Life for brutal killer who left victim in bin
A TEENAGER, who murdered mother-of-two Lindsay Birbeck and dumped her body in a wheelie bin, was jailed for life yesterday.
Rocky Marciano Price, 17, was told he must serve at least 16 years.
The judge Mrs Justice Yip described the attack on the teaching assistant as “swift and brutal”.
She said: “I am sure the defendant lay in wait with the intention of killing a passing woman.
“Why he decided to kill her only he knows. If it had not been Lindsay Birbeck, it could have been someone else. This was the entirely random killing of a stranger.”
Price, from Accrington, Lancs, was found guilty of murder on Wednesday after a jury at Preston Crown Court returned a unanimous verdict.
They had heard how Mrs Birbeck, 47, had gone for a late afternoon stroll in a coppice near her home on August 12 last year.
Prompting
Price – who was then just 16 – had been on the prowl for lone females and attacked her shortly after she entered the wooded area.
He then bundled her body into a wheelie bin and pulled it to the local cemetery where he buried her in a shallow grave.
Mrs Birbeck, a keep-fit enthusiast, had invited her daughter Sarah, 17, and the teenager’s boyfriend for tea at 6pm that day. When she did not return they raised the alarm, prompting a huge search by police and members of the local community.
It was 12 days later when her remains were discovered wrapped in two plastic bags.
Price’s parents took him to a police station several days after Mrs Birbeck was found, when police released a CCTV clip of a young male pulling a blue wheelie bin behind him.
The teenager, who has learning difficulties and was named after the boxer Rocky Marciano, admitted dragging the bin from the coppice on August 17, with the victim inside, to the cemetery. But he claimed he was not involved in her death and a mystery man had approached him with the promise of a large cash reward if he disposed of the body.
In a victim impact statement Sarah said: “This wasn’t supposed to happen like this.We are going to grow up without her by our side.
“We will have to get married without her there, have children and live the rest of our lives without her love and guidance. All our lives are completely ruined and I don’t see how we will ever recover as a family.”