Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast - #285: The Suitcase of Death (Jemma Mitchell / Mee Kuen Chong)19/2/2025 
Nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST, 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
9 Brondesbury Park @Googlemaps2025 / April 2015
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond London's West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-FIVE: On Friday 11th of June 2021 at 6:23am, 34-year-old Jemma Mitchell left her home at 9 Brondesbury Park in Wilsden to visit her friend and fellow Christian Mee Kuen Chong known as Deborah. She was wheeling behind her an empty blue suitcase, five hours later, the suitcase was full and her friend was dead. But why?
THE LOCATION:
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SOURCES: a selection sourced from the news archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Brondesbury Park in Wilsden, NW6; four roads south of Karl Hulton’s bungled taxi heist, three roads east of the botched burglary of Bernard Cooper, four roads south of the little drummer boy, and three streets west of the PIN number murder - coming soon to Murder Mile. Brondesbury Park is a middle-class street where most homes sell for £1-4 million. Being a bit showy, it’s easy to imagine that many neighbours are desperate to outdo one another; if he has a garage, you build two; if she has a pond, you dig a pool; if they decorate with Laura Ashley wallpaper at £100 a roll, you cover the outside walls in Armani with gold leaf; and if they dare have an open-plan kitchen, you hire a 24 hour in-house Michelin-starred chef to deliver you mega cheese toasties in bed. Sorted. It may sound pretty pathetic, but for some people, their life is that kind of one-upmanship. Back in 2015, at 9 Brondesbury Park stood a little two-storey house. Compared to the others, it was modest and simple, but desperate to keep-up with the Jones’, Jemma Mitchell and her mother Hillary decided to renovate and add an extra floor. Anyone else would have killed to live in this lovely little home on a nice street in a good part of town. And yet, to finish the build, that’s just what Jemma did. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 285: The Suitcase of Death. On the surface, this may seem like a story about two friends who truly cared for each other. And it was. But whereas one was dedicate to their friendship, the other had just one thought – money. Born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1954, Mee Kuen Chong was raised in a loving hard-working family during the peak of the Malayan Emergency, a brutal guerrilla war between communist rebels fighting for an independent state from their colonial oppressors, and (of course) the British who were fighting to protect their economic interests in Malaya. Across 12 years, of those reported, 2400 civilians and 6700 soldiers were killed, many were imprisoned, and at least 810 men and women simply vanished. For the Malayans, the fight it was for freedom, for the British it was about money and power. Agreeing to independence in 1957, the state of emergency ended in 1960, and the country went on the flourish. Mee, who everyone knew as Deborah, was a spiritual women and a passionate Christian who had seen a lot of hardship and grief in her community, and believing that she must always help those in crisis, she opened her door to any strangers for a hot meal, some clean clothes and a safe place to sleep. By the 1990s, as she entered her 40s, with both Britain and Malaysia in an economic boom, Deborah came to the UK for work; she married, she became a British citizen, she and her husband worked hard, they saved, they paid off their mortgage, and although not considered wealthy by any standards, being financially astute, they ensured that they would live comfortably without worry into their later years. Sadly, it was not to be, as with her husband dying and her family back in Malaysia, she was left a widow with no children, but aided by her good friends as well as her faith, she was safe and secure… for now. Since at least 2003, Deborah had lived in a modest two-storey semi-detached house at 196 Chaplin Road in Wembley, a nice middle-class enclave where the neighbours looked out for one another, and valued at almost £700,000, having retired with her mortgage paid off, she was comfortable and well. Described as small (being just 5 foot 2 inches tall) and slim (about 7 stone and 10lbs), Deborah was no threat to anyone, and said to be “chatty and sweet with a childlike nature”, to assuage her loneliness, she rented out her rooms to lodgers, but always planned to leave her home in her will to the homeless. Only this wasn’t