A 29-year-old man who was found guilty of killing his mother in order to claim millions in life insurance has outlined plans to appeal his conviction.
In December, Perth man Andre Rebelo was sentenced to life in prison with a 25-year minimum after a jury in WA Supreme Court found him guilty of killing his mother, Colleen Rebelo, so he could pocket the life insurance policies he had taken out in her name the week before her death.
The court heard Rebelo made himself the sole beneficiary of the policies, worth over $1 million, with investigators first raising suspicions when an insurance company employee reported him for actively pursuing the claims just three days after her death.
Rebelo — a cryptocurrency trader who was said to be in debt at the time of his mother’s death — was also found to have provided phony documents to the insurer, including a fake coroner’s report, a false medical report and a forged copy of her last will and testament.
Rebelo’s former partner is model and influencer Gracie Piscopo, though she is not accused of any wrongdoing.
Colleen was found in the shower with the water still running at the time of her death. No exact cause of death was ascertained, but the judge found that Rebelo used “personal violence” to kill her.
Rebelo pleaded guilty to the fraud charges but denied he killed his mother. Now, he’s lodged an appeal in the WA Court of Appeal.
Per WA Today, the appeal was lodged on the basis of a theory that Rebelo could not have killed his mother because of the water system of their house, located in Bicton.
Rebelo’s older brother, Julian, testified during the trial that their mother’s system was “an older style storage hot water system”, which would have given “30 to 40 minutes’ continuous hot water capacity”.
This testimony, according to the Rebelo’s lawyers, would make it impossible for him to have killed Colleen in the time period alleged by the prosecution.
“In the absence of some other person entering the dwelling, the only person who could have turned on the hot water in the shower was Ms Rebelo herself,” the appeal read.
“That would leave an event such as a cardia arrhythmia or an anaphylactic episode (or similar) as the only plausible cause of death,” it continued.
The appeal came after the judge in the case, Justice Robert Mazza, set a deadline for appeal documents to be filed by September 25.
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