Jemma Mitchell (born 22 July 1984)[1] is an Australian-born English former osteopath who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the 2021 murder of her friend Mee Kuen Chong (known as Deborah).

[2][5][6][7] Mitchell shared a house with her mother, who was retired, and her sister, in Willesden, north west London; the property was worth £4 million, but in a state of disrepair, and had been owned by the family for several generations.

[9] In or around August 2020,[3] Mitchell met Mee Kuen Chong (known as Deborah) at a church they both attended, and the two women, described as "devout Christians", became friends.

[15] Prior to her death she had been exhibiting erratic behaviour, and was referred by the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre to her local community mental health team for sending letters to Prince Charles and Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

[17] Mitchell and her mother planned to make improvements to their property, adding another floor to the house, but were cheated out of £230,000 by two builders they had hired for the project.

[18] On the morning of 11 June 2021, Mitchell travelled to Chong's house in Wembley, north London, carrying a large blue suitcase.

[4] After reactivating her deceased neighbour's mobile phone, then using it to hire a car,[20] on 26 June, she drove 200 miles (320 km) to Salcombe in Devon to dispose of the body, and dumped it on a woodland path near Bennett Road.

[23] However, the trial date was subsequently delayed until 11 October due to the strike action being staged by members of the Criminal Bar Association.

[26] The trial was told that Mitchell had practised as an osteopath for seven years, and that her professional website had described her as being "attuned to subjects in neuroanatomy, genetics and dissection of human cadavers".

[27] Jurors were shown CCTV footage of Mitchell arriving at Chong's house with the blue suitcase shortly after 8.00 am on 11 June 2021, and emerging with it looking bulkier and heavier at around 1.13 pm.

[6][28] The trial was told that, later that evening, she attended St Thomas' Hospital in central London with a broken finger, which she claimed to have shut in a door.

[3][6] The court was further told that Chong's body was discovered at the bottom of a set of steps, and that along with the head, the first two bones that form the spine, as well as the larynx at the front of the neck were missing.

Mitchell's defence further argued that the value of her property, estimated to be worth £4 million, together with £93,000 in personal savings, meant she did not have a financial motive to kill.

A victim impact statement from Chong's sister, based in Malaysia, was read to the court, while she watched via videolink: "We still do not understand how she died.

"[8] During his sentencing statement, Judge Richard Marks KC described the aggravating factors in the case, notably that the killing had been carried out for financial gain, and the manner in which Mitchell had treated her victim's body: "I am driven to the conclusion that you are extremely devious", he told her.

[8][34] In a subsequent media interview she claimed Mitchell was a "silly girl" who is "really, really bright" but "messed up", and that the police believed her to be the killer because "she washed the blue suitcase".