The Bali Nine prisoner tells Alan Shadrake about her new job, as the ‘jailhouse angel’ keeping troubled Schapelle Corby alive.
When a desperate Schapelle Corby climbed an eight metre water tower near her cell block in Kerobokan Jail, prison guards turned to an unlikely saviour for their most famous prisoner.
Almost two years after Renae Lawrence and Schapelle publicly attacked each other, the pair have become increasingly close —to the point where Renae has been charged with taking care of a shattered Schapelle when she tries to hurt herself.
“It’s not the first time I’ve had to go after her when she’s doing something like that,” Renae tells Woman’s Day.
“She’s tried to climb onto the roof of the cells and lodged herself inside a space in the ceiling of her cell. She thinks she can get out of the prison that way and it takes a lot of talking to bring her down.”
Renae has been secretly caring for Schapelle for almost a year at the special request of prison authorities, who have appointed her head trustee.
“I’m the only one she listens to,” says Renae. She has no doubt that Schapelle is seriously ill.
“Schapelle’s definitely become unbalanced,” she says. “I’ve seen her deteriorate week by week. She’s not the Schapelle I used to know since we were banged together in here four years ago.”
Renae says the Corby family have welcomed her support in caring for Schapelle, despite the two women’s turbulent past. At first, the pair, both 32 and both serving 20 years for drug trafficking, were bitter enemies.
Their prison disputes first became public when Schapelle attacked Renae in her book My Story, calling her a “freak” and a “psychopathic lesbian” and claiming she lived in fear of being beaten up by her fellow Aussie.
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