just her home, this was her church. At the start of 2020, Deborah’s home on Chaplin Road was registered as The Sons & Daughters of The King, a charity providing support for survivors of abuse, human trafficking, sexual exploitation and it counselled those who had experienced coercion and domestic violence. Using their Christian faith as a cornerstone, Deborah and her friends bought safety and support to those who needed it most. Deborah thrived on helping others, only she was also struggling herself. Five years earlier, her friends had noticed that she’d become more passionate, animated but increasingly paranoid, and although a small frail pensioner, her irrational actions had already caused one lodger to move out. In 2015, her doctor noted in her records that she was suffering from “acute stress and a schizoaffective disorder”, which resulted in moods swings, anxiety, depression and risky behaviour, especially around money. As a lone widow, a community mental health team assessed her, she was prescribed antipsychotic medication, and across the next few years, she stabilised. Her faith, her friends and her charity work kept her happy and safe, and yet a new friend in her life who she trusted would destroy everything. Born in Australia on 22nd of July 1984, Jemma Mitchell was raised in Altona North, a Melbourne suburb where families live in peace, and as one of two daughters to their mother Hillary who worked at the UK's Foreign & Commonwealth Office, they never went without and were both educated well. In 2000, aged 16, Jemma’s family came to Britain after her parents divorced, and gifted a great start in life; she was educated at the prestigious King Edward's boarding school in Surrey; in 2004, she began a degree in Human Sciences at King's College London in which she excelled in experimental anatomy and human dissection, she graduated with a First, she was awarded the Hamilton Prize for Anatomical Excellence, and later became a qualified osteopath having studied at the British School of Osteopathy. She was intelligent, confident and impressive, she could achieve anything she set her mind to, but as her old friend, Nick Novachevski would later say “money issues always bought out the worst in her”. In 2008, Jemma returned to Melbourne and practiced as an osteopath – detecting and treating health problems by the manipulation of muscles and joints – where she remained for seven years and owned her own home in Helensvale, a suburb of the City of Gold Coast in Queensland. She was a success, she lived a good life, she was well liked, respected and was later described as ‘a woman of good character’. But one problem bought her back to Britain with a bump… …and that was their family home in Brondesbury Park. Flying back in 2015, Jemma instantly began struggling, as although educated here, not being registered with the General Osteopathic Council, she couldn’t practise as an osteopath in Britain. Living off her savings, those stresses causing a deep rift with her sister, culminating in her being issued with a non-molestation order (banning her from intimidating or harassing her sister and brother-in-law), but as a prickly and highly strung individual, she breached the order and was given a conditional discharge. With the family fractured, and with Jemma being unmarried, jobless and childless, their family home at 9 Brondesbury Park became her obsession, and needing renovations, it also became a money pit. In October 2015, the house was a basic two-storey, three-bedroomed, brown-bricked detached block from the 1930s, it was nothing special and all it really needed for this family of two was modernising. It was a perfect little home, but envious of her neighbours, in January 2018, they had the whole thing reduced to rubble, with the plan to replace it with a three-storey monstrosity with two kitchens, two bathrooms and at least four bedrooms, which was of equal size to the homes either side, if not bigger. Jemma wasn’t working and Hillary had retired, so their savings had to fund the build entirely. But by adding an extra floor and paying out £230,000 to two builders, one of whom had refused to complete the work, by the end of 2019, they had no savings, no roof, and the building was barely fit to live in. Covered in scaffolding, with two floors not even watertight, Jemma & Hillary lived on the ground floor of this unsafe half-built home, and over the next year, they let it go to ruin. Prosecuting lawyer, Deeana Heer KC stated “everywhere there were boxes, suitcases, freezers, old mattresses, filth and building materials. The kitchen was dirty, with rotting food on the stove… paperwork covered the surfaces... the bathroom was stained and