A 17-year-old boy who murdered a teaching assistant and then dumped her body in a wheelie bin must serve a minimum of 16 years in custody. Rocky Marciano Price attacked Lindsay Birbeck, 47, in woods close to her home in Accrington, Lancashire, before he later moved her body in the bin to a cemetery where she was buried in a shallow grave. Birbeck, who had two children, was discovered wrapped in two plastic bags on 24 August last year – 12 days after she went missing, which prompted a huge search by police and members of the community. Price received a life sentence after he was found guilty at Preston crown court on Wednesday of her murder, exactly a year on from when she disappeared. Birbeck left her home in Accrington for a late afternoon walk to a nearby wooded area known as the Coppice. The keep-fit enthusiast had invited her daughter, Sarah, 17, and Sarah’s boyfriend for tea but when she did not return as planned her family raised the alarm. Price, who was 16 at the time, had gone to the woods to look for lone women and is thought to have killed Birbeck shortly after she entered the coppice. His parents took him to a police station several days after Birbeck was found, when police released a CCTV clip of a young male pulling a blue wheelie bin behind him. Price, who has autism and learning difficulties, admitted dragging the bin from the coppice on 17 August, with Birbeck inside, to the cemetery. But he claimed he was not involved in her death and that a mystery man had approached him in the area with the promise of a large cash reward if he disposed of the body.