ON THE RUN WITH A KILLER!

After escaping juvie, Sandie spent the day with Australia's most wanted girl

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Sandie Jessamine was 14 years old when she was sent to a juvenile prison for the first time. Feeling like an outsider growing up with her adoptive family, she had run away from home in 1973 and was sleeping in an old railway yard with another girl when they found an abandoned old trunk containing several cheques. Arrested after attempting to cash them, Sandie was committed to an institution for six months and eventually found herself incarcerated at Kamballa Special Unit, a prison for girls.

In this edited extract from his book, Mark Dapin tells Sandie's story of escaping alongside teenage child killer Rhonda Hoffman.

When Sandie Jessamine was 12 years old, she woke in fright from a nightmare about Rhonda Hoffman, an angel-faced 14-year-old schoolgirl from Cromer on Sydney's Northern Beaches, who had murdered a toddler she was supposed to be babysitting.

Three years later, Sandie woke up next to Hoffman.