Victoria Schembri spent four years in prison and befriended two of the country's worst killers who decapitated and dismembered their boyfriends. Photo / 7 News
Victoria Schembri spent four years in prison and befriended two of the country's worst killers who decapitated and dismembered their boyfriends. Photo / 7 News
By Candace Sutton
Former Penthouse Pet Victoria Schembri has revealed what life was like making prison friendships with two of Australia's worst female murderers, both of whom decapitated and dismembered their boyfriends.
Schembri caused a sensation when she was stripsearched and handed a set of prison greens after being sentenced to a maximum seven-year sentence for tax fraud.
A former stripper and ex-wife of a Rebel bikie gang member, Schembri became Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre's most glamorous inmate.
But among drug takers covered in sores, and baby killers and murderers, she found herself the target of invitations for sex in exchange for drugs. The details have been revealed in James Phelps' latest prison book Green Is The New Black, which looks at life inside the country's most notorious female correctional centres.
Silverwater, also known as Mulawa, houses maximum security women inmates including violent prisoners held in special units.
At Mulawa, Schembri was confronted by a middle-aged inmate she did not recognise, let alone suspect that the grey-haired bespectacled woman was the country's most notorious female killer.
The woman approached Schembri and introduced herself by name.
When Schembri didn't react, Katherine Knight said: "Seriously, you've never heard of me?"
Katherine Knight and her defacto John Price. Photo / AAP
Standing before Schembri was the first woman in Australian history to be sentenced to life in prison without any hope of release.
In early 2000 Knight, then an abattoir worker, stabbed her partner John Price 37 times, deeply piercing his vital organs.
Knight then decapitated Price and flayed his body, making a skin "suit" which she hung from a meat hook in the lounge room.
She then infamously boiled up his head and other body parts in a pot with vegetables, made gravy and set the table with place names for Price's children.
Knight told Schembri she liked her and believed they would be friends.
Schembri told Phelps she became "very close" to Knight.
"We had an extremely special relationship, one of the closest I've had in my life.
"According to the papers, I'm the worst woman to have walked the Earth. I'm a monster."
Schembri spent much of the four years she served in the same wing as Knight.
Knight did not remember the actual murder but was "remorseful" and Schembri had seen her cry.
Danielle Stewart killed her husband in a violent rage. Photo / News Corp Australia
"She didn't remember killing him, but wishes she hadn't done it. She has ruined her life," Schembri said.
Transferred to Dillwynia women's prison in western Sydney after three months at Silverwater, Schembri encountered another female inmate who was familiar.
"She knew that I was a Penthouse Pet ... she was a lady with a very big mouth," Schembri said.
"Next thing, everyone knew ... I used to be a cover girl and a centrefold."
She was targeted for sex, wolf whistled at and touched up in the yard.
The antique knife Danielle Stewart used to kill her husband Chaim Kimel. Photo / News Corp Australia
"[She was] one of my best friends," Schembri said. "She was so lovely and taught me a lot."
Another of Schembri's room mates at Dillwynia was Danielle Stewart, who was jailed for killing her husband with an antique knife while she was in a drunken rage.
Stewart had a history of being sexually abused, anorexia, and drug and alcohol abuse, as well as a borderline personality disorder.
Schembri found Kathy Yeo, who decapitated and dismembered her boyfriend helpful and encouraging in prison. Photo / News Corp Australia
