A woman convicted of decapitating her own mother during a violent argument about a takeaway order is now issuing sickening threats to fellow inmates from behind bars.
A horrific crime rooted in a family row
On the night of July 20, 2019, a domestic dispute in a quiet Sydney suburb escalated into an act of unspeakable brutality. Jessica Camilleri, then 25, argued with her 57-year-old mother, Rita, after Rita ordered chicken from Red Rooster for dinner. Camilleri complained she was still hungry and wanted a second meal.
The situation worsened when Rita, who was her daughter's full-time carer, attempted to confiscate Jessica's mobile phone. Rita had previously taken the phone away due to Camilleri's obsessive and threatening calls to a local butcher. In a subsequent statement to forensic psychiatrist Professor David Greenberg, Camilleri described dragging her mother to the kitchen by the hair before the attack began.
Inspired by horror films and lacking remorse
Camilleri admitted she "saw red" and began stabbing her mother repeatedly. She told the psychiatrist she got the idea to sever her mother's head from horror films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Jeepers Creepers, and Saw, chillingly suggesting she thought it "might relieve her pain." The attack was so frenzied that she also removed her mother's tongue and eyes.
After the killing, Camilleri herself called emergency services, stating, "I think I killed her... I just kept stabbing and stabbing and stabbing her, and I took off her head." When police arrived, she was found covered in blood and inquired if doctors could "re-sew" her mother's head back on.
Continuing terror behind bars at Silverwater
Now, over six years later, Jessica Camilleri shows no remorse for her actions. Incarcerated at the notorious Silverwater Maximum Security Correctional Complex in Australia, she continues a pattern of disturbing behaviour.
According to reports, Camilleri boasts about killing her mother to other prisoners and has threatened to behead them in the same way "if they p*** her off." She claims she is "bullied" in prison because of her crime but simultaneously uses it to terrorise others.
Her violence is not limited to threats. In May 2025, Camilleri was involved in two separate assaults on prison officers, captured on camera, where she tore hair from their scalps, leaving them traumatised.
Following a previous attack on staff in 2021, she attempted to portray herself as the victim, telling an officer she wanted to give them "a little bit of the taste of [their] own medicine."
Legal consequences and future sentencing
Initially charged with manslaughter in 2020 due to arguments about multiple mental disorders impairing her judgement, Camilleri received a sentence of 21 years and seven months. This was later reduced on appeal to 16 years and six months, with eligibility for parole in July 2031.
However, due to her subsequent violent conduct in prison, she may now face additional time behind bars. Camilleri is scheduled to appear in court on February 17 for sentencing on one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm on an inmate and two counts of assaulting prison officers from the May 2025 incidents.
The case remains a stark reminder of a crime that horrified a nation and the ongoing danger the perpetrator poses, even within the confines of a maximum-security prison.
