A student who deceived her lecturer and family by telling them she had terminal cancer was pictured lying on her ‘deathbed’ surrounded by upset friends and family at a ‘farewell’ birthday party.
Elisa Bianco, 22, was pictured propped up in her bed sitting next to her caring lecturer who looked after her.
Speaking to The Sun, Elisa’s half-sister Katie, 28, she said how a ‘farewell’ party was hosted at the home of her tutor Sally Retallack, 49.
She said the ‘idyllic’ home was full of fresh flowers and how she spent her ‘final moment’s eating HobNobs, while her family and friends cried in front of her.
Katie added: “Me and Sally would just turn to each other and burst into tears.”
Elisa, from Cornwall, was jailed for 32 months after pleading guilty to stalking, causing serious alarm or distress.
The twisted student pretended she had cancer and had been abused by her parents to move in with her caring teacher, Sally, then used horrible mind games to cause problems between Sally and her husband.
Elisa then broke up her lecturer’s marriage and even sparked a fake love interest with her online, by posing as a man.
She would be dropped off every day at the hospital, would sit in a cafe in her pyjamas and even dress herself in fake bandages.
After Sally’s marriage broke down, Elisa then set Sally up with a ‘recently widowed’ consultant physician called ‘John’ – who was actually her using a ‘husky’ voice and fake email address.
They became close after exchanging emails, but Elisa invented another cancer diagnosis for her internet lover and killed him off before the mother-of-four could meet him.
With the lecturer’s life left in pieces, she has now moved to France to rebuild her life, the court heard.
Speaking about this case, Judge Christopher Harvey Clark QC describe it as ‘ a strange but very disturbing case’ and compared Elisa to a ‘uninvited cuckoo fledgling in the nest of a willow warbler’.
Delivering his verdict – at Truro Crown Court – he said to Elisa: “You heartlessly manipulated Mrs Retallack’s deepest emotions. No sentence will compensate her.”
Elisa met Sally when she enrolled on a college course taught by the health and social care tutor in 2009. Then a 16-year-old, she aced her first year but after Sally became her personal tutor that’s when she seemed ‘socially isolated’, the court heard.
Speaking after Elisa’s arrest, Sally spoke of her ‘darkest deception’.
She said:
I was an outgoing, positive, career minded individual who loved her job and developed a real pride and satisfaction nurturing the young people who would be in my care. I had a close, loving home life. My entire family had empathy for Elisa’s personal situation and welcomed her into our home. Now I have no career, no job, no husband, little self confidence and have recently started to try and rebuild my life by moving to France.
These acts of deceptions are absolutely horrifying and we can only hope Sally does manage to rebuild her life abroad.
