but denied all knowledge of him, or why he would be so near her home. She seemed so shaken that police were concerned she might faint during questioning. She told them that she had owned a copy of The Rubaiyat when she had worked in Sydney, but had given it to a patient in 1945.  The patient was traced and found to be alive and well.  She asked not to have her name recorded as she was now married and wanted to spare her husband any embarrassment, so was given the pseudonym “Jestyn” in the police report.  This severely hindered follow up investigations.  Years later it was discovered that she was not actually married at the time. 

The lack of information about the dead man, and the mysterious code in the book led to contemporary rumours that he was a spy.  It was the early days of the cold war, and many believed that the man may have been a Russian spy en route to the Woomera US military base in central South Australia.   

A plaster cast was made of the man’s head and shoulders and he was buried in a pauper’s grave in Adelaide.  Years later flowers began appearing on his grave, although police were not able to establish who was leaving them.

After the death of the Jestyn, her daughter and daughter-in-law sold their story to the Australian edition of 60 minutes, claiming that Jestyn was a Russian spy and knew the identity of the dead man.  They claim she told them that the man was “known at a level above the Adelaide police”.  They stated that Jestyn was an admitted communist sympathiser who spoke fluent Russian.  The women even speculated that she may have borne him a child – their deceased brother and husband.  An investigator sought to have the body exhumed, but the Attorney General denied permission, citing a lack of public interest beyond curiosity.

The case is still listed as open in South Australia, but it is unlikely we will ever know the identity of the Somerton Beach man.

Martin Bryant and the Port Arthur Massacre

I remember April 28th 1996 vividly for a number of reasons. I went to a concert that night – Alanis Morrisette at the Palais Theatre in St. Kilda, Melbourne. My first time at that venue, and my first time seeing Alanis. It is a lovely old theatre, right on the beach. The old leather seats smell like leather and the sea. I had gone to the concert with my mum and my best friend. It had been a good night. My best friend’s daughter was a little over 1 year old, and we had left her with a family friend for the night, which meant we had two hour drive home, to pick Jaimee up on the way. The radio had been tuned to a pop station, I think Fox FM was my choice in those days. The late night show was usually a relationship/sex show with a DJ with the ominous moniker of “Dr. Feelgood”. A real doctor, she generally gave decent, frank advice. We were talking about the concert when we first got in the car, Dr Feelgood’s soft voice not making a huge impression initially. Then the content of what she was saying began to filter through. Shooting. Massive casualties. Australia’s worst crime. Port Arthur. Tasmania. Deaths and lots of them. We soon began listening to the radio in stunned silence. While we had been singing and dancing, oblivious to the outside world, a tragedy was being revealed.

Port Arthur

Port Arthur is a hugely popular tourist destination in Tasmania, Australia’s island state, south of the mainland. Port Arthur had been a penal settlement in the days of convicts, and the historical buildings attract many tourists, with there being shops, cafes and tours of the site, most notably night time ghost tours. By 1pm on that sunny autumn day there were 500 visitors making their way around the site. Nearly sixty of those visitors were having lunch in the Broad Arrow cafe, along with a man with long blonde, almost white, hair and a big blue sports bag. After sitting on his own on the balcony to eat his meal, he made a few comments to no-one in particular – most notably a comment about the lack of Japanese tourists that day. He then returned inside the cafe, staring at a group of diners, before placing a video camera on a table, turning to an Asian couple nearby, removing a rifle from his bag, and shooting. Moh Yee Ng was killed instantly, his companion Soo Leng Chung shot in the head. Turning to the first group of diners he shot twice, grazing one man and killing his girlfriend. In only moments three people had been killed. It had only just begun. Within fifteen seconds twenty people were dead and fifteen more injured. Fifteen seconds.

Martin Bryant

The shooter then opened fire on a group of tourists in the car park who were not aware of the danger they were now in. Some of the tourists crawled under a tour bus to hide, but the shooter calmly leant down and shot them as they huddled in fear. He got in his vehicle, a Volvo station wagon, and began driving to find more victims.

