Fake cancer student Elisa Bianco has been jailed for lying to her lecturer about having terminal cancer. Picture: Facebook

Elisa, 22, propped herself up in Sally Retallack’s bed, claiming she was preparing to die of the disease she had lied about for 15 months.

Sally, a 49-year-old lecturer now living abroad after her life was destroyed by the warped fantasist, laid on the party at her home.

Elisa, of the UK, has been jailed for lying about having terminal cancer and ruining Sally’s life — costing the victim her marriage, home and job.

Elisa’s half-sister Katie, 28, who was also cruelly deceived, last night told how she brought her HobNob biscuits because she was craving them after deciding to give up her fictitious treatment.

“There were fresh flowers everywhere, Sally’s home was idyllic. Sally and her family made us feel so welcome,” Katie said of the sick bash in August 2013.

“Now looking back I can see why Elisa targeted Sally because they were such lovely people.

“It was like living in a dream — it almost didn’t feel real. I wish I’d gone with my gut now.

“That evening she told everyone she felt tired, so we went up and gave her presents.

“I mean, what do you get someone who’s dying?

“I ended up getting her HobNobs that she said she had been craving after the chemotherapy.

“It was just horrible. Me and Sally would just turn to each other and burst into tears.”

Lecturer Sally first met Elisa at college in 2009, and was fed lies about her mum and stepdad being abusive alcoholics.

After finishing college in 2012, she turned up at Sally’s house and later pretended to have terminal cancer.

Sally then helped to care for her — leading to divorce from husband Ralph, 51.

Elisa also posed as a widower who tried to woo Sally online — before killing him off when she wanted to meet him.

Jailing Elisa for two years and eight months last week, Judge Christopher Harvey Clark QC said: “It is a very strange and disturbing case.

“You were like an uninvited cuckoo fledgling in the nest of a willow warbler — an unexpected offspring demanding to receive constant attention.”

Lecturer Sally Rettallack, whose student Elisa Bianco was jailed for lying about having terminal cancer and ruining her life. Picture: FacebookSource:Facebook

Katie told how she also began to fall under her half-sister’s spell on Boxing Day in 2012.

The pair, who have different mums, saw each other only occasionally growing up.

But Katie recalled: “I find it hard to put into words — it was like I’d met my twin.

“She was interested in everything that I was — she was a completely different woman.

“But she had a bandage on her arm, and she said she had a condition eroding her arteries.

“At the same time I found out I was pregnant, and we talked like proper sisters.”

The next summer, Elisa told Katie she had deteriorated. She asked her to take her kids out of school so they could go to Marwell Zoo near Winchester, Hampshire.

“It was like I was staring into headlights. I had to do it. Sally was also there,” Katie said.

“Sally paid for everything. Elisa turned up with half her head shaved. It didn’t look like chemotherapy.

“But Sally pulled me to one side and said, ‘We don’t think she’s going to make her birthday’.”

Heavily pregnant Katie and her young family then went to the party at Sally’s home in Portscatho, Cornwall.

“I was devastated that my sister I had just bonded with, who I really clicked with, was dying,” Katie said.

She was also told to keep it from their dad Leo, 52 — a deceit which has since led to their relationship breaking down.

“That night she said she didn’t want her mum or dad to know about her death,” Katie said.

“She said she didn’t want him at the funeral. I didn’t question why. It was her dying wish. But not telling him has ruined my relationship with him, and we’ve cut ties because of her.”

Days after her farewell party, Elisa told Katie she had a new-found will to fight her “disease”.

“She told me about a drug she’d found and it was going to cure her. But soon after, we found out it was all fake,” Katie said.

Elisa’s lies began to unravel after Ralph rang Leo to offer his condolences — only to be told he knew nothing about it.

A judge said Elisa Bianco spun a web of lies to manipulate Sally Rettallack ‘like a cuckoo in the nest’. Picture: FacebookSource:Facebook

Sally then confronted Elisa in a hospital cafe after specialists told her there was no record of her.

“Sally called me and said, ‘Eli is … She …’ And I just thought, ‘My sister is dead’,” Katie said.

“But Sally said, ‘She’s a liar, she’s a liar’. I phoned Elisa and she said, ‘Yeah I was lying’. She was completely normal, like it was nothing.”

Mother-of-three Katie has spent months trying to understand Elisa’s motives.

But she said: “I can only think it was for attention seeking, but that doesn’t fit with how she was as a child.

“When we look back, there are lots of things that don’t match up, but we never queried it.

“Thank God she’s been jailed. But she’s so manipulative, she’s a danger to everyone. It worries me that when she comes out she’ll have already plotted her next life.”

A detective last night said Elisa, who was jailed at Truro crown court for stalking, causing serious alarm or distress to Sally, probably did it to get “a buzz”.

Det Con Dave Fortey said: “I’ve been a detective for nigh on 20 years and I’ve never dealt with anything like this. If you read this in a Hollywood script you’d think it was totally ridiculous.

“We’re quite content it wasn’t to gain money from the victim.

“It was a relatively complex mixture of gaining a bit of a better lifestyle. However her true lifestyle seemed to be perfectly fine.

“Possibly it was more getting a buzz from the manipulation she engineered and seeing the reaction. Her family were unaware of what she was doing. They in some respects have been victims as much as Mrs Retallack.”

Lecturer Sally Rettallack left the UK after being manipulated by Elisa Bianco. Picture: FacebookSource:Facebook

Elisa told Sally her mum Jayne was an alcoholic who had once given her a black eye.

But her dad Leo, who has remarried and now lives in Southampton, said: “She said that her mother and stepfather were alcoholics, they are definitely not.

“I suspect she dreamt it up, just like she dreamt everything else up. I don’t know why she started telling all the lies.”

But he believes she did not deserve to go to jail.

He added: “I was stunned. The defence team told us she wouldn’t. She deserved to be punished but not go to jail. She’s not malicious in anyway, she’s not hurtful. She’s quite a sweet girl to be honest.”

Sally told the court her life had been shattered by her ordeal. Speaking at her new home last night in Quillan, in southwest France, she said: “It was horrible what I went through and I just want to get on with my life.”