Rebecca Butterfield killed her only friend, stabbed a guard, and even slit her OWN throat. But now she has been quietly released from prison

EXCLUSIVE

A notorious inmate – considered Australia’s most dangerous female inmate – has been quietly released from prison despite being mentally unstable, prone to bouts of extreme violence and vowing to kill again.

Daily Mail Australia can reveal that Rebecca Jane Butterfield was transferred from Silverwater Women’s Correctional Centre, in Sydney’s west, to Long Bay Prison earlier this year before being released on May 5.

The 50-year-old was then immediately admitted to a secure forensic hospital, where she will receive ongoing treatment as an involuntary patient for a range of serious mental disorders.

Doctors at the facility are now responsible for deciding if and when the deranged killer can reenter the community.

Of all the drug dealers, murderers and conwives incarcerated in Australia, Butterfield has long been considered one of the most aggressive and unpredictable.

She murdered her fellow inmate and only friend by stabbing her 33 times with a meat cleaver during a frenzied attack on the prison in 2003 before watching her bleed to death.

Her extensive Corrective Service NSW file contains reports of more than 110 disciplinary cases, including 40 assaults, as well as slitting her own throat and banging her head against a wall 105 times until cracking her skull open.

According to court documents, the high-risk perpetrator used a variety of tactics to lure guards and prison staff to her cell during nearly a quarter of a century behind bars before attacking them.

During one violent episode she stabbed a guard in the face, while on other occasions she threw urine, boiling water and even her colostomy bag at prison staff and also attacked a nurse who was treating her.

In July 2020, she lunged at officers while wearing ankle monitors and threatened to take their guns.

Later, in November that year, she jumped a nurse who wanted to take her blood.

During an outburst, Butterfield shouted, “I’m going to kill again, I’m going to kill when I get out.”

She was initially treated for several personality disorders thought to be linked to child sexual abuse, but was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2019 after exhibiting psychotic symptoms, including hearing voices.

The justice system is struggling to deal with the volatile prisoner, who served her full sentence almost eight years ago.

In handing down his decision to release Butterfield, Judge Michael Walton noted that her “extensive criminal history” began in 1996, when the then 21-year-old was convicted of illegal drug use, malicious damage and assaulting police.

“In 1997, the defendant committed her first offense of serious personal violence, namely an unprovoked, malicious wounding of a taxi driver, whom she stabbed in the upper arm and lower chest with a knife,” he said.

Her violent antisocial behavior continued with further convictions for assault the following year, before she was found guilty on 5 November 2000 of stabbing a neighbor who had tried to stop her from committing self-harm.

‘Her neighbor had noticed the defendant bleeding from self-inflicted cuts to her wrists and attempted to render aid to her,” Judge Walton said.

‘The suspect became very angry and stabbed the neighbor five times with a kitchen knife.’

Butterfield was sentenced to six years in prison for the deliberate attack and quickly began to develop a reputation as a wild and unruly inmate, while in 2002 he was jailed for a further four months for assault occasioning bodily harm.

She had almost completed her non-parole period when she murdered her friend and fellow inmate Bluce Lim Ward on May 7, 2003, with a knife she took from the shared kitchen of their unit at Emu Plains Correctional Center.

After pleading guilty to manslaughter, she was sentenced to a further twelve years in prison and has since been largely confined to a mental health unit at Silverwater prison.

Although her full term expired on November 3, 2015, her incarceration has been extended twice with a “continuing detention order” – a last resort used sparingly for the state’s most dangerous criminals.

The first continued detention order saw her prison sentence extended by five years after the president ruled she remained an “unacceptable risk” to the public, before a second three-year extension was granted in January 2021.

With that order soon to expire, the state argued late last year that Butterfield’s detention should be extended for another 12 months before she is released into the community in 2025 under a four-year extended supervision order.

However, Judge Walton instead ordered Butterfield’s prison sentence extended by just two months before she was released on a five-year extended supervision order.

In handing down his sentence on March 1, he noted that Butterfield was currently “admitted as an involuntary correctional patient receiving mental health treatment” at a forensic hospital.

He said Butterfield would have to continue her treatment in hospital “indefinitely” and there would be no guarantee she would ever be able to walk completely free.

“It remains unclear when – or if – Butterfield will ever be discharged from the forensic hospital and fully released back into the community, but she will remain under strict extended supervision for the next five years,” he said.

In making the ruling, Judge Walton said he was assisted by the report of court-appointed psychiatrist Dr. Kerri Eagle in January, which noted that Butterfield’s incarceration had done little to helpto soften her behavior, nor prevent her from ‘committing violence’.

Judge Walton also acknowledged that she had begun to make some psychological progress since agreeing to cooperate fully with doctors.

He said it was “immediately sensible” to entrust Butterfield’s continued treatment – ​​and eventual release into the community – to mental health professionals under a strict five-year supervision order.

‘(Dr. Eagle) also considered that Rebecca remained an individual at significantly increased risk of committing violence against others in the future, and an overall high risk of committing further serious violent crimes, in the absence of an effective risk management plan,” he said.

‘She noted that re-incarceration is unlikely to reduce the suspect’s risk of violence in the medium to longer term, and may increase her risk through destabilization, disruption of effective treatment and reducing her access to psychological support. ‘