Identity

Stealing someone's identity is a serious crime that can have far-reaching consequences for the victim. It is a form of identity theft, which involves using someone else's personal information without their permission to commit fraud or other crimes.

Identity theft can take many forms, such as:

• Using someone else's name, Social Security number, or other personal information to open credit accounts or loans in their name

• Falsifying documents or documents with someone else's personal information

• Using someone else's personal information to get employment or other benefits

• Using someone else's personal information to avoid arrest or prosecution

Identity theft can cause significant financial and emotional harm to the victim, who may have to spend a lot of time and money trying to clear their name and repair their credit. It can also lead to legal problems for the person committing the crime.

It is important to protect your personal information and to be careful about sharing it with others. If you suspect that someone has stolen your identity, it is important to act quickly to report the crime and take steps to protect yourself.

This is a REAL STORY:

Rachel wasn't someone to just disappear, we knew something was wrong, but to think that someone actually want to kill their role model...!

So, it means that...

That's crazy...!

Have you ever felt Envy or jealousy toward a friend? Perhaps their looks grades or financial situation made you feel like they had the higher ground.

What did you do? Break it off slowly or change your negative mindset? Either way, I'm sure you didn't do what Caroline Reed Robertson did, this is without doubt one of the most bizarre homicides that Cops aware of or have worked on. It is skin crawling, chillingly cold, calculated murder.

Back in 1999, Melbourne was shocked to hear about Caroline's five-year-long plan. It was truly terrifying, especially for a 19-year-old girl, it involved murder, lust, and a strong desire to steal her younger neighbor's identity.

“I’m warning you guys: this story is pretty twisted. And you can be easily triggered by police incompetence. So, brace yourself, let's get to the story and find out Caroline's disturbing motivation and Rachel Barber's tragic story”

Our Story begins on September 12, 1983. The day Rachel Barber was born to Michael and Elizabeth Rachel grew up in Melbourne, Australia, along with her parents and two younger sisters: Ashley and Heather.

Rachel was a part of a big happy family, but not just that: She was a part of a group of passionate artists. In her family, there was a designer, a toy maker, a children's author, and a visual artiste.

Rachel took the Arts at a very young age. Her strongest passion was ballet dancing: Ballet was always her first Passion and Rachel would come home at the end of the day and her whole house would be dismantled and her mom just accepted that. And she'd get all her dress-ups out and she would just improvise, and there would be full-on performances.

Rachel's favorite activity was choreographing dance movements and having her little sisters’ star in them. Ever since primary school she was confident: dancing was going to be her career, and her family never questioned it. After all, Elizabeth would play classical music to Rachel when she was still in the womb. And with ballet, work really does start early, Rachel started her ballet classes at the Melbourne Dance Academy when she was about 6 years old, and she never gave up her dream. By the time she started high school, she was a prolific junior dancer, and she was also enrolled in a modeling course. When she was 14, she appeared in women's fitness magazines.

But around the same time Rachel started having a difficult conversation with her parents, she wanted to drop out of school so she could attend The Dance Factory full time, as you probably know dance takes a lot of practice, and just doing it a couple of hours after classes won't put you at the top of your game. Her family was reluctant at first if she ever changed her mind, it would be too late to go back to high school and pursue any other career. But Rachel had been passionate about dancing since she could walk, and they remembered this. So, by the end of her freshman year in 1998 Rachel transferred to The Dance Factory. It was her dream come true.

The Dance Factory is also where Rachel met her first boyfriend Manny Carella, the two quickly became lovers and best friends, and they shared a lifelong passion and had very similar World Views. Although Rachel appeared to be the life of the party, she was actually quite shy when she was out in the public, but whenever she was surrounded by her friends, she would shine. Sadly, her light would stop shining all too soon.

On 1st March 1999, Rachel's day started just like any other, around 9 A.M she kissed her mom goodbye and got in the car with her dad. She waited for her father and then she was fine and then they went off and she waved goodbye. She said I love you at the end and it was - that was the morning.

