Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This article contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.

In the annals of true crime, suitcases have been the harrowing centerpiece on multiple occasions, including one involving American Sarah Boone of Florida, and the other, Englishwoman Jemma Mitchell of London. However, any similarities abruptly end there, as one was a trained osteopath who boasted online about her skills in human dissection, only to be accused of applying those skills against her devout friend.

11th ,2021 

a wembley resident  notified  police of the disappearance ofhis landord , 67 year old deborah chong.

the caller  was cocerned about her absence as she had recently struggled with mental illness  and had difficulty walking .

 the anxiety escalated to outright terror six days later when tourists stumbled upon a gruesome scene.

deborah’s heavily decomposed body was foound in a woodland,

 a blue suitcase ominously at its side.

mee kuen chong. also known as deborah ,was a kindhearted 67  years old women from London.widowed a few  years prior, deborah had migrated with her  husvand three decades ago

 from kuala lumpur , malaysia ad was a resident of wembley forthe past years.

she lived in a home she owned with her tenant ,crane operator david klein.deborah,a devout chrisrian ,activitely shared evangelical content on social me networking sites.she was admired for her generosity towards the homeless

after  her husband’s death . she fell into  a difficult period and began and began writting letters  to prominent figures.

like  prime minister boris johnson and then prince charles. in fact, deborah was convinced she was in love  with the prince and that they could communicate through YouTube videos.

alerted to herrelentless attempts at contacting public figures,  the fixated threat  assessment center , a joint police / mental health unit ,referred deborah to a local community health team.

there shewas  diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and prescribed psychotropic medication

those  who knew deborah  a woman, a women  they perceived as harmless and childlike were suprised.

yet despite these perceptions ,deborah herself understodd thatr  she needed help.

 summer of 2020.

deborah met  a 36 year old woman named jemma mitchell through a local church.

  jemma was also a devout christian who shared evangelical content on social media  

bonded by their shared faith, the two women sooon formed a friendship and spent considerable time together.

Jemma was born in Australia and raised in england since age two.she studied osteopathy in britain before starting her practice in Australia in repurposed funeral  parlor.

 in 2015  she returned to london to   london  but couldn’t practice osteopathy due to a lack of registration with the general Osteopathic council,as mandated by UK law.

with her income limited ,jemma moved back to her family’s rundown 4. 6 milloion pound in  brondesbury ,brent , residing in converted garage apartment,while her mother and sister lived on the ground floor

as jemma  and deborah’s relationship deepened, jemma took on the role of a spiritual healer in deborah’s eyes.

over time ,deborah was convinced  that jemma’s purported healing abilities were curing her  illness.

 eventuallly, jemma shared with deborah how she and her mother  wanted to renovate their home, but were scammed out of 230,000 by two deceitful  contractors.

deborah , moved by the account ,offered to gift 200, 000 for  the home restoration

upon condition that the house be used for christian worship,for jemma ,this was game changing news.

unfortunately ,however , she would never see the money .

June 11, 2021

at 10 :48pm  a concerned tenant reported deborah missing. he hadn’t seen her since the previous evening and strangley she had left her phone and glasses behind.

aware of deborah’s close relationship with jemma, he reached out to her .

jemma repeated this story to the police,  starting an  ongoing investigation .

however, progress remained elusive

  until a shocking discovery on june 27th 

during a routine dog walk trhrough woodland in salcombe ,south devon, a family stumbled upon a  horrifying sight , promting an urgent 999 call.

police arrived  to the scene and confirmed the presence of human remains the body  was lying on a public footpath at the bottom of a set of steps.

and the deceased’s head was nowhere to be found.officers noticed the skin in the neck area had a very clean appearance.

a postmortem took a place at the royal devon  and exeter hospital that same day but  failed to establish a cause of death due to the body’s advancedstate of decomposition.

june 30th, 2021

detective ben deer updated local media on the gruesome finding.

the following days agents intensively scouring the area  and on july 1 st, another graphic discovery was made. a human head found just 30  feet  away from where deborah’s body was discovered.

DNA tests confirmed a match to deborah, who lived more then 200 miles away as detectives grappled with these gruesome findings.

they delved into her last known movements while canvasing deborah’s neighhorhood for surveillance footage. they stumbled upon achilling revelation.

jemma mitchell, who had conveniently kept tihs detail from officers ,had visited  deborah’s home on june 11th.

at 6. 15, am. CCTV footage filmed by a camera adjacent to her house .filmed by a camera  adjacent to her house,shows  jemma leavingher  nome at brondesbury park.

she had a large blue whellled suitcase with her .ahe did not appear to struggle to haul the suitcase .

25 minutes later ,at 6.40  am. jemma is observed in a different outfit , wearing a beanie and face mask. pulling a  blue suitcase and heading towards deborah’s house .

at  12:58 pm. jemma is seen walking from deborah’s house with two suitcases, a  large blue one and the other a smaller   red and blue one.

this time she clearly had difficulty  moving the larger blue suitcase.

she then spends 3 hours carrying the suitcases throughout suburban london  before returning home after 4 pm with the larger blue suitcase.

detectives also reviewed CCTV  footage  from june 26 th, which captured jemma in a rented wolvo SUV ,struggling to loas a large blue suitcase into the vehivle.

later that  evening ,her car is seen driving along bennett road in salcombe,three hours from london towards  the woodland area ,where deborah´s body was found .

during  a search of jemma’s residence,officers   stumbled  upon a cryptic note on a walll calender.that chillingly read ” collect body .”