Next, a young mother was shot, as was the small child she was carrying. Her other daughter ran to escape the shooter, but he followed her behind a tree and shot her point blank. Three members of a family unit obliterated in moments. These three victims were Nanette, Alannah and Madeline Mikac.

On that day sixteen years ago a man named Martin Bryant made Port Arthur more famous than ever before, and for all the wrong reasons.

Bryant had always been an odd person – a loner in school, he was a loner as an adult as well. With a Forrest Gump level IQ, Martin qualified for a disability pension and obtained work as a handy man for a rich lottery heiress, Helen Harvey. Harvey took the strange young man under her wing, cultivating an unusual friendship, taking him on shopping expeditions and lavishing gifts on him. Many wondered if their relationship was more than platonic.

Martin’s behaviour was bizarre and erratic at times, which was extremely noticeable in quiet rural Tasmania. Neighbours complained about him prowling around their properties late at night, amongst other things.

The happiest years of Martin’s life ended abruptly when Helen Harvey was killed in a car accident. While some people claimed Martin caused the accident (he was known to grab and pull the steering wheel as a prank), no evidence was found and no charges were laid. Martin was the sole beneficiary of Helen’s estate, leaving him a mansion and more than $500,000 cash. He moved into the house and used the money for more than thirty overseas trips in a three year period, returning to his previous status as a loner.


In the months leading up to the massacre, Martin visited the Port Arthur tourist site several times. During this time, he also bought a new sports bag. The shopkeeper who sold it to him, remembers him measuring several before deciding on which one to purchase. These two facts tend to suggest that the killings were planned in advance and carried out with cold, calculating precision, rather than an act of impulse as suggested by some.

After shooting at people, he began shooting at vehicles as they approached. Bryant drove off in a BMW, after killing the occupants and transferring his guns from the Volvo. He eventually ended up at a local guest house, where he killed the proprietors and held the police off with gun fire for the rest of the night. His only request during the six hour standoff was for a ride in an army helicopter.

The next morning smoke was seen billowing from the guesthouse. Bryant ran from the building, clothing on fire. He was apprehended, his clothing extinguished and he was taken to hospital under police guard. It was over.

This was the days before the internet and information superhighway made updates on current events almost instant. The news would have started to filter through before we had gone to the concert, but we had been listening to Alanis on audio cassette in eager anticipation of the night in front of us. I’m glad I didn’t know about it until later. I think I really appreciated the fact that I heard the news about this from Dr. Feelgood. People were calling in to discuss how distressed they were by the events, and she was able to counsel them on air, and vicariously counsel us as well. She was kind of like Dr. Phil, but in a good way.

Walter Mikac, the only surviving member of his family, was a local pharmacist and became the face of the victims of this horrific event. Public sympathy poured out for a man who went to work one day, husband and father of two beautiful little girls, only to end the day a widower with three funerals to prepare. Walter established the “Alannah and Madeline Foundation” in honour of his little girls. The foundation supports children who have been the victims of violence or bullying. He went on to re-marry and have another child. I cannot imagine the pain he has been through. The pain that Martin Bryant has put him through. I have enormous respect for him, that he was able to continue with his life after that day.

The massacre at Port Arthur also led to the speedy implementation of strict gun laws throughout Australia. A gun amnesty encouraged all unregistered guns to be handed in, and very swiftly the gun culture of the nation changed. Now the only legal gun owners in Australia are farmers, hunters and sports shooters. There have been mass shootings in Australia before this massacre, but *touch wood* none since. For Australia, gun control was needed and has worked extremely well.

One can only speculate on the motives of Martin Bryant. He seems to have been focused on tourists, but it is unclear if this was a racially provoked issue. Unlike many of the other mass murderers we see, there was no apparent political message. Just a troubled man and some guns.