He would take her to the Riversdale Road and Elgar Road tram station, where she would get on the tram to her friend's house, her friend's house in Richmond was a sort of Hub where all the dance students would meet up and have breakfast before heading to The Dance Factory together, here everyone adjust their makeup and move to the Dance Factory.

That morning Rachel hugged everyone including her boyfriend she also gave Manny a gift a little purple heart with a ribbon on it seemed like a pretty perfect morning for any 15-year-old and it would get even more perfect at least that's what Rachel thought that morning, she was beaming she was telling all her dance colleagues that that evening she was going to make a lot of money she didn't tell them how - it was a surprise.

But she had a plan and she was very excited about it. During her lunch break Rachel went out to lunch with Manny when they walked past a shoe store Rachel showed Manny a pair of hundred-dollar shoes that she'd really wanted for a while she said she told her mom that they were way over her budget but that she would finally be able to afford them as she was about to make a lot of cash.

When Manny asked how? Rachel wouldn't tell him this seemed pretty weird. Usually, Rachel was honest and blunt especially with her boyfriend when Manny insisted on his questions Rachel just said she was is going to meet an old girlfriend of hers she had a job for her but it was all pretty hush-hush fair enough, Manny thought it is girl stuff, right so after dance classes were over at 5 30 PM Rachel and her friends started walking towards the tram station on Church Street but when they stopped there, Rachel said that day she was going to take a different tram so she kissed Manny goodbye and walked onto the Waltham station she would take the tram in the opposite direction of her home to meet an old friend at her flat.

But at 6 30 PM that day Elizabeth would start to get worried about her daughter, she was making dinner with Rachel's younger sisters while she was waiting for Michael and Rachel to come home as per usual Michael was supposed to pick Rachel up from the local tram station at 6 or 6:15, but time flew by and there was no sign.

The dinner was getting cold and the younger girls were asking where their older sister was. They start to feel something was wrong on you instantly I knew I could I just had that gut feeling because it wasn't Rachel. Rachel wasn't someone to just disappear there's no way that she'd want to run away or anything like that it just wasn't her, so our instinct was she was dead that night.

Elizabeth didn't know what to tell them, she was putting on a brave face for her children perhaps Rachel had missed her tram or Michael had stopped to get fuel, she would say but seven turned to 7:30 to 7:40. At first Michael wasn't answering his phone then Elizabeth got a distressing phone call.

Michael was in Blackburn at his parents' house he didn't find Rachel at the tram stop nor was she answering his phone he asked Elizabeth if Rachel had gone home on her own but she hadn't. Elizabeth was panicking and you think why Panic? She’s 15 but we knew something was wrong because she wasn't home.

Michael had driven by all the local tram stops and now, he was checking his family home desperate for a positive outcome but Rachel was nowhere to be found so her parents immediately contacted the media, they showed Rachel's face on missing posters and urged people to come forward with any relevant information, they were pretty sure it was Foul Play Rachel was afraid of being out on her own and she was also afraid of the dark, in the past there were a few instances where creepy Men followed her into shops, so Rachel was overly cautious when it came to walking by herself this is why Michael would still drive her to the tram stops every morning.

So, the barber family knew all too well that Rachel hadn't run away on her own but when they called the police to tell them about this the officers almost seemed to mock them, they said all teenagers come home within 48 hours they're just out for an adventure and when they get hungry or scared eventually, they return.

What? How could they dismiss the potential danger Rachel was in? Desperate to solve the case anyway, Elizabeth started phoning Rachel's friends she started with Manny, he usually knew everything Rachel was up to; indeed, Manny gave Elizabeth a little clue into Rachel's last hours.

He said “oh, I thought she wouldn't go”

Elizabeth said where? So, Manny told her about the old girlfriend Rachel said she was seeing for a quick cash earning job.

