Chilling footage has emerged of the moment a convicted killer broke down as she lead detectives through the home where she stabbed her own mother.
Isabela Carolina Camelo-Gomez appeared pale and shaken in footage of a crime scene ‘walk-through’ at her mother’s Lansvale home in November 2001.
The now 47-year-old had evaded justice for over two decades but on Wednesday was found guilty of stabbing her mother Irene Jones, 67, to death.
‘I don’t understand, I didn’t do it,’ a shell-shocked Ms Camelo-Gomez was heard saying to her legal council in the NSW Supreme Court.
In the video Camelo-Gomez, then known as Megan Jones, (pictured) holds the hand of an unidentified woman as she stands outside her mother’s home in Sydney’s southwest
She hadn’t been charged until 2019 when the case was re-investigated by the Unsolved Homicide Unit, where it was determined she had staged a break-in.
In the video Camelo-Gomez, then known as Megan Jones, holds the hand of an unidentified woman as she stands outside the home in Sydney’s southwest.
Wearing blue jeans, a striped jumper, and her long raven tresses loose on her back, she shuffles through the house in an almost catatonic state.
‘For mum,’ she repeats to the woman, who agrees Megan is doing the walk-through with detectives in the best interests of her dead mother.
As she enters the bathroom she breaks down in tears.
The other woman is forced to hold Megan upright as she sinks to her knees, while a detective warns the bathroom floor is wet and tries and calm her down.
‘He was here,’ she says quietly, just seconds before the wind blows a creaky door open and causes her to panic.
‘That’s just the wind,’ a man tells her. ‘There’s no one here, except us.’
Wearing blue jeans, a striped jumper, and her long raven tresses loose on her back, Megan Jones shuffles through the house in an almost catatonic state
The now-47-year-old had evaded justice for over two decades but on Wednesday was found guilty of stabbing her mother Irene Jones, 67, (pictured) to death
The next clip shows a slightly more presentable Megan seated on a lounge.
‘I just remember him standing on my mattress with his hands like this. Half hidden,’ she says while pushing her own hands down by her sides.
‘And that’s the only image I keep seeing.’
Police concluded the 47-year-old had lied about the intruder and instead fatally stabbed her elderly mother, staged the break-in and fled the scene.
READ RELATED: CRAIG BROWN: Why doesn’t this collection of whodunnits tell us anything about the authors?
In two triple-zero calls she asks first responders to hurry as her mother is trapped inside the home and she is unsure if an intruder is inside.
She told neighbours she had exited the shower to be met with a man with a stocking over his face, who tried to strangle her.
‘He got me by the throat and I couldn’t breathe,’ Camelo-Gomez said in her November 4, 2001 interview.
Isabela Carolina Camelo-Gomez (pictured leaving the Supreme Court of NSW) found guilty of murdering her mother two decades ago has wiped away tears as she continued to deny strangling and stabbing the older woman to death
Following a week of deliberation, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of guilty.
The jury had been told the woman killed her mother because of her infatuation and obsession with a man named Carlos Camelo-Gomez.
She believed her mother was an obstacle to the relationship because she didn’t approve of Carlos and believed he was using her daughter for money.
On the evening of November 2, 2001 the pair drove home together after a belated birthday dinner for Ms Jones.
Camelo-Gomez then strangled her mother with a ligature and stabbed her in the neck before scattering various items around the house to make it look like the work of a random intruder.
That night the distraught woman was found wearing blood-stained clothing, and semen of Carlos Camelo-Gomez, who she claimed she was not in a sexual relationship with at the time.
Later she was heard saying ‘sorry mum, I didn’t mean for it to go this far’ while standing near the coffin at the funeral.
Camelo-Gomez had a ‘sham marriage’ with Carlos’ brother Cesar in Colombia to secure his residency in Australia.
Later she was heard saying ‘sorry mum, I didn’t mean for it to go this far’ while standing near the coffin at the funeral (Ms Camelo-Gomez is above)
This was an attempt to please Carlos, who she also wanted to continue financially supporting after inheriting her mother’s house.
The Crown said that by mid-2000 she was in love with him, telling a friend ‘she wanted to marry him and had never met anyone like him’.
She visited a bridal shop and paid a deposit and made payments on a wedding dress.
Sergeant John Purcell told the jury Ms Jones was found in the kitchen in a pool of her own blood with her throat sliced open.
Camelo-Gomez was taken into custody following the verdict and will return to court in August ahead of her final sentencing.
Source:
