EXCLUSIVE
A notorious inmate, considered Australia’s most dangerous prisoner, has been quietly released from jail despite being mentally unstable, prone to attacks of extreme violence and having vowed to kill again.
Daily Mail Australia can reveal Rebecca Jane Butterfield was moved from Silverwater Women’s Correctional Center in western Sydney to Long Bay Prison earlier this year before being released on May 5.
The 50-year-old woman was then immediately admitted to a secure forensic hospital, where she will receive ongoing treatment for a range of serious mental health disorders as an involuntary patient.
Facility doctors are now responsible for deciding if and when the deranged killer will be allowed to re-enter the community.
Of all the drug dealers, murderers and conmen locked up in Australia, Butterfield has long been considered one of the most aggressive and unpredictable.
He killed his fellow prisoner and only friend by stabbing her 33 times with a carving knife during a frenzied prison attack in 2003 before watching her bleed to death.
His extensive NSW Correctional Service file contains reports of more than 110 disciplinary matters, including 40 assaults, as well as slitting his throat and banging his head against a wall 105 times until his skull split open.
According to court documents, the high-risk offender used a variety of tactics to lure guards and prison staff to his cell during his nearly quarter-century stint behind bars before attacking them.
Rebecca Butterfield, who stabbed her only friend and fellow prisoner to death in a frenzied prison attack, has long been considered Australia’s most dangerous prisoner.
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 officials, and also assaulted a nurse who was caring for her.
In July 2020, he lunged at officers while wearing ankle bracelets and threatening to take their weapons.
Later in November of that year, he lunged at a nurse who was trying to draw his blood.
During one outburst, Butterfield shouted, “I’m going to kill again, I’ll kill when I get out.”
He initially received treatment for several personality disorders believed to be related to childhood sexual abuse, but was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2019 after displaying psychotic symptoms, including hearing voices.
The legal system has struggled to grapple with how to handle the volatile prisoner, who actually served her full sentence nearly eight years ago.
In handing down his decision to free Butterfield, Judge Michael Walton noted that her “extensive criminal history” began in 1996, when the 21-year-old was convicted of illicit drug use, malicious damage and assaulting police.
“In 1997, the defendant committed her first crime of serious personal violence, which was maliciously and unprovoked wounding of a taxi driver, whom she stabbed with a knife in the upper arm and lower chest,” he said.
Butterfield spent most of her time behind bars locked up in a mental health wing at the notorious Silverwater Correctional Center in western Sydney.
Her violent anti-social behavior continued with further assault convictions the following year before she was convicted of stabbing a neighbor who had tried to stop her from self-harm on 5 November 2000.
‘“Her neighbor had seen the defendant bleeding from self-inflicted cuts to her wrists and attempted to provide assistance,” Judge Walton said.
“The defendant became very angry and stabbed the neighbor five times with a kitchen knife.”
Butterfield was sentenced to six years in prison for the senseless attack and soon began to develop a reputation as a wild and unruly inmate, while racking up an additional four months in prison in 2002 for assault causing bodily harm.
She had almost completed her non-parole period when she killed her friend and fellow inmate Bluce Lim Ward with a knife she had taken from the shared kitchen of their unit at the Emu Plains Correctional Center on May 7, 2003.
After pleading guilty to manslaughter, she was sentenced to an additional 12 years in prison and has since remained largely locked up in a mental health wing at Silverwater Prison.
Doctors will now decide when the convicted murderer will finally be released back into society.
Although his sentence expired on Nov. 3, 2015, his incarceration has been extended twice by a “continuing detention order,” a last-resort provision used sparingly for the state’s most dangerous criminals.
The first continuing detention order saw his imprisonment extended by five years after the presiding judge determined he remained an “unacceptable risk” to the public before a second three-year extension was granted in January 2021.
With that order soon set to expire, the state late last year argued that Butterfield’s detention should be extended another 12 months before she was released into the community in 2025 with an extended four-year supervision order.
However, Judge Walton ordered Butterfield’s jail term to be 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 be required to continue his treatment in hospital for “an indeterminate amount of time” and there would be no guarantee he would ever be fully released.
“It is not yet clear when, or if, Butterfield will be discharged from the forensic hospital and fully released back into the community, but she will remain under strict extended supervision order for the next five years,” he said.
A court-appointed psychiatrist says Butterfield’s time in prison has done little to “control or mitigate” his extreme behavior or prevent his “commitment of violence.”
In making the ruling, Judge Walton said he had been aided by the January report of court-appointed psychiatrist Dr. Kerri Eagle, which noted that Butterfield’s imprisonment had done little to ‘mitigate” their conduct or prevent their “commission of violence.
Judge Walton also acknowledged that she had begun to make some psychological progress since agreeing to cooperate fully with doctors.
He said it made “imminent good sense” to entrust Butterfield’s ongoing treatment – and eventual release into the community – to mental health professionals under a strict five-year supervision order.
‘(Dr. Águila) “I was also of the opinion that Rebecca remained a person at significantly elevated risk of engaging in future violence against others, and at an overall high risk of committing further serious violent offences, in the absence of an effective risk management plan,” he said.
“It noted that re-incarceration is unlikely to reduce the accused’s risk of violence in the medium and long term, and may increase his risk through destabilization, interruption of effective treatment and reduction of his access to psychological support.” .
