Rape fiend guilty of ‘Lady in the Lake’ murder
Shani’s killer nailed 35 years on
ONE of Britain’s most dangerous rapists has been found guilty of murdering “Lady in the Lake” Shani Warren 35 years ago.
Donald Robertson, 66, strangled and drowned 26-year-old Shani, whose body was found gagged and bound in Taplow Lake, Buckinghamshire, in 1987.
He was branded a coward by detectives and Shani’s brother Stephen yesterday for refusing to attend his trial.
Shani vanished after setting off in her car to dispose of grass cuttings after mowing her lawn in Stoke Poges, Bucks.
She is thought to have been kidnapped and forced to drive to the lake where the killer gagged her with a cloth, tied her hands behind her back with jump leads and bound her legs with a tow rope.
She was strangled and left in the lake to drown, yet the pathologist treated it as suicide and failed to take a mouth swab to check for her attacker’s DNA.
The murder remained unsolved until the gag was re-examined in 2020 and 2021, revealing Robertson’s DNA.
Robertson was first convicted of a sex offence aged 22 in 1977 when he tried to rape a 15-year-old girl. In 1981 he was jailed for the rape of a 14-yearold and he is serving life for the kidnap and rape of a 17-year-old in Slough, Berks, three months after Shani’s murder. He was convicted of the attack on the 17-year-old in 2010.
He also has a conviction for burglary and
kidnap with intent to rape in 1990. Robertson, of Slough, was found guilty yesterday of Shani’s false imprisonment, indecent assault and murder, and of the kidnap and rape of a 16-year-old in 1981.
He is due to be sentenced at Reading crown court tomorrow. Shani’s brother said: “No punishment is enough for her attacker, a psychopath and a coward.”
The former 16-year-old rape victim, who cannot be named, called Robertson “the monster that put my life in turmoil”.
Pete Beirne, head of the Major Crime Review Team at Thames Valley Police, said: “For his entire adult life he has been a danger to women and girls. I’m pleased that as a result of this conviction that threat has been completely neutralised.
“The fact he declined to attend court means to my mind he’s a coward.”
m.young@mirror.co.uk