A former prostitute and Penthouse Pet has broken down in tears as she recalled how her life was turned upside down after a bomb detonated in her boyfriend’s face in an attempted murder case that remains unresolved.
Simone Cheung, now Simone Starr, said her life spiralled out of control after a homemade device was sent to the home of her then boyfriend Brett Boyd on Sydney’s North Shore in 1998 – in a case known as the Belrose Parcel Bombing.
But the private schoolgirl turned prostitute and drug smuggler, who was the target of the bombing, said her struggles started much earlier.
Just days after being released from prison, where she served seven years for drug trafficking, a distraught Starr opened up to Channel Seven’s Sunday Night about her broken life.
‘There’s not been a lot of joy – it’s a loveless existence,’ she told the program.
Simone Starr, formerly known as Simone Cheung, was released from jail last week. She broken down while looking back on her former life during a television interview
Starr’s mother was a prostitute, who worked from the home they shared, and she never knew her father.
She lived life in the fast lane during her teenage years, drinking and using drugs heavily before following in her mother’s footsteps.
‘I was a high-class escort,’ she explained, adding that ‘everything was so exciting’.
Starr later met Mr Boyd – a bodybuilder and model – and gave up sex work.
‘We hooked up and that was it – the beginning of a wild ride. He was the love of my life,’ she said.
‘He had a lot of presence. People really knew him, looked up to him. I was drawn to him too, but he was very vain and egotistical.’
Starr soon moved in to Mr Boyd’s home in the northern beaches suburb of Belrose. He told her he’d received death threats and warned her not to tell anyone he lived there.
Just a month later, the package – addressed to Starr – was found by Mr Boyd outside their home.
Mr Boyd lost a thumb and an eye in the explosion before he committed suicide in 2008.
Starr broke down in tears while discussing her former boyfriend.
‘I remember one of the last times I saw [Mr Boyd],’ she said.
‘He said: ”All I want for you is to find happiness, because I know that’s the one thing that you have been trying to find all your life. If I could pay for it and buy it I would, but you can’t buy that kind of stuff”.’
She added: ‘I haven’t been happy for a long time. Sometimes I am my own worst enemy.’
Starr has vowed to get her life back on track and wants to share her story with others in the hope they don’t make the same mistakes she has.
Roberto De Heredia (pictured) was accused of Mr Boyd’s attempted murder in 1998. He has spoken publicly for the first time after a jury found him not guilty earlier this year
Simone’s life changed forever after an explosive device detonated in her boyfriend’s face
Meanwhile, the former television presenter who was found not guilty of Mr Boyd’s attempted murder earlier this year spoke publicly for the first time about why he faked his own death and spent years on the run as an international fugitive.
Roberto De Heredia was accused of sending the explosive device to Mr Boyd’s home.
He fled the country and spent 17 years on the run before he arrested at London’s Gatwick Airport and extradited back to Australia.
He faced trial in 2017, which resulted in a hung jury before a new jury of six men and six women found him not guilty in April after a five-hour deliberation.
De Heredia said he feared for his life after he was charged with the bombing three months after it happened.
On the first day he reported to the police station as part of his bail conditions, Boyd was arrested in the car park for possessing a bullet proof vest, a Smith and Wesson pistol, and a sub machine gun.
De Heredia was then shot in the car park of a Botany apartment months later in 1999.
While Simone’s life spiralled out of control, her ex-boyfriend Brett committed suicide in 2008
The former Foxtel Television shopping network host admitted to planting blood in his blue four-wheel-drive in Rose Bay in 1999 to fake his own death – before fleeing the country with a fake passport.
‘I put it there to give myself little bit of time,’ De Heredia confessed to Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes.
‘Went to the airport, checked in and left.’
‘I had bullets in me. I’ve got evidence appearing in my apartment while I’m locked up in jail. I’m sorry, I’m not going to wait around to see what the next chapter holds because the next chapter is either death or it’s prison.’
De Heredia also revealed he considered taking his own life after being charged with the bombings but refused to share further details when probed.
He spent 17 years on the run under various aliases until he was finally arrested in 2016 at London’s Gatwick Airport after flying in from Spain to visit family.
Roberto De Heredia, a former presenter on Foxtel Shopping Network, was accused of sending an explosive device to Brett Boyd’s home. He was found not guilty by a jury earlier this year
Starr and her personal trainer bodybuilding boyfriend Boyd were believed were setting up an erotica website at the time.
De Heredia was alleged to have sent out the bomb after falling out with the couple, who reportedly owed him $80,000, a claim he denies.
During his trials, the court heard De Heredia’s DNA was found on the stamps used to send the parcel and on a post note.
But De Heredia strenuously denies touching the parcel that detonated in Mr Boyd’s face.
Boyd was severely injured after the package exploded in his face and threw him more than eight metres in the air.
He was almost blinded in the blast, losing his left eye and 80 per cent of vision in his right eye, while also losing his right thumb and suffering facial scars.
Mr Boyd’s face was so badly disfigured it wrecked his modelling career and contributed to his 2008 suicide.
Simone eventually split with Boyd and headed to the US with hopes of becoming a pop star
‘I didn’t touch it, I didn’t lick any stamps. I certainly didn’t do handwriting – just rubbish!’ De Heredia said.
However, Mr Boyd’s family remain adamant the parcel bomb designed to kill him sent by De Heredia.
‘He didn’t just want to kill Brett, he wanted to obliterate him,’ his sister Susan told 60 Minutes.
‘It was so personal, it was fuelled with such hate.
Brett Boyd was severely injured after the package threw him more than eight metres in the air
Starr has vowed to get her life back on track and wants to share her story with others in the hope they don’t make the same mistakes she has
Starr eventually broke up with Boyd and moved to Los Angeles where she continued her modelling career and had dreams of becoming a pop star under the name of Simone Farrow.
She was jailed for six-and-a-half years in 2016 after she was caught with piles of meth worth thousands of dollars in her West Hollywood apartment.
The former Penthouse Pet had mailed the drugs to Australian buyers disguised as ‘bath products’ or ‘small fountain kits’.
When she returned to Australia in 2009, Australian Federal Police were there to arrest her as she stepped off a flight from Hawaii.
During her case, two separate men put up huge sums of money for her bail, only to have her skip town and leave them holding the bag.
She was eventually arrested by police in 2012.
Simone Starr (pictured younger) has many regrets about her old life and has been left broken