It is for people like Walter Mikac that I feel when I read online conspiracy theories suggesting that Martin Bryant was not responsible for the shootings, that there was other shooters, that it was an SAS officer who committed the crimes to instigate acceptance of gun control legislation in Australia, that Bryant was just a patsy. While eyewitness testimony is not 100% reliable, the amount of eyewitnesses to this event leaves little doubt as to the identity of the shooter. No other shooter was spotted by any of the people on the scene. Martin Bryant had no friends and it is extremely unlikely he was acting in concert with anyone. It was his act, and his alone. I understand that for his family, especially for his mother Carleen, it is a hard fact to deal with, and I don’t begrudge their grief, but the rights of the victims and their families need to be paramount.


For the more adventurous of you out there, there is police video available online of the crime scene, with the bodies still in place. I won’t link it here – just google it. I have watched it a few times in silent, morbid fascination. I can almost see the events playing out before my eyes.

Martin Bryant remains in prison in Tasmania, and I cannot foresee him ever being released.
 
For more details, check out Wikipedia or Crime Library.

The Zodiac Killer: This is the Zodiac Speaking

One of my main areas of interest in all this crime stuff is unsolved crimes, and The Zodiac is a beauty: serial killer who has killed at least 7 people - 7 are definitely linked to him, but at one stage he claimed to have killed 37 people. And he sent creepy cyphers to police and the media, some of which are still unsolved.
Here is the story:  Most people believe it all started in October 30th 1966 in California, when pretty young Cheri Jo Bates was murdered. He had stalked her in her university library and disabled her car while she studied inside. When she couldn't start her car, he approached and offered assistance. They spent over an hour talking in the dark alleyway. Then he killed her. He didn't rape her, or steal her purse. He just killed her.  The only clue the police had came in a letter from the Zodiac himself. He didn't call himself Zodiac yet. He didn't sign the first letter at all, but in the letter he made threats against women he saw in his daily life and ended the letter "IT WAS JUST A WARNING. BEWARE...I AM STALKING YOUR GIRLS NOW".  The letter was sent to the police and the media. A second letter was then sent, but the police were still no closer to having any realistic suspects.  The police had one suspect - an ex-boyfriend who didn't take the break up well. He is still listed as the only firm suspect in Cheri's murder forty years after the event. There is some conjecture whether Cheri really was the first Zodiac victim, but her death certainly fits the pattern.

David Faraday and Betty-Lou Jenson

Now the Zodiac began focusing on young couples in cars. Betty-Lou Jenson, 16, and David Faraday, 17, had the unfortunate luck of being at the wrong place at the wrong time.  Parked in David's mother's car in a "lover's lane" area on Lake Herman Road, Benicia, California, Betty-Lou and David were ambushed and shot to death late at night on December 20th 1968.  It appears that David was standing near the car when shot, whereas Betty-Lou had made a run for it and was shot five times in the right side of the upper back. The police were baffled - there were no witnesses, no motives and no suspects (Graysmith).

Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau.

Six months later, on July 4th 1969, he struck again.  The victims this time were Darlene Ferrin, 22, and Michael Mageau, 19.  They were shot while parked at the  Blue Rock Springs Golf Course in Vallejo California.  Darlene was killed, but somehow Mike survived despite his injuries.  He was able to give a description of the killer to police, but no leads turned up anything useful in their investigation.  There were reports that Darlene's husband received a prank phone call later that night - he could hear nothing but breathing/wind.

Bryan Hartnell and Cecilia Shepherd.

It was less than three months later when the Zodiac struck again.  Bryan Hartnell, 20, and Cecilia Shepherd, 22, were stabbed while spending an afternoon relaxing at Lake Berryessa California, September 27th 1969.  During this attack, the killer wore a hood over his head which appeared to be home-made.  Bryan survived despite six stab wounds to his back.  He was able to describe the killer and the hood, but again police were left baffled.

