Sharon Carr (Jail)

Sharon Carr stabbed Kate Rackliff 18 to death. She was convicted five years later after boasting about it in a diary whilst being charged with another stabbing.

Kate Rackliff was last seen alive outside a nightclub. She got in a car with two boys and Sharon Carr and sat in the back seat. Katie Rackliff annoyed Sharon Carr who then stabbed her 30 times. Katie Rackliff was dragged 100 yards and left in a driveway. She was also stabbed and mutilated after her death including mutilation to the breasts, vagina and anus.

Two years later Sharon Carr stabbed a girl while at school in the lavatory and was detained for two years. She then confessed to killing Katie Rackliff.

Her diaries were found in which she expressed sexual pleasure at the murder. The judge noted that she also had a history of cruelty to animals and violence.

Kate Rackliff  had been to Ragamuffins night club and discotheque in Camberley with some friends on the Saturday night 6 June 1992, arriving just before 9pm.

Whilst at Ragamuffins, Kate Rackliff met an ex-boyfriend that she was still keen on and when her friends later left, they assumed that she had gone off with him, although she didn't as he had left before her.

No one saw Kate Rackliff leave Ragamuffins, but it was thought that she had probably left around 2am after the music stopped.

It was thought that when Kate Rackliff had left the club that she had gone looking for her ex-boyfriend.

Meanwhile, a few streets away from Ragamuffins, a man who was waiting up for his son said that he saw a blue Ford Transit van pull up outside his house between 2.10am and 2.15am. He said that the van was driven by a young man, aged between 20 and 34, who had short cropped brown air and had a moustache. The man said that the van driver was clearly lost.

Shortly before 2.30am Kate Rackliff returned to Ragamuffins and appeared to be looking for someone and was clearly upset. She was seen by the security agents on CCTV near the doors and was asked to move along as they were going to lock the doors. She was let out by a security guard who said that she was the last to leave. He said that as she left she asked for a cigarette and he gave her one. He said that he saw her take two or three steps outside the club and then just stopped, and noted that he logged the time then as being 2.30am.

However, after she moved along she met some friends outside the precinct that Ragamuffins's was in and they asked how she was but said that she didn't reply and just walked off. The friend said that Kate Rackliff was obviously upset.

About an hour later, at 3.20am, a woman was driving through Farnborough about four miles away when she said that she saw a blue Transit van at the junction of Union Street and Prospect Road at some traffic lights. She said that it came out from underneath the bridge there at speed and drove off. She said that she did look but didn't see the registration number or the driver.

Later on that morning at about 8am, Sunday 7 June 1993, about 200 yards from the junction where the woman saw the blue Transit van, Kate Rackliff's body was found in the street having been stabbed to death.

It was noted that the jacket that she had been wearing on the night she had gone out was missing when she was found, and the police appealed for any information regarding its whereabouts.

It was said that there had been 516 people at Ragamuffins on that night and the police said that they spoke to all of them except about 33.

In particular, they said that they were keen to speak to a lone man described as being in his 20's and who was dressed in black and who had spent the evening standing alone by the dance floor watching the dancers and drinking. He was noted as having very distinctive black crocodile boots with silver toe caps on. He also had medium length blonde hair and a photofit of him was released.

The police said that they thought that Kate Rackliff had got from Camberley to Farnborough by some form of transport such as a car or van. They added that they were interested in identifying the driver of the blue van and released a photofit of him.

It was not until Sharon Carr confessed five year later that Kate Rackliff's murder was solved.

Kate Rackliff had lived in Horley with her parents and older sister.