Then Elizabeth remembered, a few months back Rachel's former neighbor and babysitter Caroline had contacted her, offering a modeling job that could earn her a hefty sum of money but when Rachel told her mom about it, she said no, because she was too young to take these kinds of gigs, it was simply too risky, so on February 28 Caroline tried again but made sure Rachel kept this job a secret from her mother who didn't understand her, but her mom did understand her, and on the morning of March 1st, she had a strange feeling about Rachel.

Elizabeth asked Rachel that are you up to something? What are you up to? And it was almost there and she said nothing.

Rachel could have talked to her mom right there and then that would have given good ideas. Tragically, it was her trust in people and overall kindness that led Rachel to her horrible END.

Now Elizabeth knew that Rachel had taken a modeling job that evening but she didn't know who had offered it, she had been really secretive to her friends too so, no matter who Elizabeth called she couldn't get a name she just knew Rachel had taken a different tram in a direction opposite her home.

Meanwhile Michael went to Box Hill Police Station and filed an official missing person's report even now the officers insisted he shouldn't worry about it. So, on the evening of March 1st Elizabeth and Michael Drove All around Melbourne asking people if they'd seen their daughter, it was clear the police weren't helping.

Looking for Rachel in Melbourne was literally looking for a needle in a haystack so the next morning Rachel's parents walked into the police station once more, this time they had a stack of photos of their daughter but when they spoke to the officer on duty, they found out he hadn't been told about a missing person's report so the officers on March 1st cared so little, they didn't even bother to pass on the information.

That day Michael and Elizabeth went over to The Dance Factory and investigated Rachel's Locker again taking the role of the police officers but inside they found nothing while her wallet was in there but in it was just some small cash and a tram ticket from the day before, there were no clues as to where she might have gone or who she might have met the day before.

Then Michael and Elizabeth went to the shoe store that Rachel loved so much, they remembered that Rachel wanted a pair of expensive shoes so they wanted to see if she'd bought them. The shop attendant told them that Rachel had actually asked them to put a pair on hold and told them she would return the next day to buy them but she never did.

As her parents kept showing her picture to other shop assistants, they heard something awful; there was a convicted felon freshly out of prison who had recently opened an illegal brothel in the area even more distressingly he was convicted for exploiting young girls for illegal street work, another shop assistant said he literally witnessed Rachel being asked by one of the brothel crew if she wanted to join them, promising her big money.

Rachel had said no but imagine how the jigsaw was falling into place, Rachel had told Manny she was going to make a good sum of money but she wouldn't tell him how. Then this felon was out looking for teens Rachel's parents Hearts sank, but they knew the brothel was the next place to check out so they called the place asking if Rachel was working there.

The brothel gave a series of confusing answers; they said, first of all they never recruit people off the streets and second of all Rachel had never come in contact with them.

What had that shop assistant seen? Was he lying? The more Elizabeth and Michael searched for answers, the more questions they would get.

On the evening of March 2nd, the Barbers entered the Richmond police station hoping for more helpful officers. But bureaucracy is a piece of work, Richmond officers said that Rachel's missing person case had already been filed at the Box Hill office, so they couldn't start an investigation on their own and when they called Melbourne hospitals asking if they had a patient called Rachel Barber the hospital said they couldn't give out private information to random callers, imagine how infuriating all of this must feel for Rachel's family.

By March 3rd, the Dance Factory staff and the cafe next to it were involved in finding Rachel. The academy staff had filed several missing people’s reports to the Box Hill Police hoping to jump start the investigation and the cafe owner had a friend who was a good detective he went to the Box Hill Police Station to try and convince the officers to take charge. Meanwhile Rachel's family friends and Manny helped put up posters of her all over town.

But even though the police officers promised the detective they would start an investigation they never did. When Elizabeth spoke to the detective again, he decided to help them out on his own so he asked Elizabeth to make a list of everyone Rachel knew especially girls she knew.

On March forth the police did do something but it was incredibly stupid. Their theory was that Rachel had gotten pregnant, so she ran away. Or that Manny, who got her pregnant, got mad and took her life. So, they took Manny in for questioning but it was pretty clear Manny wasn't with Rachel at the time of her disappearance and when the police spoke to Rachel's family, they assured them Rachel would tell them if she was pregnant, they were very close and she wouldn't run off instead of talking to her family.

