A mother has insisted that her daughter is innocent after she was jailed for murdering her friend and dumping her headless body. On Friday, Jemma Mitchell, 38, was told she would have to serve at least 34 years in prison for the “profoundly shocking” murder of 67-year-old Mee Kuen Chong, known as Deborah.
Mitchell had transported Ms Chong’s body in a large suitcase after killing her at her home in Wembley, north-west London, The Old Bailey heard. The prosecution alleged she decapitated her and stored the body in the garden of the home Mitchell shared with her mother in Willesden, north-west London, before depositing it more than 200 miles away in Salcombe in Devon, two weeks later.
The circumstantial case rested on extensive CCTV footage, Ms Chong’s DNA found on a tea towel stuffed inside the suitcase and a forged will at Mitchell’s house, leaving the bulk of the victim’s £700,000 estate to the defendant. Mitchell opted not to give evidence, with her lawyers claiming “gaps” in the prosecution case meant jurors could not be sure of her guilt.
