Chilling text message of ‘healer’ who beheaded friend to get £200,000 revealed – sent just moments after horrific murder
AN OSTEOPATH who murdered her friend texted a pal to say she’d “had a good day” just hours after killing and beheading her victim.
Churchgoer Jemma Mitchell calmly replied to a Whatsapp message about her day - moments after bludgeoning Mee Kuen Chong to death.
She had wheeled elderly Chong’s body two hours across London in a suitcase after killing her to try and fake her will to claim her inheritance.
Mitchell was on Thursday and was later sentenced to 34 years in prison after a trial at the Old Bailey.
A friend - who had met Jemma Mitchell, 38, through the dating website Christian Connection --told The Sun that he had never thought she was capable of such a horrendous crime.
She had claimed to be a devoted Christian, would talk about serving God, and met her victim at the church they both attended every Sunday.
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Pictures from her now deleted dating profile show her smiling with friends and playing the drums in her church.
Another shows her posing on holiday and joking on a friend’s motorbike in May 2021.
During the 15 days that she kept Chong’s decomposing body in her home in Willesden, north London, Jemma continued to message oblivious friends and make plans.
A message sent on the evening of June 11, the day Chong - who went by Deborah - was killed, reads: “I had a good day thank you, it is nice hearing from you.”
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Another on June 13 - two days after the murder and while Chong’s body was still at Mitchell’s house - said that she was “off to church” for the Sunday service.
She is believed to have continued attending Emmanuel Evangelical Church in Edgware throughout the three and a half weeks between the murder and her arrest.
Australian-born Mitchell had tried to persuade Chong to loan her £200,000 to pay for renovations at her £4 million crumbling family home.
But prosecutors said that when Chong backed out, Mitchell devised a plan to murder the vulnerable divorcee and fake her will to inherit the bulk of her estate worth more than £700,000.
HORROR KILLING
She had met the friend - who wishes to remain anonymous - on the online dating site earlier in the year and kept in touch mainly over Whatsapp.
They were still in contact up until the day Jemma was arrested for Chong’s murder after detectives tracked her movements to and from the elderly woman’s home on the day she disappeared.
The pal told The Sun: “I did not notice a change at all - she had always been very intense.
“We would chat about following God and she appeared, at least on the surface, to be a very committed Christian.
“She went to church every Sunday and would talk about playing instruments in the church band.
“Jemma also shared details of her plans for her family home and was always interested in my opinion.
“What terrifies me is how calm she appeared for those weeks after she had killed her friend.
“We messaged just as normal although she sometimes would message back at 3am.
“On the day which I now know is when she committed that terrible crime she replied to me late in the day to say she’d had a nice day.
“Looking back at those messages it’s horrible to think poor Deborah’s body was in her house.
“The day after we were texting to make plans to go to Richmond Park together, like everything was normal.”
A jury deliberated for seven hours before finding Mitchell guilty of murder on Thursday morning.
CCTV footage released by the court showed Mitchell arriving at Chong’s home in Wembley, North West London, with a large blue suitcase allegedly containing her murder kit, on the morning of June 11 last year.
Jurors heard how she emerged from the property four hours later with the suitcase appearing bulkier and heavier and struggling to wheel it away because of the weight of the body inside.
She also had a smaller bag full of Chong’s financial documents, which were later recovered from Mitchell’s home.
The Crown claimed Mitchell stored the body at her rubbish-strewn home before driving her to Salcombe, where the headless corpse was found on June 26.
Police found the missing head nearby the next day.
The blue suitcase was later found on top of Mitchell's neighbour’s shed with a bloodstained tea towel in a pocket with Chong’s DNA on it.
Mitchell's Volvo had blown a tyre on the way to Salcombe and she was forced to drive into a service station and call for help.
A repairman called to change the wheel described Mitchell’s “confused” demeanour and an “odd musty smell” inside the vehicle.
However, jurors heard that none of the people who came to her aid saw the large blue suitcase in the boot, suggesting she had stashed it somewhere nearby, according to the prosecution.
Police arrested Mitchell on July 6 and found a 2021 wall calendar with an entry written by Mitchell for June 26, the day she drove to Salcombe, in two different inks.
It read: “8am collect body back C letter will copy 2 hr walk.”
In a box in the bedroom was a copy of Mitchell’s will, written in 2017, and a faked one from the victim giving 95 per cent of the deceased’s estate to Mitchell for building works and the remainder to the defendant’s mother.
Mitchell did not give evidence at her trial but her defence said there was no evidence to confirm Chong’s body was ever in the suitcase.
It was also claimed there was no proof to indicate Ms Chong died violently.
He said: ";The cold facts of this case are shocking.
"Deborah Chong was a vulnerable lady – in the weeks before her murder, she was seeking help for her declining mental health.
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"However, Mitchell – so desperate to obtain the money she needed to complete the renovations on her house – sought to take advantage of Deborah’s good will.
"But when Deborah changed her mind, she callously murdered her and embarked upon an attempt to fraudulently obtain her estate."
