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http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/05/10/australia.murder.reut/index.html

CANBERRA, Australia (Reuters) -- Two Australian schoolgirls who garroted a friend as an experiment to see what it was like to kill someone were on Thursday sentenced to life in jail for a murder a judge said was "gruesome and merciless in the extreme".

The two 17-year-olds, who cannot be named, stuffed a chemical-soaked cloth into the mouth of Eliza Jane Davis, 15, and throttled her with wire after waking up on a sleepover and deciding neither would feel bad about killing someone.

"They planned the murder with calmness, consideration, emotional detachment and the desire to have the experience of killing someone," Perth Children's Court judge Denis Reynolds said while handing down the sentence.

A police prosecutor told the court the three friends stayed at a house in the West Australian coal mining town of Collie, south of Perth, after an amphetamine-fueled party in June last year.

The two teenagers, then aged 16, stayed in one room and decided to kill Davis the next day during a morning chat.

The girl who carried out the strangling told police she watched calmly as the emotions on her friend's face shifted from anger to terror as she realized they intended to kill her.

After the murder the pair buried Davis in a shallow grave under the house and reported her missing, but turned themselves in after realizing the grave would be found in a search.

"It showed gross disregard for human life and Eliza's face-to -face pleas for her own life were positively and totally ignored by each," Reynolds said.

The judge said it was impossible to tell if the pair, who sat impassive as a minimum 15 year sentence was handed down, were disturbed or had simply blocked Davis' murder from memory.

The pair told authorities they were sorry about the impact of the murder on the Davis family, but killing her "felt right" at the time.

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