Sister of woman who beheaded their mother will never forgive her
The sister of a woman who decapitated their mother in her western Sydney home says she will never forgive her, as audio of the Triple Zero call made in the moments after the attack was made public.
Jessica Camilleri faced a sentence hearing in the Supreme Court today after she was found guilty of the manslaughter of her mother Rita in St Clair in 2019.
Audio of an emergency call Ms Camilleri made after fatally stabbing her mother was released today.
She can be heard telling the operator she needs police and an ambulance, and saying she killed her mother “in self-defence”.
“In the frustration I didn’t know what I was doing, I cut her head off,” she said.
“I chopped her head off with a knife.”
She did not react as her sister Kristy Torrisi delivered her powerful victim impact statement.
“My mother was taken from me by the selfish hands of my own sister,” Ms Torrisi said.
“She was killed and butchered like she was nothing, all because of a fit of rage.”
Ms Torrisi told the court they had tried to help Ms Camilleri with her various mental health issues for many years.
“She preferred the attention her behaviour attracted instead,” she said.
“It was her own choices in refusing the help that led her here.
“My mother Rita Camilleri was a beautiful woman inside and out, she had a heart of gold and always put others before herself including Jessica.”
She also detailed her battle with depression and the difficulties of dealing with the outside world.
“I have been labelled that girl, the girl whose mother got beheaded,” Ms Torrisi said.
Ms Camilleri had history of making prank phone calls and threatening to cut people’s heads off before the killing.
She was also obsessed with horror movies which included The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Her trial was told an argument broke out when Mrs Camilleri threatened to send her daughter to a mental health unit because she’d had enough.
“I couldn’t stop because I had enough of living like his always being belt up when I did something wrong,” Ms Camilleri later told police.
She had stabbed her mother more than 200 times.
Mrs Camilleri’s sister Mary Hill told the court today she had raised concerns about her sister’s safety on several occasions.
“She was blinded and couldn’t see what I could see… Rita was a testament to a mother’s unconditional love for her daughter,” Ms Hill said.
She also hit out at the mental health system for failing the family.
“Until more resources and funding put towards essential mental health services, there will be more tragic cases,” Ms Hill said.