in a poor state of repair, and it looked like a hoarder's residence". Through their own greed and neglect, their dream had become a nightmare… …but what had any of this got to do with Deborah Chong? To escape the stresses of the renovations, as a Christian, Jemma needed an outlet, and like Deborah, her faith was her sanctuary. In August 2020, just weeks after we all experienced a little hit of freedom after the first Covid lockdown, they met at a church they both attended, and they become firm friends. This wasn’t a ploy by Jemma to snare a likely victim, they really were good friends, as the 100s of text messages between them would testify, and seeing that Deborah still struggled with her mental health, Jemma used her skills as an osteopath to help her and many others who attended the spiritual healing sessions at Deborah’s home, of which Deborah later said "I was being healed by Jemma and Jesus". With 33 years difference between them, Jemma often acted like a protective daughter to Deborah, as she struggled to walk unaided, and (exacerbated by the lockdown) even with medication, her paranoid schizophrenia ran rampant. On 1st of March 2021, her mental health team were alerted by theFixated Threat Assessment Centre at Buckingham Palace that Deborah believed she was in a relationship with Prince Charles, that he spoke to her through YouTube, and that, although unthreatening in any way, she had sent a series of bizarre letters to the future King, and the then-Prime Minster, Boris Johnson. Deborah was physically frail, mentally unstable, and with her schizophrenia causing her to make risky financial decisions, she was vulnerable and needed protection from those who would exploit her generosity. And although, Jemma offered that protection, what she saw in Deborah wasn’t a friend… …but a big fat bank account to refill her money pit. As Detective Chief Inspector Jim Eastwood who led the investigation would state “desperate to obtain the money she needed to complete the renovations, (Jemma) took advantage of Deborah’s good will”. For almost a year, from the month they first met to the month she would murder her, Jemma applied continuous pressure to get Deborah to transfer £200,000 to her own bank account and even suggested that (to avoid inheritance tax) that she should sign over her £700,000 house in Wembley to herself. Deborah was vulnerable… but she was still financially astute. Seeing that Jemma had let her home go to ruin, she (rightly) berated her for living like a “hoarder”, she wisely advised her “more construction will cost more money you don't have. Sell the house, enjoy the money, life is too short" as even unfinished, the house was worth at least £4 million. But with Jemma too stubborn to listen, on the 7th of June 2021, Deborah rescinded her offer to financially help her, and the next day, Deborah texted Jemma: “until you sell house, I won't want you to come to me or my house. I'm stressed to the core". Money had split their friendship apart, the house lay in ruins, and even though Jemma still had £93,000 in the bank, this co-called devout Christian would break at least three of the Ten Commandments… …such as ‘thou shalt not steal’ and ‘thou shalt not kill”. On Friday 11th of June 2021, Britain was emerging from a second lockdown, as schools re-opened but non-vital shops were shut, with masks and social distancing mandatory. With Jemma suggesting they meet, Deborah agreed with the caveat ‘no talk about house or money’ but her fate was already sealed. At 6:23am, her face hidden by a black hat, scarf and a Covid mask, Jemma exited the plywood gates of her half built home at 9 Brondesbury Park; her backpack filled with cleaning products, an orange rope, a saw, bin bags and possibly a hammer, and she wheeled a large but empty bright blue suitcase. She was alone, the streets were empty, and as she rode the tube to Wembley Central, it was only a 45 minute trip to Chaplin Road, but arriving at 8:01am, it’s likely she stopped for supplies, maybe a knife. That day, the lodgers were out and Jemma knew that as she rang the bell. Over the door, a sign read ‘agape selfless love for all’, meaning to sacrifice oneself to help others, and though that’s how Deborah lived her life, Jemma was only here to help herself. As planned, she was let in, they sat, had a cup of tea and chatted, but what happened inside will never be known, except that Deborah never left alive. Pathologist Dr Curtis Offiah said “she sustained a complex head injury at or around her time of death", but due to decomposition, it couldn’t be determined if she’d been hit with a blunt object or against a hard surface, whether accidentally or intentionally. Either way, no