Melbourne’s worst female criminals housed at Dame Phyllis Frost Centre

A mum who organised her husband’s birthday party as part of an evil plot to kill him is one of many women doing time in Melbourne. Warning: Distressing content

Robyn Lindholm will be 71 before she has a chance to walk free again.

A mother who killed her own sons, a Black Widow and a date-night strangler — these are some of the women living behind the imposing walls of Victoria’s biggest women’s prison.

Here’s a look at some of the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre’s most notorious inmates.

Vicky Soteriou was jailed for orchestrating a brutal attack on her husband.

VICKY SOTERIOU

The mother of three is nearing the end of her long sentence for arranging the street ambush of her husband, Chris, by her secret lover.

In January 2010, Vicky Soteriou organised a birthday party for Chris at a Fitzroy restaurant.

Playing the role of the loving wife, she penned a card to “My darling husband, Chris” and presented it to him at dinner.

But Soteriou had her lover Ari Dimitrakis lying in wait to launch a brutal attack on the man she had promised to love “until death do us part” as they walked back to their car after dinner.

During the frenzied onslaught, Dimitrakis slashed Mr Soteriou’s throat and stabbed him up to six times.

A birthday card Soteriou gave to husband Chris on the night of his attempted murder.

Mr Soteriou suffered life-threatening injuries but survived the attack.

Soteriou would later unsuccessfully try to claim Dimitrakis had acted alone.

During Soteriou’s trial, details of her sordid affair with Dimitrakis revealed the pair had got several tattoos of each other’s names and initials and had even bought grave plots together.

Soteriou was sentenced to 12 years in prison with a non-parole period of nine.

Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Curtain said Soteriou had shown a “complete lack of regret” over her vicious plan.

“You did not wield the knife but you intended your husband’s death just as surely as if you had,” she said.

Robyn Lindholm and Wayne Amey.

Robyn Lindholm with former fiance George Teazis.

ROBYN LINDHOLM

Dubbed the “Black Widow”, Lindholm will be 71 years old before she will have a shot at freedom.

The ex-stripper is serving a minimum of 30 years in jail for the murders of two men she was meant to love.

The femme fatale and former lover of slain gangland figure Alphonse Gangitano was already serving a minimum of 21 years for killing her partner Wayne Amey in 2013 when she had nine years added to her non-parole period after being found guilty of the cold case murder of her former fiance Gorge Teazis in 2005.

The court heard Lindholm had ordered the contract killing of Mr Teazis and ensured she had an alibi on the night.

The ruthless seductress then made out he had disappeared before moving in with her lover, Wayne Amey.

In a cruel twist of fate, in 2013, she would do the same to get rid of Mr Amey.

The exotic dancer, who had a stage name of “Colette”, arranged for her then lover, Torsten “Toots” Trabert, and John Ryan to kill Mr Amey, 54, over a bitter dispute involving their Bittern farm.

Lindholm had admitted killing Mr Amey, 54, but remained adamant she had nothing to do with the disappearance of Mr Teazis.

His body has never been found.

Donna Fitchett is serving time for the chilling murder of her sons two young sons.

DONNA FITCHETT

Donna Fitchett wanted out of her marriage but couldn’t face leaving her two sons — so she hatched an evil plan to kill them in what she claimed was her “greatest act of love”.

The qualified nurse gave Thomas, 11, and Matthew, 9, a cocktail of drugs before strangling one and smothering the other at their Balwyn North home on September 6, 2005.

After killing the boys, she left a note for her husband David: “I am so sorry for your pain upon the discovery of what I have done. I can’t abandon the boys. I pray I don’t live through this”.

Matthew, 9, and Thomas Fitchett, 11, were murdered by their mother.

Fitchett admitted the killings but pleaded not guilty to murder on the grounds of mental impairment.

But Justice Elizabeth Curtain rejected that argument, detailing a letter Fitchett had written to her psychologist on the morning of the heinous crimes which described the grisly kill plot.

In the letter, Fitchett wrote: “(The boys) think we are going on an exciting trip today but I’ve told them they need to take some medicine so they won’t get airsick”.

“I’m not a coward, nor am I crazy. I see this as my greatest act of love.”

Justice Curtain said the murders were premeditated.

“You knew what you were doing, you contemplated it, planned it and wrote about it before you did it,” she said.

