Woman greedily beheading her friend and throwing her body in a suitcase

What could cause a woman to kill her friend, cut off her head, put her body in a suitcase, hide it for two weeks, and then dump it in a forest 200 miles away?

For 38-year-old Jemma Mitchell, the answer was simple.

Greed.

“Mitchell is a ruthless killer. The motivation was money. Even the facts of this case are shocking,” said Chief Detective Jim Eastwood of the London Metropolitan Police in England.

This is the story of a friendship that began in the congregation of a Christian church and ended with the death of one woman and the other being sentenced to life imprisonment.

The case came to light when an unexpectedly gruesome turn was taken on a summer afternoon in a seaside town in the United Kingdom. A family of tourists came across a decapitated corpse.

Malaysian-born Mee Kuen Chong, also known as Deborah, had been missing for 16 days.

His decapitated body was found in a Salcombe forest in Devon, 200 miles from his home in northwest London.

His head was found nearby a few days later.

A year later, a murder trial at London’s Central Criminal Court, known as the Old Bailey, revealed gruesome details.

Lawyer Deanna Heer KC explained the accusation to those present in the 12th courtroom.

He got straight to the point: “Jemma Mitchell attacked the deceased and killed him, and then carried his body in a big blue suitcase to Salcombe and tried to get out of there.”

During the two-week trial that followed, Mitchell listened through the glass pane of the defendants’ police station and Chong’s family watched via a video link from Malaysia.

Heer KC told the jury that the prosecution didn’t need to prove a reason, “but in this case, the reason was clear – money.”

Mitchell has a wealthy background, attended private schools, and his mother worked in the State Department.

He owns a property in his native Australia, and the family’s home in London is in an area where properties rarely sell for under £1m.

Text messages from Chong show Mitchell believes his home is worth £4m.

However, this property needed refurbishment. Heer KC told the jury that the rooms were packed with furniture and some were impossible to get into.

There were boxes and suitcases everywhere, freezers full of food, old mattresses and building materials. The kitchen was dirty, rotting food on the stove and messy, papery surfaces,” he added.

“The bathroom had stains and was in a bad state of repair. The second floor of the property was under renovation with the walls and ceiling unfinished.”

At the trial, it was said that Chong offered Mitchell $200,000 to help him renovate his home, but withdrew the offer. He disappeared shortly after.

Both women considered themselves devoted Christians and met through the church around August 2020.

Mitchell used an online dating platform called Christian Connection, and Chong was active online and sending evangelical messages.

It is unknown what attracted one to the other, but Chong was a vulnerable woman with mental health issues; and Mitchell, an expert in osteopathy, offered health and spiritual healing advice.

Chong was known for his generosity, befriending the homeless, and opening his doors to those in need.

Everything showed that the two of them had a good relationship. Until Chong’s body is found and detectives begin to analyze the CCTV footage.

After that, everything started to become clear.

Detective Eastwood said there was “a substantial amount of evidence” pointing to Mitchell.

“Security circuit cameras tracked Mitchell’s travels to and from the area where Deborah’s address was on the day of her disappearance. There are also footage showing when Mitchell went to Devon and back,” the officer said.

“We were able to retrieve the blue wheeled suitcase that we believe was used to transport Deborah’s body from Chaplin Road to her address in Brondesbury Park and from there to Devon.”

Mitchell also reactivated a deceased neighbor’s phone number and took it with him.

“We were able to prove that his deceased neighbor left his cell phone at home while he was using it on his way to and from Devon,” Eastwood said.

When officers searched for Mitchell’s address, they found the motive for the crime.

“We have found wills that we can prove were fraudulently created and signed in an attempt to establish a substantial claim on Deborah’s estate,” Eastwood said.

They were with the personal and financial documents Mitchell had retrieved from Deborah’s address on June 11.

The prosecution told the jury that Mitchell “intended to use them for his own personal gain.”

Eastwood described the cold-blooded planning of the crime as “terrible”.

Much of the focus of the trial was on the blue suitcase that Mitchell was seen dragging through the streets of the capital.

The prosecution said he took the suitcase to Chong’s house with the intention of killing him and placing his body inside.

The jury said the suitcase was “much heavier and more difficult to maneuver” when Mitchell left Chong.

Two weeks later, after using a pseudonym and re-enabling the dead neighbor’s phone number, he rented a car, packed his suitcase, and drove to Devon.

The prosecution said this trip was made to dispose of Chong’s body.

“When you think about Mitchell’s calculated planning of this murder, from re-enabling a neighbor who died before the murder so he could use his cell phone to transport the victim’s remains to Devon, to driving the wheeled suitcase to Deborah’s house, knowing Deborah would use it. Eastwood killed the body. “It was a really bad move,” he said.

Between Chong’s death and his trip to Salcombe, Mitchell further cleared his mind by going on a date with someone he met online at the London Zoo.

But calculation and planning have brought Mitchell up to date. Even he couldn’t foresee a broken wheel or a flat tire.

The roadside mechanic sent to replace the car’s wheel noticed that Mitchell was acting strangely. He also noticed a “strange smell” coming from the vehicle and found it odd that Mitchell insisted on putting the broken wheel in the back seat instead of the trunk.

Mitchell refused to testify during the trial. He has remained silent about what happened since he was arrested on July 6, 2021.

The court was told that Mitchell is a graduate of King’s College London in the United Kingdom, with a Bachelor of Arts in the Humanities, which includes a course in experimental anatomy.

He had knowledge of dismembering a corpse. He was capable of removing his head, but it is unclear why he did this.

He also worked as an osteopath in Australia for seven years before returning to England in 2015, where he lives with his mother and sister, with whom he has a troubled relationship.

Mitchell is the only person who knows exactly what happened in Chong’s house on Chaplin Road on that terrible day in June 2021.

“We can only speculate about what Mitchell is doing and what his bigger plan is,” Eastwood says.

“It’s almost certain that Mitchell cut Deborah’s head during this period.”

“When the body was found, the state of decomposition was so advanced that Mitchell may have begun to fear that Deborah’s body would be discovered – whether this forced him to move the body and why he chose Salcombe, Devon, we’ll never know.”

“However, what is clear is that Mitchell – seeing that his chances of getting the money he longed for was gone – decided to attack and kill a defenseless lady for his own gain in a truly despicable crime.”

Mitchell was sentenced to at least 34 years in prison on Friday, October 28, for the murder of Chong, which he denied.

– This text was published at https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/geral-63410508.