surface or weapon was ever found. With her either unconscious or dead, Jemma tied her up using the length of orange rope, and carefully opening each drawer with gloved hands so as to not make it look like a burglary, she stole Deborah’s bank cards, passport, driving licence and naturalisation papers – everything she needed to steal her life savings – and having gained access to the room of Virgil Gheorghita, a lodger who had died just a few months earlier, she also stole his passport, his ID, his statements and his defunct mobile phone. It was premeditated, it was callous, it was cruel, and it was all for the sake of money. Then possibly in the bath, making full use of her human science degree and award winning knowledge of human dissection, she cleanly cut-off of Deborah’s head. Why she beheaded her remains a mystery. Maybe it was to disguise her identity, as Deborah’s corpse was then stripped and redressed in clothes meant for a larger women, possibly to make the police believe she was a refuge, rather than a citizen. With the wound wrapped in towels and tape, in an act of outrage at being denied the money, Jemma stuffed Deborah’s tiny body into the bright blue suitcase with such force that she snapped several ribs and dumped the head in the corpse’s lap. She cleaned-up so thoroughly that the lodgers didn’t suspect a thing, and even the forensics team would later struggle to find a print, a hair, DNA or blood spots. At 1.13pm, five hours later, a neighbour’s CCTV captured Jemma leaving the house; in the backpack was her ‘murder kit’ (which would never be found), a small red suitcase belonging to Deborah was filled with paperwork, and the blue suitcase was almost 8 stone heavier than when she wheeled it in. Over the next two hours, she tried to drag both cases the full five miles back to Brondesbury Park, but with the wheels buckling under the weight, and frequently needing to kick them to get it moving (and cursing the corpse for making this so difficult for her), after nine failed attempts, she hailed a taxi. And in the mess of Jemma’s half-built house, the body festered for the two weeks that she laid low, only leaving her house twice; once to have her finger set at St Thomas’s hospital having broken it when she attacked Deborah, and to go on a date at London Zoo with a man she met on Christian Connection. But such a popular, kind and vital woman couldn’t simply vanish without anyone noticing. With her lodger reporting Deborah missing, posters were placed across London and with an appeal by the police, as the last person to text her, they questioned Jemma who claimed “she went to stay with friends close to the ocean, she had been depressed", but Jemma knew that soon they’d find the body. On Saturday 26th of June 2021, even though she had her own car, using the dead lodgers credit card, Jemma hired a blue/grey Volvo XC40 from Hertz at Brent Park. Hidden by the gates of her drive, with a white plastic sheet underneath, she heaved the blue suitcase into the boot which stunk of decay and having re-activated the dead lodger’s phone, she plotted a route to Devon, leaving her phone at home. Why she chose to drive to Salcombe is unknown, but as one of the most south-westerly parts of the UK, it took her 4 hours 30mins to travel 215 miles, with brief stop for fuel and coffee outside Bristol. According to the GPS, she was heading to Bennett Road, a remote spot surrounded by woodland, very few houses and seaside coves along the Kingsbridge Estuary, by then being just 2 and a ½ miles away… …but that day, luck was against her. On Island Street, her front left tyre blew, the oversized car ground to a halt on this tiny alley barely big enough for one car, and speckled with a bar full of locals and a branch of the Co-op, she drew a crowd. Running on a flat and with no idea how to fix it, she limped the car to Marlborough Garage on Gould Road, where Lee Gardin, an AA mechanic stated that she looked “shaky, distressed and confused". The car’s tyre was flat, the spare was in the boot under the suitcase with the headless body in it and with the stench permeating – which he described as “a very odd smell… something I’d never smelt before" - he only saw blankets and pillows as Jemma opened the boot removing the spare tyre herself. It was 8:49pm, barely 30 minutes before dusk, when the car left the garage on four fully-inflated tyres. Her plan was to bury the body, hiding it where it would never be found, but with the dark approaching and strange cars likely to raise suspicion, in a remote spot on Bennett Road, she wheeled the suitcase down a set of stone steps (of what was in fact a public footpath), she dumped the body behind a fence, tossing the