‘Nose under fridge, eyeballs on tiles, tongue to the right’: cop describes horrific crime scene
Jessica Camilleri described the frenzied attack in which she stabbed and beheaded her own mother to a doctor, a court heard today WARNING: Graphic.
WARNING: Graphic.
Jessica Camilleri described the frenzied attack in which she stabbed and beheaded her own mother to a doctor, a court heard today.
The gruesome account was read out in court by forensic psychiatrist Professor David Greenberg, who examined Ms Camilleri twice earlier this year.
The 27-year-old accused has pleaded not guilty by way of mental illness to the alleged murder of her mother Rita Camilleri at their St Clair home in western Sydney on July 20, 2019.
Professor Greenberg said Ms Camilleri had described killing her mother in a “concrete, matter-of-fact tone without any emotion or emotional remorse”.
On the evening, the accused had been alarmed that her mother intended returning her to a mental health institution for inpatient treatment, and after a dinner of Red Rooster had grabbed her mother’s phone.
“I wasn’t thinking.I was panicky, frustrated, enraged,” Ms Camilleri told Prof Greenberg in the account he read to the jury at the trial before Justice Helen Wilson.
“Mum was slapping me, she grabbed me by the hair, I grabbed mum.
“I dragged mum all the way to the kitchen by the hair. I saw red.
“I remember pulling the knife. I wanted to scare her at first. Mum ... got the knife off me and chucked it away.
“I was so agitated, I lost it. I was stabbing her ... I was so angry. I think I had sick thoughts.
“I got it off horror movies ... Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Jeepers Creepers and Saw.
“I remember stabbing my mum, I wouldn’t stop, was getting her everywhere.
“I was getting the adrenaline going.”
Ms Camilleri said she “got the idea to cut her head off from the movies” and thought it might relieve her mother’s pain.
Although the detail about the nose contradicts what forensic pathologist Dr Jennifer Pokorny found in her autopsy of Rita Camilleri, she did find the 57-year-old had suffered monumental injuries.
Dr Pokorny told the court that Rita had sustained “innumerable. at least 100 stab wounds over her head” and “innumerable overlapping stab wounds associated with decapitation to the neck”.
She had died from “multiple stab wounds with decapitation” at the C2 vertebra at the top of her neck.
Professor Greenberg said that at the time of her mother’s death, Rita had been the “only real support” for Jessica, who “had no friends”.
He found Jessica Camilleri had “multiple” psychiatric diagnoses, but despite an intellectual disability, was relatively eloquent.
He said she was assertive in getting her needs met despite low self-esteem, and unlike some with autism, had good eye contact and engagement, although with a tendency to talk in a monologue.
He said she had denied any psychotic symptoms of auditory or visual hallucinations, paranoia, the belief she was being talked about on TV, or grandiosity, that she was the queen or someone superior.
On Thursday, crime scene expert Senior Constable Hayley Bennett was telling the trial of Jessica Camilleri about the crime scene inside the home and in particular the blood-soaked kitchen of the accused’s mother, Rita Camilleri.
Sen Con Bennett, from the NSW Police Sydney Crime Scene unit, was attending 128 St Clair Avenue, St Clair, in western Sydney with fellow officers.
Jessica Camilleri, 27, has pleaded not guilty by way of mental illness to the alleged murder of her mother on July 20, 2019.
“On the tiled floor was the body of the deceased, head decapitated, six knives broken and intact surrounding the deceased,” Sen Con Bennett said in a statement read to the court.
“To the right was a human tongue, further to right under the fridge was a piece of skin I believed to be a human nose.
“The head … had numerous jagged and penetrating wounds exposing the cervical spine.
“Human eyeballs were on the tiles under the deceased’s neck.”
Rita Camilleri’s headless body was lying in a kitchen with a horseshoe shaped benchtop, with blood on all the benchtops, the fridge and the pantry, which held the knife drawer.
Her body was “in a prone position on floor, feet pointing towards the oven area, the legs were straight with the soles of the feet facing upward and a clump of dark hair on the right foot.
“The injuries on the right hand and wrist were defensive wounds; the left arm was bent at the elbow and the left hand resting on her neck area.”
Mrs Camilleri wore pyjama pants and a light pink top almost completely covered in blood, and apart from a superficial stab wound to the groin, almost all her injuries were above the waist.
She had numerous silver bangles on both wrists and a pair of earrings lay on the floor at the scene.
When Sen Con Bennett examined the severed head – which the court heard earlier Jessica Camilleri had dropped on the footpath outside – she found “eyes, nose and tongue removed”.
