Even after the head of 57-year-old Rita Camilleri was discovered on a footpath near her home in west Sydney on July 20, 2018, hardened police investigators were still horrified by the gruesome scene they found inside the residence.
“On the tiled floor was the body of the deceased, head decapitated, six knives broken and intact surrounding the deceased,” said Senior Constable Hayley Bennett said in a statement read to the court during the trial of the woman's daughter, Jessica Camilleri. “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.” She added that the victim's 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.” According to the coroner's report, Rita Camilleri's body showed evidence of "at least 100 stab wounds over her head” and “innumerable overlapping stab wounds associated with decapitation to the neck”.
Jessica Camilleri, 25, was reportedly covered in blood and holding a water bottle when she was taken into custody. Though she admitted killing her mother, she insisted that it was self-defense and reportedly asked police whether her mother's head could be sewn back on. In the statement she provided police, she and her mother had been arguing before the killing and she wanted to give her mother "a taste of her own medicine." When her case came to trial, she pled not guilty by reason of insanity and the court arranged for her to be assessed by forensic psychiatrist Professor David Greenberg.
In his testimony, Dr. Greenberg said that Jessica Camilleri had "multiple” psychiatric diagnoses, including an intellectual disability but experiencing any psychotic symptoms. Despite having a history of repeated hospitalizations, she was generally able to function with help from her mother who acted as her primary caregiver. According to Dr. Greenberg, the defendant described killing her mother in an “concrete, matter-of-fact tone without any emotion or emotional remorse”. During the course of his testimony, Dr. Greenberg read an account of the killing that Jessica Camilleri provided to him. In that account, she stated that "I wasn’t thinking.I was panicky, frustrated, enraged,” Believing that her mother was planning to have her re-hospitalized for inpatient treatment, she attempted to grab her mother's phone. When her mother attempted to fight back and grabbed her by the hair, she reacted violently. “I dragged mum all the way to the kitchen by the hair. I saw red. I remember pulling the knife (from a kitchen drawer). 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.” She added that she "got the idea to cut her head off from the movies” and had hoped to relieve her mother's pain as a result. Following the decapitation, she removed her mother's eyes, nose, and tongue.
The court also heard that Rita Camilleri had been overwhelmed by her daughter's special needs and had been warned by friends that Jessica was potentially violent. According to one family friends, Rita Camilleri began to believe that Jessica's illness had a supernatural cause and subsequently paid thousands of dollars to a "she-wolf" medium to "get the devil" out of her daughter, This was shortly before her death.
Friends also testified that Jessica had a fascination for horror movies with films such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Jeepers Creepers. Both films had dismemberment scenes which she particularly enjoyed. Police reported that she often paused and rewound these scenes whenever she watched the films on video. She also had a history of making graphic threats of dismemberment to people who had offended her. This included the family and staff of a random man for whom she developed a “huge crush” including threatening to “flush their heads down the toilet”
The trial is continuing.
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