offender had wrapped the child's body in them soon after he shot her. Charlise was deposited headfirst in the barrel, and she was later found head down in a foetal position. Also secreted in the barrel – similarly, to dispose of it – was a black plastic bag containing a quantity of bloodied soil and vegetation[1] which was likely dug or scraped from the ground where Charlise fell mortally wounded. When the barrel was recovered by police, Charlise was surrounded by about 99.9 kilograms of sand that the offender had purchased from a hardware store, using a gift card he had received as a Christmas present to pay for the purchase of five bags of sand.[2] The bags each contained 20 kilograms of sand; two of them, chillingly, were labelled as child-friendly play sand.[3]
33 By reference to Ex. D, the offender left Mount Wilson with Charlise in the barrel on the back of his utility and drove via Mount Tomah and Kurrajong to Marsden Park. At 5:22pm, he was at a hardware store where he purchased the five bags of sand, he would use to entomb Charlise in the barrel. At 5:49pm he went to a nearby petrol station and filled the tank of his boat with enough fuel for a voyage with a 100-kilometre range. He did something on his phone and bought some refreshments for himself.[4] On the closed-circuit surveillance footage depicting the offender as he went about these tasks, he appeared much as any motorist and shopper would. He exhibited no sign of anxiety, emotion or stress; everything about his presentation was casual.
34 Having now obtained everything he needed to dispose of the barrel, the offender drove to three places with wharves or docks. I am satisfied that his intention in so doing was to launch his boat into the sea and, taking the barrel on the boat, drop it into the ocean. The total weight of the barrel – Charlise's 33.5 kilograms, the 9 kilograms that the barrel weighed, and the almost 100 kilograms of sand – would have likely ensured that the barrel went to the bottom of the ocean, probably concealing Charlise's remains permanently and leaving her fate unknown to those who loved her.