Injuries to both earlobes indicated the “earrings most likely were removed with force”.
When Sen Con Bennett examined the living room and a bedroom in the house she found blood-soaked hair, human tissue, pools of vomit, overlapping blood-soaked footprints, plus a Crocodile Dundee figurine, the head detached.
Detective Sergeant Brett Griffin, who examined the crime scene between 12.42am and 7am on Sunday July 21, told the court that out on the footpath in front of the neighbour’s house he found Rita Camilleri’s mutilated head.
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“I saw an area of apparent bloodstaining and human tissue,” he said.
“A short distance away I saw a human head with numerous injuries including a severed nose, removed eyes and numerous groupings of apparent lacerations and incised stab wounds.”
Detective Griffin said a collection of blood and human tissue about 1.2m from the head indicated that it was “dropped or placed and then moved to its final position”.
The court also heard on Thursday that Jessica Camilleri had threatened to behead the family and staff of a random man she developed a “huge crush” on and “flush their heads down the toilet”, a court has heard.
Ms Camilleri made the threats after targeting a Victorian meat company owner with hundreds of calls a day, telling one female relative she would “cut their head off with a chainsaw”.
The campaign of threats, which happened up to two years before she allegedly beheading her mother, went from staff members to the man’s Facebook friends, the NSW Supreme Court was told.
A statement by the beef producer was read out at the trial of Ms Camilleri, 27, who has pleaded not guilty by way of mental illness to the alleged murder of her mother Rita in July 2019.
Ms Camilleri allegedly made the threats to the relatives and staff of Matthew Layfield, 33, whose family company Highland Meats in based Daylesford, in country Victoria.
The phone calls started with one to Mr Layfield’s employee, Joe, from a woman identifying herself as Jessica.
The court heard she told Joe “you are going to die of f***ing cancer and if not I will stab you until you die motherf***er”.
Mr Layfield said, in his statement read out in court by Detective Sergeant Grant Gilbert, that “upwards of 100 calls” followed the first and went unanswered.
Further phone calls from the same number ensued and the beef company’s staff members whose names were on its website were “relentlessly targeted”.
If the call was answered, Ms Camilleri would apologise and explain she wasn’t well, but when an attempt to end the conversation was made, “she would attempt to keep you longer and it would turn ugly”.
“She would threaten ‘I will stab you and cut your head off with a knife’. It would always end that way, no matter who she was talking to’, “ Mr Layfield said.
After about two months, Mr Layfield spoke with Rita Camilleri who “asked for our forgiveness, saying she was trying to deal with it”.
After a two week hiatus, the calls started up again. when Rita said she had confiscated Jessica’s phone.
Jessica subsequently began targeting people on Mr Layfield’s Facebook page, his wife, brother-in-law, sister-in-law and friends.
He said his wife had received “the same threat of having her head cut off and flushed down the toilet”, while his sister-in-law’s was similar, but included a chainsaw.
When Mr Layfield contacted Rita Camilleri again and said ‘this is getting out of hand and something needed to happen”, she told him Jessica had seen his “picture and had developed a huge crush on me”.
Anytime she would hear Mr Layfield on the phone “it would send her crazy”.
The last phone calls to his friends or staff were on Anzac Day 2019, the last time Mr Layfield spoke with Rita who told she “I am at my wit’s end and don’t know what to do”.
The court heard that on a police bodycam recording at the scene, Ms Camilleri said that she had acted in self defence after her mother “dragged me by the hair and dragged me from the bedroom”.
“In self defence I grabbed a knife. Listen, does this happen all the time?
“Will I be locked up for the rest of my life?”
On the recording, Ms Camilleri can be heard saying: “My mum’s head is on the concrete over there.
“Can you bring someone back to life if they don’t have a head? Can you bring her back to life?”
She continues: “Can I ask you, did they find the head? Has she gone, you just can’t bring her back?
“There’s nothing you can do, she’s a gonner? They can’t restart her heart? ‘Cos I know doctors can do miracles they can’t resew her head?”
Police officer: “That’s a bit of a stretch.”
Defence counsel Nathan Steel asked the jury on the first day of the trial to put emotion and sympathy to one side and decide the case based on the evidence.
“Due to the effects of her mental conditions, she had an impaired capacity at the time of the events,” he said.
The court heard evidence from Jessica’s sister, Kristi Torrisi, who agreed that the accused had been diagnosed with disorders including dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and had been bullied by other students at school.
The trial is expected to finish early next week.