Brave mum Jenny Bird's plea to evil killer: Tell me where Prue is

MORE REPORTS: JENNY Bird shook violently as she looked her little girl's killer squarely in the eye and pleaded: "I need to bury my baby."

Jenny Bird

JENNY Bird shook violently as she looked her little girl's killer squarely in the eye and pleaded: "I need to bury my baby."

Twenty-one years into a living nightmare that began when Prue, 13, vanished off the face of the Earth, Mrs Bird got her first chance to confront the man responsible.

Standing in the Supreme Court witness box, Mrs Bird told Justice Elizabeth Curtain: "I'd like to address Les."

Turning to triple murderer Leslie Camilleri, she made a direct plea: "Les, please just give my little girl back to me ... I need to bury my baby."

The bald killer - himself a father - sat back in the dock, his windcheater collar pulled high, and stared back, remaining mute.

The demon inside Leslie Camilleri

"To even think of the fear Prue must have suffered - it breaks my heart," Mrs Bird said.

"I pray every night that you will give my girl to me so I can bury her. It won't fix my broken heart but at least I could say goodbye."

Camilleri has admitted killing Prue, who disappeared from her Glenroy home on February 2, 1992.

Leslie Camilleri in court appearance

Camilleri says he suffocated Prue after snatching her off a Glenroy street while he was looking for a man he claimed had molested him years earlier.

Prue's body has never been found.

Camilleri, 43, was charged with Prue's murder in February last year.

He pleaded guilty, but disputes aspects of the prosecution case that he and another man kidnapped her and held her captive before he killed her.

Bega tragedy and the hunt for Prue

He claims the killing was an opportunistic crime, and that he acted alone.

Camilleri is serving a life sentence for the depraved 1997 murder of Bega schoolgirls Lauren Barry and Nichole Collins.

They were abducted and raped several times before an accomplice, Lindsay Beckett, stabbed them to death on Camilleri's orders.

Prue Bird

Only weeks earlier, the pair had abducted, raped and tortured another woman, who managed to escape their clutches.

Mrs Bird told Camilleri that she felt hopelessly empty and overwhelmed.

"This crime has taken me to the darkest place," she told him.

"I feel I've lost everything," she said.

Read Jenny Bird's victim impact statement in full

The court heard that Camilleri, a former Kings Cross street kid and a heavy amphetamine user, was a father of four who had converted to Islam while in jail.

Those last two facts were not lost on Justice Curtain, who, for the third time urged Camilleri to reveal the location of Prue's remains for the sake of her anguished family.

She told the hulking killer if he was now "a man of faith" - as his counsel, John Kelly, had said - he should search his heart and conscience and reveal the location.

Leslie Camilleri, arrested over Bega schoolgirl murders

The judge reminded Camilleri that he, too, had children, and asked him how he would feel were he in Mrs Bird's position.

Crown prosecutor Michele Williams, SC, told Justice Curtain that the stealing away of Prue and her murder was a shocking crime.

"It's the sort of crime that does shock the conscience," Ms Williams said.

She submitted that a minimum non-parole term should not be set for Camilleri, a remorseless killer already serving life without chance of release.

Ms Williams said it was a police theory that Prue had been killed as payback for statements made against those responsible for the bombing of the Russell St police complex in 1986.

But it was decided that that allegation could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

Prue's grandmother, Julie, and and her partner, Paul Hetzel, gave statements to police about the fatal bombing, an earlier court hearing was told.

The Supreme Court heard that Jenny Bird still believed her daughter was killed because of those statements made against the bombers.

Ms Williams told the court: "Mrs Bird is entitled to have her view."

In her victim impact statement, which Justice Curtain described as heartfelt, pitiful and sad, Mrs Bird made mention of her theory.

"We were tarred with Russell St," she wrote.

"I can't bear the pain. It's too much ... The constant pain in my chest is my broken heart."

Justice Curtain will sentence Camilleri on a date to be fixed.