Jemma Mitchell killed her friend Mee Kuen Chong to try to inherit her estate for home renovations.
Image source, Met PoliceA self-styled healer will become the first murderer to be sentenced on television after being found guilty of murdering her friend, whose headless body was dumped in Devon.
Jemma Mitchell, 38, faces life behind bars for killing Mee Kuen Chong, 67, at the older woman’s home in north-west London last year.
She intended to steal £700,000 from Ms Chong’s estate by forging a will in her favour, the court heard.
Mitchell was convicted on Thursday.
The pair met as members of a church, and both described themselves as “devout Christians”. Ms Chong, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, believed Mitchell was “curing” her with spiritual healing.
The jury at a two-week trial at the Old Bailey was shown CCTV footage of Mitchell in June 2021 taking a large blue suitcase in to Ms Chong’s house in Wembley before reappearing five hours later with two cases.
It was suggested by the prosecution that the blue suitcase contained Ms Chong’s body and a smaller bag contained Ms Chong’s personal and financial paperwork necessary for Mitchell to forge a will.
Two weeks later, she drove more than 200 miles to the seaside town of Salcombe in Devon where she left Ms Chong’s decapitated and badly decomposed body in woods.
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Mitchell came up with the plan after Ms Chong, who was also known as Deborah, backed out of giving her £200,000 to pay for repairs to Mitchell’s £4 million dilapidated family home, jurors were told.
Later, Judge Richard Marks KC will broadcast the sentence.
It will be only the second time cameras have been allowed into an English criminal crown court to record a sentencing – the first in which the defendant is a woman.