Later that day a witness said she saw Rachel with two other girls at East Richmond station, the police checked the CCTV and that was not Rachel, then another witness said she saw Rachel three days after her disappearance with a blonde-haired man, the police didn't check this one, though. They just said they solved the case; Rachel was a typical teenage runaway.

Again, The Barbers had to insist this was unlike their daughter, the police really had to do their jobs so an officer came to their house and looked through Rachel's room, he concluded that Rachel had run off and advised her parents to go to counseling and focus on their other two daughters.

Honestly, how can a police officer say this to a family who doesn't know where their daughter is? It gets even more outrageous; as Rachel's parents made a list of suspicious individuals in their close Circle, they thought of a creepy guy in their neighborhood, this was a man who Elizabeth often caught creeping around their house and talking to her girls.

Just two weeks before Rachel's disappearance Elizabeth was just walking out of the shower when she found this man inside their house talking to her youngest daughters. Sheesh, she kicked him out of the house, told him to never return and reported him to the police.

On March 6 Elizabeth and Michael went to the Box Hill Police Station and inquired about this man. So, the officers told them to find another place to go, as they'd wasted enough of their time already.

Wait, what?

Elizabeth broke down crying and she threw her bag at the police car, she was at her wit's end, she didn't know what else to do. This was 101 police incompetence and their lack of kindness and professionalism was tearing her apart but later that day, someone called her it was Alison the older sister of one of Rachel's friends. She just found out that Rachel was missing and she thought she'd share a little detail she remembered from March 1st; she'd seen Rachel at the Prahran tram station close to Richmond. She was together with another girl she was maybe a little bit older than her but otherwise looked very plain.

This was not a little detail. Tt was the vital clue that opened the doors to Rachel's case, her family knew it too, so they took Allison and went over to the police station, where Allison drew a sketch of the girl, she'd seen with Rachel, the barber family also made a public appeal.

Rachel's family thought she’s gone some way that she thought was legit, that's their gut feeling. The family wants Rachel bank, they love her.

Soon enough Australia's Most Wanted featured Rachel in their magazine, and Allison sketch was shown to the public but The Barbers couldn't identify who it was from Alice in sketch. Still, it was a familiar face. In fact, it was an all too familiar face that The Barbers had known for almost a decade, Caroline Reed Robertson.

The Robertson’s became the Barber's neighbors back in 1992. There were a few odd similarities between the two families; both had three daughters Caroline and Rachel were the eldest, they lived across the street from each other so it sounds like the six girls would have been the best of friends. But it was nothing like that, when you actually looked inside the homes the families were nothing like each other.

On the face of it, Caroline was fine, she had a quiet personality, but what happens inside her house is often not seen outside of the house Caroline's parents were fighting violently every single day, they were getting ready for a divorce, but they weren't ready for it yet so all their anger and frustration could be heard constantly by their three daughters.

Caroline was unhappy with herself; she was overweight her skin was going through that awful teenage phase and her family was seriously stressful. But every time she looked out her window, she saw an idyllic family, and a happy beautiful girl called Rachel. She clearly saw Rachel as the ideal person as the person she wanted to be.

This whole thing is so silly because if Rachel had been told; that Caroline saw her as a perfect person, Rachel would have laughed about that herself because nobody's perfect and Rachel wasn't perfect.

The first time Caroline met Rachel in person, she was 15 and Rachel was 10. Rachel's family had hired her to babysit their girls while they were out. What could go wrong? If anything, they expected the barber girls to love Caroline like an older sister, but they didn't foresee Caroline's creepy Obsession. She couldn't get Rachel out of her head, she found her very attractive but she hated that she was everything she wasn't.

Carolyn was very unhappy with herself; she didn't like the way she looked; she did want to take on that Persona of someone that was happy, that was beautiful, and that was popular like Rachel was. Indeed, Caroline didn't just want to be around Rachel.