they also dicovered a legal document bearing deborah´s name .

a will dated october 27th, 2020. naming jemma as a trustee .

the will declared that jemma was to receive 95 % of deborah’s valued at 700 ,000 pounds for home renovations, while  the remaining 5% was apportioned to jemma’s  mother.

the plot thickened when an examination of jemma´s computer uncovered  a word document of the identical will created  on july 1st 2021, weeks after deborah’s death.

detectives also  pieced together  the following from phone records , app messsages and other evidence.

in the months leading up  to her murder ,deborah had chastised jemma for being messy. however, deborah did not realize the full extent of the issue, until she visited jemma’s family residence after promising to gift 200 ,000 punds.

deborah was astounded by the property´s state of disrepair.

the house was in chaos, showed significant neglect.

and was littered with clutter to the point where some rooms were inaccessible.

appaled by the property’s  condition ,deborah withdrew her offer.

instead ,she suggested by text  that jemma should sell her property  ,valued at 4,6  million  downsize and enjoy  the profit.this news  devastated jemma

with solid evidence  to support probable cause ,detectives sought and obtained  a warrant  for  jemma´s arrest.

followig the arrest , jemma was confronted by detectives about the rented volvo captured on CCTV.

the authorities  charged jemma with an exceptionally brutal murder.

prosecutor deanna heer said .

 deanna :” the motive is clear – money . a large sum of money was needed to complete the repairs onthe defendant’s house and , in mee kuen chong , the defendant  found someone from whom she thought she could get that money , if not when she was alive … then by forging her will after shehad killed her . 

 

Jemma was charged with murder and held in custody .

she pleaded not guilty to the charge…

the  trial began on october 11th

with prosecutors cotending jemma who boasted online  of her award winning skill in human skill in human dissection  perpetrated the murder in deborah’s home

bludgeoned her over the head with an object ,decapitated her

and heartlessly packed deborah’s lifeless body into a suitcase for disposal  in the woods.

jemma´s defense argued there was  a lack  of DNA  evidence from the suitcase .

and that the value of her property estimated to be worth than 4 ,5 million pounds , together with 93,000 in personal savings meant jemma had not have a financial motive to kill .

further , how could there be a murder when the post mortem analys found the cause of death was ” unascertained?”

Jemma Mitchell entering a service station shop near Bristol. Image from CCTV

On october 27th ,2022 

after  7  hours of deliberation ,a jury at the central court of england and wales , also known  as the old bailey ,reached a verdict.

today in the old bailey , the 38 year old women , jemma mitchell, has been found guilty of that murder.deborah was born in malaysia through her own hard work and initiative, she made a good life for herself , finally settling in london , where she was a  much  valued and loved member of the community.

the jury said that  her later years were  marked  with poor mental health , but throughout this time ,she never lost her firm religious beliefes nor her belief in the godness of charity

and it was upon these beliefs that jemma mitchell preyed in an attempt  to take a signficant amount of money from deborah.when deborah refused, mitchell  murdered her

she forced the body into a suitcase and transported her body some distance across north london

where she retained it for over a fortnight. at some point  she decapitated that body before finally driving som 250  miles to the coast of devon where she discarded her remains by the side of a flat , an overgrown  footpath.

unfortunately for mitchell, the following day  on the 27th of july , a holiday family  in salcombe found there was remains and contacted the policeand at that point  devon cornwall police initiated inquirieswhen it becam apparent that edeborah hadbeen murdered in london  might  seen surpising

mitchell was arrested  in early july and charged with attempted murder. several days later.investigations revealed that mitchell was in the process of doctoring wills in attempt to make a significant claim on the estate of deborah.but look, first attempt never came to fruition .

jemma was remanded  into custody  t be sentenced the following  day,the sentencing was a ired  live on various outlets.

 it marked the first trial with a  murder conviction in england and wales  to have its sentencing phase televised. and the first televised sentening of a women .

as jemma appeared in court before her sentencing, she was observed mouthing “hello, mummy”  to her mother , hillary who sat in the  public gallery and blew kisses in response

a victim impact statement from deborah’s sister was read to the court while she watched via video link.

judge marks began his sentencing remarks approximately 11 minutes after jemmas arrival.

” the enormity of you crime, is profoundly shocking ,even more so given your apparent religious devotion,as well as the fact that deborah  was a good friend to you  and had shown your great  kindness

the  sentence of the court is one of life imprisonment and that  minimum  term of imprisonment that you will in any event be required to serve will be 34  years that will  be deducte from the term, the 475 days that you spent in custody on remand  and the statutory surcharge will apply. “

 

despite her conviction and the judge sentenceing marks , jemmas mother remained staunchly  in her daughter’s corner,dissmissing the guilty verdict following

the  sentencing she stood outside the courtroom and vehemently on jemma’s innoncence, asserting the suitcase was filled  not with a body ,but  with crockery ,cutlery and tea towels. she further promised that jemma would appeal the conviction.

” she is innocent  ,and i know that and i’m going to go to the top.i’m not accepting this because it’s not right.she is innocent , i know it,i’m taking it further.i’m 76.if it takes me untik i die, i’m going to contest it. because it’s not right.”

in an interview with the herald sun , jemma’s mother said her daughter was no killer and had become traumatized after splitting  with the first boyfriend who had treated her properly. she added.,jemma had hundreds of boyfriends, they all used her for sex. but the last one she loved. he was loveley  ,very religious.he never slet with her . that’s why she fell for him,when it ended , she hit rock bottom. she was erratic. she turned to god because the boyfriend  went to chuch.