A woman who killed a friend she met through a church in London, decapitated her, and dumped the headless body on a public footpath 200 miles away, has been convicted of murder.
The trial at the Old Bailey in London heard Jemma Mitchell, 38, murdered Mee Kuen Chong, 67, in June 2021 after they “fell out over money” and then forged a will in which Chong—who was known as Deborah—left 95 percent of her estate, worth £700,000, to pay for repairs to the home in which Mitchell lived.
The jury heard how Charlotte Rollings and her family made the “gruesome discovery” as they took a walk near their holiday cottage in Salcombe, south Devon, on June 27, 2021.
Mitchell and Chong met through a church group and Mitchell, a trained osteopath, acted as a spiritual healer for her.
In a press release, Detective Chief Inspector Jim Eastwood said the murder was a “truly despicable crime” and he added: “The motivation for Jemma Mitchell’s actions was money and she showed a significant degree of planning and calculation as she attempted to cover up her horrific actions. The cold facts of this case are shocking.”
Mitchell, who had won a prize at university for her anatomical knowledge, lived with her mother, Hilary Collard, who used to work at the Foreign Office.
Collard had decided to construct a third floor on their home in Brondesbury Park, north west London, but the project ran into problems when a builder went bankrupt.
In June 2021 the house had no proper roof and was covered with scaffolding.
Prosecutor Deanna Heer, KC, told the jury Chong and Mitchell were both “devout Christians” and Chong had offered £200,000 ($220,000) of her own money to complete the building work on condition that the house was used for “Christian worship.”
But she changed her mind four days before she went missing.
After forging Chong’s will, Mitchell went to the victim’s home and killed her—probably by hitting her on the head with a blunt object—and then removed the body in a suitcase.
Two weeks later she rented a car and drove to Devon before dumping the headless body and the head on a hillside overlooking the English Channel.
After Chong’s lodger, David Klein, reported her missing, Mitchell sent him a text message in which she said: “Hey David. She said on Monday she was going to stay with family friends for a year to clear her head … somewhere close to the ocean, she said she felt depressed about the home visit by the mental team.”
Chong, who was born in Malaysia, suffered from schizophrenia and had been injected with anti-psychotic medication in May 2021, after she repeatedly wrote “bizarre” letters to Prince Charles and the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
