By Rebecca Peppiatt
Andre Rebelo has detailed the last moments he spent with his mum on the morning she died in her Bicton home four years ago.
Rebelo, who is giving evidence at his murder trial in the WA Supreme Court, has told the jury he spent roughly 45 minutes with the 58-year-old, where they had a coffee, discussed gardening and his young son, and spoke about three life insurance policies he claims he took out with her knowledge just days before.
Andre and Colleen Rebelo.
The 28-year-old is accused of killing Colleen Rebelo during the same timeframe, then placing her body in her shower to make it look like she had died of natural causes. He denies the accusation.
He has admitted taking out three life insurance policies in her name – which he claims she was aware of – and then forging documents to cash in one of those polices shortly after her death.
On Tuesday, Rebelo told the jury he brought up the topic of the life insurance policies after arriving at his mother’s Preston Point Road house about 10.45am on May 25, 2020.
“I said, ‘I’ve done them but not in the way you want them – the $1.5 million that you wanted is not doable because of your age. I had to take out three separate policies instead’.”
Rebelo claims he told his mum he would print out the policy information for her and then give them to her “the next time I was at the house”.
He told the jury he left the home at 11.30am saying, “love you, see you”, before getting into his car and driving back to his Beaconsfield home.
But he never did see his mother again. A few hours later, Rebelo’s younger brother Fabian found Ms Rebelo slumped over in the shower. A coroner has failed to find a cause of death.
During his testimony on Tuesday, Rebelo also said he assumed his mother had taken her own life and that he rushed through life insurance claims – and in the process forged documents such as his mum’s will and a coroner’s report – because he was worried her official cause of death would be recorded as suicide, which would void the payments.
Andre Rebelo with former girlfriend Grace Piscopo.Credit: Instagram
The former Christian Brothers College Fremantle student, who studied construction management at Curtin University before he deferred his studies to work on then-girlfriend Grace Piscopo’s Instagram modelling business, also claimed his mother was pressuring him to take out the insurance policies in the weeks before her death.
He also claimed he put his own address – and not his mum’s – on some of the insurance application forms because he was sleep-deprived from being stay-at-home dad to his one-year-old son, Romeo.
Rebelo told the jury he made “silly mistakes” when setting up the policies, and claimed he set up the premium repayments to come from his own bank account because he didn’t want to disturb his mother for bank details and admit to her he hadn’t set up the policies yet.
“She was previously upset I hadn’t set it up – she was more than a bit annoyed,” he said.
“Why are you nominated as the sole beneficiary?” Rebelo’s barrister Anthony Elliot asked him.
“I was rushing through the form ... the 100 per cent comes up automatically, and I assumed you needed to put one person down from the family,” Rebelo replied.
“Did you discuss with your mother details about who should benefit from the policies?” Elliot asked.
“No it was just assumed that all the kids would,” Rebelo replied.
The court has previously heard Rebelo was in debt and being hounded by collection agencies at the time his mother died.
Asked why she wanted her son’s help to create the policies in the first place, Rebelo said she was contemplating her own mortality in the midst of the COVID pandemic, and reflecting upon a history of bowel cancer in the family.
Rebelo also gave evidence that his mum asked him specifically for help because she “did not want to bother” his older brother Julian, and claimed he did not tell his siblings about the policies because the conversation “never came up in that time frame”.
On Tuesday, a series of text messages between Rebelo and his mother in the days before her death were shown to the jury revealing arrangements between them about babysitting Rebelo’s young son Romeo and plans for a birthday catch-up, but no evidence of discussions about the policies that he testified they had face-to-face on multiple occasions in the month leading up to her death.
Rebelo said he was at his mother’s Bicton home on the morning she died to drop off a bag of clothes for his younger brother Fabian, but left after noticing a series of missed calls and angry text messages from Piscopo.
On Tuesday, he also claimed he created a Gmail account for his mother in the weeks before her death, with her knowledge, testifying that he spoke with her about switching formats because he believed it would be more “user-friendly” to help her get a job.
Rebelo then admitted he used that email account to communicate with insurance companies about claiming on the policies after her death.
The trial continues.
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