‘Mum’s head is on the path over there’: Court hears wild police bodycam recording

Jessica Camilleri’s trial for her mother’s alleged decapitation murder has heard a tape where she asks if her mum’s head can be sewn back on. WARNING: Graphic.

Crime scene at St Clair after the decapitated head of Rita Camilleri was found on the footpath near her home in July 2019. Picture: David Swift

WARNING: Graphic.

The trial of Jessica Camilleri for her mother’s alleged beheading murder has heard a wild police recording in which she is heard to say, “Mum’s head is on the path,” and asks if it can be sewn back on.

Ms Camilleri then appears to tell officers how she “chopped her head off with a knife” and then asks them continually if the head can be sewn back on, or some miracle worked to bring her mother back to life, the court heard.

The trial has also been played a police interview with the accused who said of her mother, “half her nose fell off in the struggle” and when she left the scene, she had two mobile phones in her left hand and her mother’s head in the other.

The recordings were played at the trial of Ms Camilleri, 27, who has pleaded not guilty by way of mental illness to the alleged decapitation murder of Rita Camilleri in July 2019.

Recorded at the next-door neighbour’s house where Jessica, covered in blood, allegedly deposited her mother’s head, it features the accused chatting continually with police.

Senior Constable Anthony D’Agostino, who was first on the scene, recorded the conversation on his police bodycam.

He described Ms Camilleri as dressed “in a blue dress with flowers on it, covered in blood from head to toe, carrying a mobile phone and a bottle of water”.

The phone, which was on speaker, had blood on the screen. He pressed record on his bodycam at 11.43pm on July 20, 2019.

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?

“It was like from the neck and the back of my neck … are you sure you won’t be able to bring her back to life?”

When one officer tell her no, she continues, “Can I ask you is my mum dead? You just can’t bring her back to life?

“Did you find it? … it’s on the path.

“I won’t get the death penalty or anything?”

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.”

Ms Camilleri: “The nurses can’t do a miracle and bring her back? I think her eyes and her tongue came out.

“I thought doctors can do miracle surgeries and put the head back on. No?”

Jessica Camilleri has pleaded not guilty to the alleged murder of her mother due to mental illness.

Rita Camilleri, 57, who was found decapitated at her St Clair home in July 2019.

Rita Camilleri’s daughter Kristi Torrisi, sister of the accused, testified about Jessica’s troubled childhood. Picture: Dylan Coker/NewsWire

The court heard on the recording Ms Camilleri also telling uniformed officers on the scene, and then detectives, that she 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?

“I have a history of mental illness. Everyone in my family has had enough of me.”

The recording from the police bodycam by a first responding officer was played on day two of Ms Camilleri’s trial.

In Ms Camilleri’s official police interview the morning after the struggle with her mother, she described “ramming the knife into her, boom, boom, boom, boom boom”.

“I wanted to give her a taste of her own medicine, but not to kill her … but it quickly got out of hand,” Ms Camilleri told officers at St Marys Police Station.

“A bit of her nose, or half of her nose fell off in the struggle.

“I couldn’t stop myself … the only time I could stop myself was when her head came off.

“When my mum’s head came off, I didn’t think to put it into a bag.

“ I had my mum’s phone and my phone in my left hand, I was carrying my mum’s head in my other hand.

“It slipped out of my hand. I couldn’t pick it up, the head just remained on my neighbour’s footpath.”

The court also heard a triple-0 recording of calls by both Ms Camilleri and the neighbour whose house Mrs Camilleri’s head was left outside, Kuldeep Matharu.

In a second triple-0 call by Ms Camilleri at the house of the neighbour on the other side of Rita Camilleri’s home, she asks police and ambulance to attend for “a life or death situation”.

“My mother tied to stab me,” she says, “in self defence I think I killed her. My mum’s dead I think.

“I was so heated I kept stabbing her. I took off her head.

“I had my mum’s head in my hand. I took it as evidence.

“I know this sounds insane.”

The trial by jury, before Justice Helen Wilson, earlier heard that Ms Camilleri, then 25, had stabbed her mother more than 100 times, later saying: “I kept stabbing and stabbing and stabbing her; I took off her head.”

The court heard Rita Camilleri, 57, had been the sole carer of her mentally ill daughter.

The jury was told it is not contested that Ms Camilleri did physically carry out the acts upon her mother, but it is the defence case that psychiatric illness caused a substantial impairment upon her mind at the time.

Crown prosecutor Tony McCarthy said in his opening address that Jessica Camilleri “had a lengthy history of assaulting people” and her mother Rita had become “overly protective and defensive” in her role as carer of her daughter.

Jessica had harassed or threatened family members, as well as random people over the phone including threats to cut off people’s heads with a knife, he told the jury.

The accused was also a fan of horror movies, with her favourite film being The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the court heard.

“A feature of these movies was killing people violently and dismembering their bodies,” Mr McCarthy said.

The court heard Ms Camilleri’s diagnoses included dyslexia, ADHD, a “mild to moderate” intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder.

Jessica Camilleri, now aged 27, is on trial for the alleged murder of her mother whose dismembered body was found at her home last year.

Crime scene at St Clair after the decapitated head of Rita Camilleri was found on the footpath near her home in July 2019. Picture: David Swift

In a subsequent police interview, the court heard, Ms Camilleri alleged there had been an argument and then she had stabbed her mother an estimated 85 times.

“The accused said she wanted to give the deceased a taste of her own medicine,” he said.

Defence counsel Nathan Steel asked the jury 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.

When the girls’ father was no longer living with the family, Jessica’s behaviour worsened because “Dad had control over her and discipline” and that was no longer there, the court heard.

The trial is expected to continue for five days.

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