Andre Rebelo will spend the next 25 years behind bars for the “deceitful”, “callous” and “violent” premeditated murder of his mother, Colleen Rebelo, for money.
The 29-year-old was sentenced on Tuesday in the Supreme Court of WA, his father looking on from the gallery while Rebelo’s three siblings and Colleen’s sisters listened to the proceedings via an audio link.
Colleen Rebelo was killed by her son Andre because he wanted to claim on her life insurance.
Rebelo showed no emotion as he learned his fate and has continued to deny he was responsible for his mother’s sudden and unexplained death after she was found slumped over naked in the shower of her home in Bicton, a riverside Perth suburb, almost five years ago.
How he killed her will never be known, Justice Bruno Fiannaca told the court, but said he was “satisfied” that Rebelo used “personal violence” to kill 58-year-old Colleen, taking her “by surprise”, stating that there was evidence that she was smothered despite a coroner failing to find an exact cause of death.
“It doesn’t make a great deal of difference if you removed her clothes beforehand or not,” he said.
“It was still a gross violation of her dignity.”
Whether he had gone to her home on May 25, 2020 specifically to kill her was also unknown, Fiannaca said, but he stated that he had already determined that Rebelo had been hatching a plan to kill Colleen and cash in her life insurance policies for months in advance. He claimed Rebelo could have just taken the opportunity to kill her on that date when he found her home alone.
“You killed her for a financial motive,” Fiannaca said.
“It was a premeditated offence, a monstrous act that was integral to a fraudulent scheme in which you intended to profit on life insurance.”
Fiannaca called Rebelo’s actions “an incomprehensible betrayal”, stating that Colleen was “a devoted mother to her children and her only grandchild, your son”.
Fiannaca then spoke about Rebelo’s conduct after the murder, covering his tracks with “calculated” text messages to his brother and a message to his mum, shortly after he killed her, asking if she would watch his young son the following day.
The Rebelo family (from left): Monique, Andre with then-girlfriend Gracie Piscopo, Fabian and Colleen Rebelo.
He described Rebelo as “deceitful” and “not a credible witness”, stating that in his view the 29-year-old appeared “argumentative” and “evasive” while on the witness stand giving evidence during his trial in November last year.
Fiannaca then described Rebelo’s life with his then-girlfriend, Instagram model Grace Piscopo, and the “carefully curated image” they both portrayed through social media channels.
“The reality was in the months leading up to [the death in] May 2020, you and Ms Piscopo were in significant debt,” Fiannaca said.
He told the court that despite living a lavish lifestyle with an expensive home, flashy car and luxury holidays, the couple had combined debt of over $100,000.
Fiannaca said that in his view it was this, together with pressure to contribute to the relationship financially, after he failed at becoming a cryptocurrency trader, that drove him to commit the “heinous” crime of murder.
“You acted out of feelings of inadequacy – feeling subservient in your relationship,” he said.
“The evidence supports that you wanted to project the image of a successful investor, and you wanted to contribute – to overcome the financial difficulties you found yourself in.
“So you formulated a plan to take out multiple life insurance policies in your mother’s name, murder her, and claim on those policies.”
Andre Rebelo with his then girlfriend Grace Piscopo.Credit: Instagram
It was his “persistent” and “swift” determination to cash in the life insurance policies just three days after his mum’s death that led to police involvement, Fiannaca said.
Rebelo was first arrested on charges of uttering a forged document after police realised he had sent the insurance companies a fake will, a fake coroner’s report, two fake medical documents and created a fake voicemail purporting to be his mother’s psychologist.
It took two more years for him to be charged with her murder.
“Matricide is a crime of particularly shocking nature,” Fiannaca told Rebelo during his sentencing.
“It is a crime that right-minded people would regard with horror.
“Murdering your mother was the ultimate betrayal of her trust and everything she had done since she gave birth to you.”
Rebelo’s twin sister Monique sent the court a victim impact statement speaking of the toll the crime has had on her personally. She described her mother as “always putting her children’s needs above her own” and said “you would never have known we were raised by just one person”.
“Words cannot fathom the emotional impact the last four years has had,” she said.
She spoke of the “heartbreak” of losing her mum, her “best friend”.
“She was the most devoted, caring and loving person,” her statement said.
Fiannaca told Rebelo killing his mother in her own home was a “desecration of the place where she had raised you, a place regarded as the family home” and spoke of Colleen’s hopes for a brighter future as she had recently been appointed to the Medical Board of WA after completing seven years at university.
“You knew that this was what you would be destroying,” he said.
“But you proceeded with callous disregard.”
Rebelo received a combined sentence of 13½ years for the fraud charges but will serve that at the same time as his sentence for murder. He will be eligible for parole when he is 51 years old.
Outside court, Rebelo’s father Antonio de Horta Rebelo said he still supported his son, adding “we don’t really know what happened to his mum”.
“It’s very sad for everyone, all the families involved,” he said, adding that despite his son being convicted of murder, he didn’t believe you could “rely” on a jury.
He also said Fiannaca was “entitled to his opinion” and said his son was “coping as best he can” in prison, and he was a regular visitor.
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