“She wanted to be Rachel”, steal her identity and become her in every way imaginable.

You and I can sit here and say well that's just not possible but certainly that's what she wanted to do and that is absolutely my belief of why she took Rachel's life.

To steal Rachel's identity, she made-up her mind to kill her.

Some people might change their behavior, their appearance, their job, their lifestyle, so they can be like their role model but to actually want to kill the role model and replace them, that's going really a long way.

Caroline's horrific plan began the first time she met Rachel. That's right, for 5 long years Caroline planned Rachel's demise. In her head, she could simply take her life and become her. This is what Caroline wrote in her diary; “I don't feed anywhere in this crazy world because I am ugly”, Caroline's mother, Gail, was desperate. She saw her daughter in the terrible mental state she was in, and even asked Elizabeth for advice.

Elizabeth had Gail crying on her shoulder, her clothes were saturated with Gail's tears for her grief over worry for her daughter and she said I can't do anything Elizabeth said take her to see somebody and she said I tried that she doesn't want to go.

If only the mothers knew what was going on inside Caroline's mind, but she kept her thoughts to herself, the only proof was in her Diaries full of nasty expressions like “obese pizza face” that she would use to describe herself. Her only escape from self-loathing was her fantasy of becoming Rachel Barber.

“Rachel is strikingly attractive, Dancer's body, very clear pale skin, hypnotic green eyes, Wild free spirit, passionate, Charming, Moody, Mysterious”

Well sometimes you start off with a process of fantasizing, and then you know that compulsion becomes stronger and stronger and then if you don't start acting on it then you just feel this terrible discomfort and that's what motivates people to do things that they shouldn't be doing.

Still, The Barbers were blissfully unaware of her horrible fantasy. Barbers living their lives and they were living theirs so Barbers were oblivious to anything that Caroline could have been planning. Rachel would have been spied on quite a few times because she was keeping an eye on Rachel a lot.

Caroline spent all her free time spying on Rachel, gathering photos of her and putting them on her walls. Once, she convinced Rachel to photograph her for a school project these photos just became her creepy Shrine. That's scary, that's really scary that you know she had photos of all of three girls all over her walls, it’s so shocking and crazy.

But in 1998 Caroline's fantasies seemed to come to a better end. The Barbers moved houses as far as the Barbers were concerned this was the end of their daughter's odd little friendship with Caroline Robertson, but as far as Caroline was concerned, this was just the beginning of her plan.

As soon as Caroline graduated from high school, she moved to a rented apartment in Proran, she didn't get a job or applied to university, her whole time was dedicated to killing Rachel, she was thinking about this for a couple of years or even if she wasn't thinking about, it was in her subconscious. One of the homicide detectives sadly said that he really honestly believed Rachel's days were numbered.

By 1999 Caroline didn't have a conscious anymore, she didn't really have reasoning either.

How could she think she could replace someone by taking their life? There's something really sad about Psychopathic Killers, if people who are lack conscience, they will see the Victor as someone who by their own fault is in the wrong place at the wrong time and deserve what they get. if you're that naïve and fall for their trap, then you know that's your fault. This is the kind of logic that I've heard over and over.

This is why Caroline had no remorse for what she did, on March 1st 1999 she convinced Rachel to take a modeling job for a $100. Because she'd tried it in January too and Rachel's mom opposed the idea, so this time she made Rachel promise she wouldn't tell anyone about the job. So, after her dance classes, Rachel headed over to the tram station, where she met Caroline, she lured Rachel into her flat invited her to do a few yoga relaxations poses and then strangled her from behind.

Rachel had no idea why Caroline wanted to take her life she had never suspected her, just like the rest of the barber family, she saw Caroline as a quiet, maybe Odd Girl, her Obsession had been a secret up until this point. Now Caroline had done the worst thing imaginable, but she didn't have a plan on what to do next, her story would end quickly just like Rachel’s.