“In an act of unfathomable selfishness, you came to the view that, in your words, ‘you couldn’t and wouldn’t ever abandon them’.

“No sentence this court gives can restore life to (those boys), or peace to their father.”

Fitchett was jailed for 27 years with a minimum of 18 for the “chilling, callous murders”.

She will be eligible for parole in 2023.

Vasiliki 'Vicki' Efandis was found guilty of murdering her partner George Marcetta. Picture: Gregory Darryl

VICKY EFANDIS

Greedy Vasiliki “Vicky” Efandis stole a lonely man’s heart. Then she cooked him his favourite meal, laced it with drugs, set his house on fire and left him to die.

Efandis, a disability pensioner and house cleaner, wormed her way into George Marcetta’s life in 2002.

Mr Marcetta, a 56-year-old divorced father who ran a very successful painting business, was smitten and the pair struck up a relationship.

It wasn’t long before the dominating, manipulative and scheming Efandis, then 44, took control of Mr Marcetta’s business and financial affairs.

In September of 2004, Mr Marcetta’s charred body was found in the burnt-out bedroom of his Bellfield home.

Toxicology tests revealed he had been drugged.

During a Supreme Court trial, the jury head Efandis cooked Mr Marcetta his favourite dish — pork rolls and noodles — and laced it with a large dose of the sedative Serapax.

George Marcetta was drugged and left to die in his burning Bellfield home.

After Mr Marcetta retired to his bed, Efandis splashed up to 28 litres of kerosene around the home and lit small newspaper fires in nearly every room.

During the course of their relationship, Efandis had taken control of a large number of Mr Marcetta’s assets and stood to gain financially from his death.

Mr Marcetta had sold his Dandenong home and entered into a joint contract to purchase the Bellfield property, which was registered in Efandis’ name.

She had also gained a 50 per cent share of his business and convinced him to register a Jaguar car in her daughter’s name.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Kaye described the crime as “chilling”, saying that while Mr Marcetta was very fond of Efandis, she had “no sentimental attachment to him at all”.

“You insinuated your way into his life, gained his trust and then abused it in the most appalling way. You resorted to lacing his favourite meal with the sleeping tablets, in order to prepare him for his death,” Justice Kaye said.

In 2008, Efandis was sentenced to 24 years’ jail with a 20-year non-parole period.

Jamie Lee Dolheguy was found guilty of manslaughter. Picture: Julian Smith

JAMIE LEE DOLHEGUY

Disturbed Melbourne teenager Jamie Lee Dolheguy strangled a man she met on a dating app with the cord of a sex toy.

The now 21-year-old was found guilty of manslaughter after she choked and strangled international student Maulin Rathod after luring him to her Sunbury home in July 2018.

The pair met on dating app Plenty of Fish, and after briefly exchanging messages, Dolheguy convinced Mr Rathod to come to her house for sex.

Before he arrived she went online and searched “I’m going to kill someone tonight for fun”, “I’m going to kill someone tonight help” and “I want to commit murder”.

She also visited a website called “ten steps to commit a murder and get away with it”.

When Mr Rathod arrived he agreed to “choke play” and the then 18-year-old woman wrapped her arm around his neck from behind and applied pressure.

Despite his “tapping” signal to stop, she kept him in hold.

The killer then wrapped the cable of a sex toy around her victim’s neck and tightened it before she called police for help.

Mr Rathod died in hospital the day after the horrific act.

Indian-born student Maulin Rathod.

In 2019, a jury cleared Dolheguy of murder, finding her guilty of manslaughter instead.

During the trial there was no dispute about whether Dolheguy killed Mr Rathod but whether she intended to do it.

The court heard details of the extreme abuse and neglect Dolheguy suffered at a young age which had left her with a severe personality disorder.

She has been described by leading psychiatric and psychological experts as among the most troubled people they’d ever worked with.

She was removed from her home at age 10 because of the horrific conditions and had two carers around the clock from the age of 14.

The 24-hour care was withdrawn when she turned 18, leaving Dolheguy on her own despite her insistence that she shouldn’t be left alone.

On the night she arranged to meet Mr Rathod she’d forgotten her medication and warned her on-call carers she was having bad temptations.

“I knew I was going to kill him if he came over,” she later told police.

When he arrived, she warned him “I’m psychopathic” and hoped he would run away — but he didn’t.

On October 22 this year, Dolheguy was jailed for nine years but could be out on parole in a little over three years with time served.