Woman accused of beheading pensioner ‘caught on CCTV dragging suitcase with body in’
Jemma Mitchell is accused of killing Mee Kuen Chong at her Wembley home on June 11 last year before depositing her headless corpse 200 miles away
A woman was captured on CCTV dragging a bulky suitcase around London for two hours after allegedly murdering her friend and stuffing the body inside, a court heard.
Jemma Mitchell, 38, is accused of killing 67-year-old Mee Kuen Chong at her Wembley home on 11 June last year before depositing her headless corpse in Devon woodland more than two weeks later.
Jurors at the Old Bailey watched CCTV clips on Thursday that tracked Ms Chong’s last-known sighting and Mitchell’s movements around that time.
Ms Chong was seen walking for exercise on Chaplin Road, where she lived in northwest London, on 9 July.
Mitchell, a 38-year-old osteopath, was seen walking from her home in Willesden with a large blue suitcase and backpack shortly before 6.30am two days later.
She arrived in Chaplin Road around 8am and emerged just over five hours later carrying the blue suitcase and another smaller bag allegedly containing Ms Chong’s financial paperwork.
Mitchell was captured on CCTV dragging the bags on the street and through a grass verge for two hours before being picked up by a minicab.
In that time, jurors heard she had called various cab companies nine times before a driver collected her for the 40-minute journey home.
She was dropped outside her next door neighbour’s house and then transferred the suitcases from the driveway to her home, it is claimed.
Later that evening, she went to St Thomas’s Hospital in central London to be treated for a broken finger, saying she shut it in a door – a claim the prosecution say is a lie.
The court heard the blue suitcase was not seen again until 26 June last year.
That day, it is alleged Mitchell hired a car and drove to Salcombe with the body in the suitcase stashed in the boot.
Jurors were shown more video footage of Mitchell stopping off near Bristol and later turning into a Co-op garage near Salcombe with a flat tyre.
The CCTV showed an AA repairman changing the wheel before the Volvo is seen on Bennett Road just metres from the spot where Chong’s body was dumped.
Mitchell arrived back in London shortly before 7am on 27 June last year.
Later that day, Chong’s decapitated body was discovered in woods by holidaymakers and her skull was found in nearby undergrowth a few days later. The discovery was made in Salcombe in Devon - around 200 miles away from where Chong had last been seen in northwest London.
Jurors have heard that Mitchell murdered Chong, known to friends as Deborah, because she wanted to get hundreds of thousands of pounds to pay for repairs to her home.
It is claimed the victim agreed to hand over £200,000 to help with the repairs but later had a change of heart.
Mitchell has denied murder and the trial continues.
Additional reporting by Press Association