Sally Retallack: Lecturer conned by student Elisa Bianco with fake cancer story brands her a 'vicious little cow'
The 49-year-old from Cornwall took the 22-year-old 'uninvited cuckoo' into her home after being fed lies about terminal kidney cancer and abusive alcoholic parents
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A woman whose life was “destroyed” when one of her students wheedled her way into her life and her home with a fake cancer story has branded her as an “evil little cow”.
College lecturer Sally Retallack, 49, was duped into taking in Elisa Bianco, 22, and catering to her every whim after being told Bianco was dying of kidney cancer.
Bianco was jailed for two years and eight months for after admitting stalking and causing serious harm or distress after she spent years sponging off Mrs Retallack by living in her home rent free and getting her to pay for an elaborate “bucket list”.
Speaking to the Sun, the mother-of-four said: “I thought she was a helpless little girl but she’s just an evil little cow.
“If I saw her now I think I’d strangle her. She’s ruined my life and the anger I feel sometimes is overwhelming.”
Mrs Retallack first met Bianco when she was a student on her health and social care course at St Austin’s College in Cornwall in 2009 when Biano was just 16.
After she became her personal tutor Bianco reeled her in with a false claim that her parents were abusive alcoholics.
Then “uninvited cuckoo” Bianco turned up on her doorstep with a black eye in 2012 after she saying she had been hit by her parents.
Mrs Retallack - who has since left her job and moved to France due to the fallout from the case - took her in but the stress of caring for the “terminally ill” Bianco led to the breakdown of her marriage.
Bianco’s story unravelled in September 2012 when she accidentally left her phone unattended and Mrs Retallack’s suspicious ex-husband Ralph used it to call her father, Leo, to ask him about the cancer who told him it was all lies.
During Bianco’s sentencing, the court heard how she created an elaborate deception where she would go to a nearby hospital in her pyjamas and sit in a cafe while she pretended to have cancer treatment.
She created a network of fake hospital consultants using five phones and two laptops and even sent flirty text message to Mrs Retallack as “Jon” - a fake male hospital consultant.
When Mrs Retallack suggested meeting “Jon” after months of texting back and forth Bianco unceremoniously killed him off with lung cancer with a text message from his "son".
She said: “I grieved massively for Jon. He was absolutely real to me. But all the time it was just this stupid little kid sitting opposite me on the sofa. I thought she was just mucking about on Facebook like all teenagers do, but in reality she was playing a sick game.
“I can’t describe how excruciatingly embarrassing it is to find out that the whole thing was invented by this twisted individual.”