New revelations in the case of a dead 58-year-old woman will shock everyone! Autopsy Australian women Colleen Rebelo horrifyingly showed that people can die of suffocation without any visible marks on their bodies or brains, writes . A pathologist testified in court regarding her mysterious murder Reimar Junckerstorff. He said he could not rule out the possibility that the mother of four died of suffocation.
Coleen Rebelo found her youngest son Fabian dead at home on May 25, 2020 when she failed to pick him up from work that day. A week before her death, her older son Andre took out three life insurance policies on her and began the process of collecting the premium claims, from which he could collect $1.15 million. The insurance company suspected it was a scam and reported it to the police.
Andre of one of the insurance companies he also submitted falsified documents, including false medical information about his mother, a false medical examiner’s report of her death and her last will and testament. He pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud in relation to forged documents. When the police discovered that he had taken out multiple life insurance policies on his mother, they accused him of murder.
Dr. Junckerstorff, who performed Ms. Rebelo’s autopsy three days after her death, testified in court. He told the court that she had bloodstains on her eyelids that would be present in asphyxiation (suffocation caused by insufficient gas exchange in the lungs)resuscitation, chest injury or strangulation. He said that spots on the eyelids appear when the nose or mouth become blocked so that a person cannot breathe.
Scans of the woman’s body showed no brain bleeding, skull fractures or skeletal injuries. He found injuries on her face and body, including bruises and abrasions on her eyebrows, along with several bruises and abrasions on her arms, shoulders and legs. When asked if the bruise on the eyebrow could have been caused by a punch, he said yes.
He suggested that the bruises on the back of Ms. Rebelo’s left hand, wrist and forearm could have been caused by violence, and the injuries around the eyebrows were consistent with a fall. “You can hit people and not bruise, it’s just less common.” he said in court.
Paramedics who were called to her home did not treat Ms Rebelo’s death as suspicious. Medical experts Dr Niall Barrett and endocrinologist Timothy Welborne testified in court and said that Mrs. Rebelo was healthy at the time of her death. Both witnesses said it was unlikely that she died suddenly or from medical conditions she was living with at the time of her death. The son pleaded not guilty to her murder.
However, Andre Rebelo was ultimately found guilty of murdering his own mother over a million-dollar life insurance policy. The nearly two-month trial in the death of Colleen Rebelo ended in early December 2024 after a jury reached a verdict.
On the Internet, the man depicted his perfect life, vacations with his girlfriend, showed expensive cars and a nice house. But in reality, the father-of-one couldn’t keep up with what prosecutors said described as his “plastic existence” while bailiffs “circled like sharks” over his $40,000 debt.
