Andre Rebelo, the former partner of Instagram model Grace Piscopo, has been found guilty of murdering his mother.
Rebelo, 28, showed no emotion on Thursday when a jury delivered its verdict after two days of deliberation.
Andre and Colleen Rebelo.
The outcome is a win for prosecutors who brought forward a mountain of circumstantial evidence against the self-styled crypto-trader that they said amounted to a motive for wanting his mother dead.
Colleen Rebelo was found by her youngest son deceased in her shower on May 25, 2020. She was a “healthy and happy” 58-year-old, prosecutors said, who could not have died of natural causes or suicide.
A coroner failed to find a definitive cause of death, but they did suggest she could have been asphyxiated.
Suspicions were raised after police were alerted by a pyschologist and an insurance company that Rebelo was trying to make a claim on a life insurance policy worth $500,000 taken out in Colleen’s name days before her death.
They then investigated the matter and realised Rebelo was the one who created the policies. Her life was insured for $1.15 million across three separate policies, of which he was the beneficiary of two.
Further investigations revealed Rebelo was struggling financially and at the time being hounded by debt collectors. He and his then-girlfriend were publicly living a lifestyle many would envy as social media posts showed them taking lavish holidays, living in a luxe home and driving expensive cars.
In reality, they were living on credit, and this is partly what led Rebelo to initiate a plan to take out life insurance policies in his mother’s name and then kill her to get access to the money, the court heard.
During the eight-week trial the jury heard evidence from Rebelo’s twin sister as well as his two brothers. They told the court they knew nothing of the insurance policies taken out for their mother either before or after her death.
Piscopo, who boasts more than a million followers online, also made a star appearance in the trial in defence of her now ex-partner. She told the jury Rebelo had told her he was at his mother’s house on the morning of her death, but secretly taped conversations between them months after the incident seemed to suggest otherwise.
She was accused of lying for him.
Rebelo will be sentenced next year.