The cold-hearted woman who killed, decapitated and dumped her friend

What would make a woman kill her friend, decapitate her, put her into a suitcase, keep her body for two weeks and then dump her in woodland 200 miles away?

For Jemma Mitchell, the answer was simple.

Greed.

"Mitchell is a ruthless killer. The motivation was money. The cold facts of this case are shocking", said Det Ch Insp Jim Eastwood from London's Metropolitan Police.

This is the story of a friendship that began within the congregation of the Christian church and ended with one woman dead and the other facing a life behind bars.

It imploded when a summer afternoon in a seaside town took an unexpectedly gruesome turn. A family of holidaymakers stumbled across a headless body.

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

Now found, the 67-year-old's decapitated body lay in woodland in Salcombe, Devon, 200 miles from her home in north-west London.

Her head was discovered a few days later nearby.

A year later, a murder trial at the Old Bailey revealed grisly details few could ever forget.

Deanna Heer KC outlined the prosecution case to courtroom 12.

It was basic and bald: "Jemma Mitchell assaulted and killed the deceased and then transported her body to Salcombe in the large blue suitcase where she attempted to dispose of it."

Over the two-week hearing, Mitchell listened from the glass dock and Ms Chong's family watched on a video link from Malaysia.

Ms Heer KC told the jury the prosecution was not required to prove a motive, "but in this case, the motive is clear - money".

Mitchell is from an affluent background, privately educated and with a mother who used to work in the Foreign Office.

She owns property in Australia, where she was born, and the family house in London is in an area where homes rarely sell for less than £1m.

Text messages from Ms Chong showed she believed Mitchell's house to be worth £4m.

This house, however, was in need of renovation. The rooms were crammed with stuff and some of them were impossible to enter, Ms Heer KC told the jury.

"There were boxes and suitcases, freezers full of food, old mattresses and building materials everywhere. The kitchen was dirty, with rotting food on the stove and messy, with paperwork covering the surfaces," Ms Heer KC said.

"The bathroom was stained and in a poor state of repair. The place looked like a hoarder's residence. The second floor of the property was under renovation with the walls and ceilings incomplete."

The court heard Ms Chong had offered Mitchell £200,000 to help repair her house, but backed out of the offer. Shortly afterwards, she disappeared.

Both women considered themselves committed Christians, meeting through the church in or around August 2020.

Mitchell used an online dating site called Christian Connection, and Ms Chong was active online, posting evangelical messages.

It is not known what drew the women to each other, but Ms Chong was a vulnerable woman with mental health issues and Mitchell, who had a degree in osteopathy, offered her health advice and spiritual healing.

Ms Chong was known for her generous nature, befriending the homeless and opening her door to those in need.

To all appearances, the two seemed on good terms. But then Ms Chong's body was found and detectives started looking at CCTV footage.

After that, everything began to unravel.

Det Ch Insp Eastwood said there was "a significant amount of evidence" that pointed to Mitchell.

"CCTV tracked Mitchell to and from the area of Deborah's address on the day she went missing. There was also key CCTV footage capturing Mitchell as she travelled to Devon and back.

"We were able to recover the blue, wheeled suitcase which we maintain she used to transport Deborah's body from Chaplin Road to her own address in Brondesbury Park, and then from there to Devon."

Mitchell also reactivated the phone number of a neighbour who had died and took it with her.

"We were able to prove that she left her own mobile phone handset at home while she made use of her deceased neighbour's handset on the way to and from Devon," Det Ch Insp Eastwood said.

And then officers searching Mitchell's address found the reason for the grim deceit and the ultimate betrayal of a friendship.

Det Ch Insp Eastwood said: "We found wills, which we were able to prove had been fraudulently created and signed with a view to making a significant claim on Deborah's estate.

"These were alongside personal and financial documents, which had been taken by Mitchell from Deborah's address on the 11 June."

The prosecution told the jury Mitchell "was fully intending to use them for her own personal gain".

Det Ch Insp Eastwood described the cool-headed planning as "horrific".

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

The prosecution said she had taken the case to Ms Chong's house with the intention of killing her and putting her body inside.

Jurors heard that when Mitchell left Ms Chong's house the case appeared a "lot heavier and more difficult to manoeuvre".

Two weeks later, using a false name and having reactivated the deceased neighbour's phone number, she hired a car, loaded the suitcase into it, and drove to Devon.

This journey, the prosecution said, was made to dispose of Ms Chong's body.

Det Ch Insp Eastwood said: "When you take into account the calculated way in which Mitchell planned this murder, from re-connecting a deceased neighbour's mobile phone prior to the murder so that she could make use of it whilst transporting the victim's remains down to Devon, to taking the wheeled suitcase to Deborah's house in the knowledge that she would be using it to take the body away from the address after she had killed her.

"It was a truly evil act."

Between the death of Ms Chong and the trip to Salcombe, Mitchell displayed further clear-headedness by going on a date to London Zoo with someone who she had met online.

Calculation and planning only got Mitchell so far though. Even she could not plan around a damaged wheel or a burst tyre.

The roadside mechanic sent to change the wheel noticed Mitchell was acting strangely. He also noticed an "odd smell" from the vehicle, and found it strange that Mitchell insisted on having the defunct wheel stowed on the back seat rather than the boot.

Mitchell declined to give evidence during her trial. Since her arrest on 6 July 2021, she has remained close-lipped about the whole time period.

The Old Bailey heard how Mitchell graduated from King's College London with a degree in human sciences, which included a course of experimental anatomy.

She had the skills to dismember a body. She had the skills to remove the head, although it's unclear why she did.

She also worked as an osteopath in Australia for seven years before returning to the UK in 2015, where she lived with her mother and her sister, with whom she had a turbulent relationship.

Mitchell is the only person who knows exactly what happened at in Chaplin Road, at Ms Chong's home, on that terrible day in June 2021.

Det Ch Insp Eastwood said: "We can only speculate as to what Mitchell did and what her wider plan was.

"It is almost a certainty that Mitchell decapitated Deborah during this time.

"The decomposition when the body was found was at such an advanced state that Mitchell may have begun to fear Deborah's body would be discovered - whether this forced her into moving the body and why she chose Salcombe in Devon, we may never know.

"However, what is clear is that Mitchell - seeing her chance to obtain the funds she so desperately desired disappear - decided to attack and murder a vulnerable lady for her own gain in a truly despicable crime."

Mitchell has been found guilty of murder, which she denied, and will be sentenced on Friday 28 October.

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