I Am You is a confronting drama chronicling the chilling true story of the 1999 murder of a Melbourne teenager
Caroline Reed Robertson attends court during her 2000 trial. Picture: Herald Sun. Source: HeraldSun
SHE was the killer next door.
Caroline Reid seemed an ordinary, if unhappy teenage girl who lived across the road.
No-one could have known she was a sadistic psychopath who was watching, waiting and planning a murder with chilling intent.
Least of all Elizabeth and Michael Barber whose 15-year-old daughter Rachel would become the killer's prey.
But the girl across the road not only plotted to murder Rachel, but intended becoming her by stealing her identity.
And now Elizabeth Barber fears the killer, who has changed her name to Caroline Reed Robertson, may be released from prison to kill again.
"One of my primary fears is I don't even know what she looks like now and neither do my two other daughters," Mrs Barber told news.com.au.
The killer next door: Caroline Reid before she strangled her 15-year-old neighbour. Picture: Facebook. Source: Supplied
"The Victorian Adult Parole Board won't allow us in to any of her parole hearings.
"How do we know she has rehabilitated? I've heard from inside prison she has a volatile personality.
"What haunts me most is that before she murdered Rachel, Caroline was asking for help, she had bouts of depression, but her parents didn't give her the attention she needed.
"Michael and I have beaten ourselves up that we let her family into our lives.
"Caroline babysat Rachel. I was friends with her mother.
"But who would have thought a 19-year-old girl, a neighbour, would be planning to do such a thing.
"It's all there in her journals. She was even practising writing a new name - Southall, my maiden name."
Rachel Barber as a teenager before she was murdered. Picture: Supplied. Source: Supplied
In 1999, Rachel Barber was a pretty, happy Melbourne teenager who was studying to become a dancer.
She had two younger sisters, her parents were happily married: the Barbers were "the perfect family".
Across the road lived Caroline Reid, an overweight and bullied girl whose parents were going through a difficult divorce.
In the secret journals she wrote, Reid's growing fixation with Rachel is apparent.
As Justice Frank Vincent would later say at Reid's murder trial, the young woman was filled with hatred and a burning envy of Rachel's life.
Mike and Elizabeth Barber and daughters attend the murder trial in 2000. Picture: Herald Sun. Source: News Limited
"Caroline was clever," Mrs Barber said.
"Rachel wanted a pair of Spice Girls platform shoes that cost $100 and I said no.
"Caroline promised Rachel the money in exchange for taking a secret psychological survey.
"That's the worrying thing for every parent. It was a secret. Rachel didn't tell us she was going to Caroline's place."
On February 28, Rachel boarded a tram and vanished.
In her flat in the Melbourne suburb of Prahran, Caroline drugged the young girl, strangled her and placed her body in a wardrobe.
It is still a mystery how Rachel's body was transferred to a shallow grave on the rural property of Caroline's father - Caroline did not have a driver's licence.
Over the next twelve days, Rachels' frantic parents tussled with police who seemed unconcerned about her disappearance.
Eventually, police interviewed Caroline who went into hospital suffering a fit after suspicion fell upon her, and she confessed to the murder.
She later retracted the confession and following a murder trial she was sentenced in November 2000 to 20 years for Rachel's murder.
Mrs Barber wrote a book, Perfect Victim, which has been made into a feature film I Am You which screens tonight at 8.30pm on Foxtel.
Guy Pearce and Miranda Otto as Rachel Barber's parents in the true drama, I Am You. Picture: Foxtel. Source: Supplied
Starring Guy Pearce and Miranda Otto as Michael and Elizabeth Barber and co-starring Sam Neill, Rebecca Gibney, Jeremy Sims and Justine Clarke, filmmaker Simone North's dramatic recreation of the true story has never before been shown in Australia, for legal reasons.
On August 10, Caroline Reed Robertson was due for release on parole after serving her minimum sentence of 14 1/2 years.
Following protests by Elizabeth Barber outside the hearings, the parole board postponed Robertson's case "for reassessment" in November.
Elizabeth Barber with a photo of daughter Rachel. Picture: Herald Sun. Source: HeraldSun
Mrs Barber said pressure brought to bear "in the light of recent tragedies" by the board's misguided decisions to release offenders, including Jill Meagher's killer Adrian Bayley, had helped to keep Robertson inside.
"We know she can't stay in jail forever, but [the Parole Board] has to be very, very careful with her. They can't make the same mistakes they did with the other cases.
"She has to be closely monitored.
"I feel a great responsibility that she should not have the opportunity in the future to fixate on someone else.
"But I'm also worried about my two daughters. We won't know what she looks like.
"Why can't we know?"
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