‘I did those things, didn’t I?’ Court releases video of Cody Edwards arrest, interview after killing Millicent mother Synamin Bell
Court-released footage shows the terrifying moment the man who killed Synamin Bell is brought down by shocked police – later asking to play games with officers to pass the time.
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Police body-cam vision reveal the moment a killer was arrested for the death of a young mother of three, as her friends scream in grief and rage.
The court-released video also shows Cody James Edwards being spoken to by police after his arrest, revealing a confused, disorientated, impatient and bored killer who asks repeatedly if he’s going to die and later even offers to play games with officers as they wait for investigators.
Edwards, 27, bashed Synamin Bell to death in their Millicent bedroom in SA’s South-East in 2022, pleading guilty to manslaughter mid-way last month through his trial for murder – infuriating Ms Bell’s family.
In the video, released by the Supreme Court, two officers approach the blood-splattered killer as he stands in the front yard of the house across the road from where he’d just committed the brutal crime.
As they approach, the two officers shout “get on the floor” and “get on the ground” before Edwards sprawls facedown on the grass, telling the officers “I’m surrendering”.
“What’s happened?” one officer can be heard saying.
“LSD sir, f***ing LSD” Edwards responds.
As the officers are handcuffing Edwards they yell “just stay out of the house” to two of Ms Bell’s shocked, distraught friends, who had arrived after Edwards called them and can be heard crying.
On the ground below the officers, Edwards says, “I can’t believe this became real … this is like a movie”.
One of the officers then goes into the house, where he discovers Ms Bell’s body and calls it in.
“Confirmed,” he says on the police radio. “We’ve got one under arrest for murder.”
Edwards pleaded not guilty to murder, with his lawyer saying he was in a paranoid drug-induced psychosis when he bashed Ms Bell in “self-defence” with a baseball and dumbbell, also stabbed her in the lower back multiple times after she died.
Ms Bell’s family told The Advertiser Edwards’ guilty plea to manslaughter – which does not carry a minimum 20-year sentence like murder – could allow the killer to get off “with a slap on the wrist”.
After the discovery of Ms Bell’s body, Edwards is arrested and placed into a police car, as a bystander screams out, “three kids, you piece of s**t”.
He was transported to the Mount Gambier Police station where he was kept under videoed surveillance until investigators arrived, his hands cuffed and wrapped in paper bags.
In police footage of Edwards sitting in the interrogation room, he can be heard asking “this is real isn’t it?”, to which an officer in the room with him responds with “yes”.
“I did those things, didn’t I,” Edwards later says.
“What is going on?” he asks as the officers attempt to tell him his rights. “You guys having bets on which lawyer I pick or something?”
Throughout his time in custody, Edwards is at first confused and forgets his lawyer’s name, and then appears to become increasingly aware and annoyed about being recorded, asking repeatedly for the camera to be turned off.
“F*cking get some good cinematography – get your boy at his angles,” he says, lying on the table.
“I don’t want to be f**king filmed … It’s weird you guys watching me so much.”
He also repeatedly talks about dying.
“It would be so much easier if you take me back out and shoot me,” he says to the officers in the room with him.
“What happens next?” he asks, and when he’s told the officers are waiting for the investigators to arrived, he says: “Is that when I’m gonna die? … I’m starting to piece things together in my head now, you see. So I figure when the investigators get here is about … I don’t like that there’s a camera there, man.”
He then asks again if he’s “going to die after this is all over”.
“So you can at least tell me the footage on that f**king camera won’t matter,” he says.
When one of the officers tells him no, he responds with, “I’ll at least get tortured to death or something”.
“How long is this going to take man?” he eventually asks. “I don't want to be here, every time I look at that thing (the camera) it makes me feel like I’m f**king r*****d, just put me out of my misery motherf**ker.
“Do you want to play a game to pass the time or something? Rock, paper, scissors?”
Edwards is set to appear in court in September for sentencing submissions.
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Originally published as ‘I did those things, didn’t I?’ Court releases video of Cody Edwards arrest, interview after killing Millicent mother Synamin Bell
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