After Allison gave the police her sketch of Caroline, the investigators tracked Rachel's last phone calls on the day of March 1st, when two of them matched a phone number from proran they knew that was their suspect. Soon enough, they identified the phone number as Caroline Reed Robertson’s.

At that point very cruelly so, very cruelly so Michael actually believed that she was alive. And he thought for whatever reason it's happened; whatever reason Rachel was with Caroline but the important thing would be that she would be alive, that she hadn't been kidnapped, that she hadn't been raped, all the dreadful things that we could possibly ever imagine happen to our daughter we had visualized.

About a week after Rachel's death the police knocked on Caroline's door, when she didn't answer they barged in with a warrant for her arrest, they found her unconscious on the floor, and she’d had an epileptic seizure.

Rachel was nowhere to be found, so the officers rushed Caroline to the hospital. Two hours later, she was awake.

If you still didn't think Caroline was a psychopathic killer, listen to what she first told the cop who interviewed her.

Cop asked her where Rachel was. She responded to the cop that Rachel was dead, and that surprised the cop and he said “you know, you're sure she's dead”? And she said “YES, I've buried her” and he said, listen, you shouldn’t speak what you want, are you sure that she's dead? Is there no way we can help? She told the cop that she'd buried Rachel on a family Country property near where she'd buried other pets.

Caroline didn't show any emotion whatsoever: No Remorse, no guilt, or even fear that she would be going to prison. The police had more than a confession from Caroline. Her flat was filled with pictures of Rachel, and inside her diary, was a carefully designed plan to kill her and steal her identity. She even had a copy of her birth certificate.

She had been planning this for 5 years, and the officers could see it clearly for the first time. There is evidence of planning, Carolyn clearly planned this out, and this was a premeditated murder.

70 kilometers away from Melbourne, the police officers found Caroline's Countryside Family Home. Rachel's body was buried in a shallow grave in a wooded area. It was very badly decomposed. Now the Barbers could finally learn the horrible truth about their missing daughter. The cops sat in front of Barber’s family, without any hesitations the cops said about their daughter, and there's no other way of saying this Rachel's being murdered, when the officers revealed the murder, the family wasn't surprised.

The Barbers were shocked but not surprised, really in any way. Elizabeth just wondered why Rachel didn't fight back. However, they realized the deed was done, and they would never see their daughter again.

For the police this was just a twist in the case, the story was far from over. You've gone from missing person to murder. Yes, absolutely they took Caroline from the hospital to the police station and proceeded to interrogate her, but she wouldn't say anything.

Carol is very cold, for the very matter of fact but she is just very cold, there's no emotion I'm there whatsoever.

She acted like she didn't remember the details of the murder, but it was clear to the cops she was just doing this to not incriminate herself further. She thought “the less she said, the more she had a chance at getting a lighter sentence”. However, Caroline's diary and Rachel's remains were enough to convict her a first-degree murder.

On March 13th, Caroline was sentenced to 20 years in prison. In 2015, Caroline Reed Robertson was released on parole, at the age of 35. When Elizabeth saw a picture of her today, she noticed how eerily it is that Caroline looks a bit like Rachel now.

Caroline has been in a long-term relationship with a former prisoner called Annette Taylor, and it seems like she has turned her life around. But “seems” is a powerful word. And for the Barber family, Rachel's tragic story will never be forgotten. Still, they choose to stay strong and remember the good side of things: When Rachel was murdered, her life couldn't have been better, and she was at a point where she totally believed in herself, she was doing her dancing and everything was going to be right for her.

It's a perspective that helps the family heal. But they will never forget Rachel was 15 when her life was brutally taken away from her.

“Stealing someone's identity is a serious crime that can have serious consequences for the victim. It involves taking someone's personal information, such as their name, date of birth, social security number, or financial information, and using it without their knowledge or permission for fraudulent purposes. Identity theft can cause financial loss, damage to credit, and emotional distress for the victim. It is considered a sin because it involves violating someone's trust and taking something that does not belong to you. It is important to respect the privacy and personal information of others and to not engage in any activities that might constitute identity theft”