head (missing two spine bones and the larynx) barely 30 feet away, and then drove home. Having had it valeted, she returned the car back to Hertz shortly before 7am on Sunday 27th, and after all that planning and preparation, she flung the bright blue suitcase on top of her neighbour’s shed. The body was found that morning by a dogwalker. Four days later, they found the head. And although she had been stripped of any ID, bafflingly her handbag contained a piece of orange rope, excerpts of The Bible and a business card of an evangelical church that both Deborah & Jemma regularly attended. On 30th of June 2021, to aid her alibi, Jemma filed missing person’s report. But there was no concern shown, only for herself. On the 1st of July, the day the head was found, Jemma forged Deborah’s will leaving 95% of the £700,000 estate to herself as a trustee, and the rest of it to her mother, Hillary. The faked will was supposedly signed off by Deborah herself and witnessed by Virgil Gheorghita (who was dead) & Sanjay Samson (who hadn’t seen her since 2013), but it was clear Jemma had copied their passport signatures, having first read a handy guide called 'The Dos and Don'ts of Claiming an Estate'. With murder established, the Police had one suspect – Jemma Mitchell - the last women to text the victim before she went missing, and armed with CCTV from both houses, and (even though she had thoroughly cleaned it) inside the suitcase pocket she’d left a tea towel with traces of Deborah’s DNA, on 6th of July at 11:45pm, officers kicked down her door and arrested her, and yet she didn’t ask ‘why?’. The evidence was clear as day to Detective Chief Inspector Jim Eastwood. They had CCTV footage from Brondesbury Park, Chaplin Road, Hertz rental, St Thomas’s hospital, Marlborough garage and the Co-op on Island Street. Witnesses statements from the lodgers and the mechanic. Sections of the orange rope was found in Jemma’s home, along with the dead lodger’s phone, passport and bank details. They also found the fake Will which had been backdated to 27th October 2020, and the original which left everything Deborah owned (including her home) to her charity, The Sons & Daughters of The King. And bafflingly, Jemma’s wall calendar on which she had written: “June 26, 8am, collect body”. (End) Held on remand at HMP Bronzefield, 34-year-old Jemma Mitchell appeared via video-link at Wilsden Magistrates Court in which she pleaded not guilty. Tried in Court 12 of the Old Bailey from the 11th of October 2022, Deanna Heer KC put forward the “basic and bald" evidence, with Jemma’s defence that there was none of her DNA found, that the day-trip Salcombe was a spontaneous holiday, and with her half built house worth £4 million and £93,000 in her own bank, she had no motive to kill Deborah. The jury deliberated for seven hours, being asked to consider “a charge of manslaughter if she had cut off her friend's head and disposed of her body, but had not intended to kill her”, as she later claimed. On the 27th of October, Judge Richard Marks KC summed up “you have shown absolutely no remorse and you are in complete denial as to what you did, notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence. The enormity of your crime is profoundly shocking, even more so given your apparent religious devotion and that Deborah Chong was a good friend who had shown you great kindness". She was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 34 years, and won’t be eligible for parole until October 2056. Speaking outside of the court to journalists, Jemma’s mother Hillary defended her daughter by stating she was “absolutely agog” that she had been convicted with “so little forensic evidence”, and although an appeal was lodged, again citing the fact that no blood was found in Deborah’s home, again it failed. Jemma’s motive was pure greed not desperation, as with money in the bank, a home overseas, a good career she could always return to, a qualification she could easily pass, and a modest two-storey three-bedroomed house in a nice part of town, her wealth wasn’t enough for her and it drove her to kill. Now, because of her greed and selfishness, she is stuck inside the smallest room she’ll ever live in, a prison cell measuring six feet by eight, with a poor view, a lumpy bed, a snoring cell-mate, bland food, no freedom, and if she’s ever released, she’ll be the same age as Deborah when she murdered her. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
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AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster of Murder Mile UK True Crime and creator of true-crime TV series. 
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