Paul Stine.

The final confirmed Zodiac victim was Paul Stine, a cab driver in San Francisco, two weeks later on October 11th.  As a victim he did not fit the pattern - he was 30 years old and not in a lovers lane type area.  A square of Paul's shirt had been carefully ripped off, and pieces of the shirt were later mailed to the media to prove that the Zodiac was responsible.

One of the most baffling aspects of the Zodiac case were not only the phone calls he made to the police and families, but more than that it was the letters and cypher he designed which caught media attention. The letters kept arriving for years after the confirmed killings stopped - 1974 or 1978 depending on whether you believe the validity of the 1978 letter.  It seemed he was desperate to get acknowledgement for his killing. He insisted that his cyphers be published on the front page of newspapers and the media complied.  The cypher baffled law enforcement and a civilian couple actually solved it after it was published in the newspaper. The solved cypher, like most of the letters, promised more murders and implied that the Zodiac was always watching. In one letter he even threatened to bomb a school bus, and then shoot the children as they ran off the bus. 

With a few appearances over the few years via mail and phone calls, the interest in the Zodiac was maintained, but the case was never solved. Some of the suspects included Ted Kaczynski (The Unabomber) and Bruce Davis (a Manson Family member).  The most favoured suspect of many, including author Robert Graysmith, was Arthur Leigh Allen. I say "was" because he died of natural causes in 1992. DNA evidence taken off postage stamps did not match Allen, however there are some claims that he got others to lick his stamps for him.  Convincing arguments for and against Allen are all over the interwebs.  Other suspects have periodically emerged, as often happens in unsolved crimes.  Most recently a woman came forward in 2009 and claimed her late father was the Zodiac.

Realistically the case will probably be filed next to Jack the Ripper and JonBenet Ramsey in the "we are never going to solve this one" drawer.  I have just finished reading "Zodiac" by Robert Graysmith.  While many have discounted his theories, I found it a useful introduction to the details of the case and it gave me many areas to think about.
The full story can be read on  Crime Library and many interesting articles and points of view are out there on the interwebs.  I found Zodiackillerfacts and Zodiac Killer most interesting - especially as they seem to have almost opposite views.

The plot thickens

It has emerged in the media (and here) this morning that Keisha had an older brother, Aiden, who died from SIDS in 2002.   Police will now be investigating Aiden's death.  It will be interesting to see what the investigation reveals.   

What happened to Keisha?

Keisha Abrahams

Six year old Keisha Abrahams was reported missing from her Sydney home last Sunday morning, August 1st, after her mother discovered her missing from her bed and the front door slightly ajar.  There was no sign of forced entry.  There were reports of abduction flying around in the media.  Her mother and step father suggested she may have wandered out to play with the local stray cats, which she liked to do, and someone had taken her.  Keisha had last been seen the night before, by her mother Kristi Abrahams.  Or at least that is the story Kristi has told the police and media.

Robert Smith and Kristi Abrahams

In the course of the last week it has emerged that Keisha may not have been seen by anyone other than her mother or step father for as long as a month.  She had not been to school.  Keisha was also known to child protective services and other government agencies due to her troubled home life.  She was taken to hospital at about 18 months of age with a severe bite wound.  A human bite wound. An adult human bite wound.  Initially it was reported as confidential who the biter was, but a news service published the information on Thursday.  Keisha had been bitten by her mother.  And yet Kristi Abrahams is proclaiming "Stop judging me" to the media.

Kristi Abrahams has given birth to a son in the past couple of weeks.  It makes me wonder if maybe Keisha was going to be in the way for this new family, and needed to be removed. 

Keisha's step father Robert Smith has stated loudly in the media that the police believe he is a suspect and have said to him "just tell us where her body is".  Apparently we are meant to be outraged that the police asked him this.  Personally I am just outraged that a six year old girl has been allowed to disappear without a trace. 

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