Perth mum killer Andre Rebelo abandons appeal at the eleventh hour

Convicted mum murderer Andre Rebelo will officially spend at least the next 20 years behind bars after an application to appeal his conviction was withdrawn on Monday.

Rebelo, 30, was sentenced to a minimum of 25 years jail after being found guilty of the “deceitful”, “callous” and “violent” murder of Colleen Rebelo at her Bicton home in May 2020.

The 58-year-old’s body was discovered slumped over in her shower by her youngest son hours after Rebelo had killed her, most likely by smothering or suffocation.

The failed cryptocurrency dealer murdered his mother to get his hands on more than $1 million worth of life insurance policies he’d registered in her name, forging documents before and after her death to try and claim the funds.

He has always denied he had anything to do with her death.

An appeal filed in May last year homed in on a theory that the hot water in the shower was still running when Colleen’s body was found by her youngest son Fabian, therefore proving Rebelo could not have killed her in the time period the prosecution alleged.

His defence claimed the water would have been running cold if he had killed her earlier that day, and that Colleen must have died from a medical episode, such as cardiac arrhythmia.

The appeal focused on the testimony of Rebelo’s older brother Julian, who during his murder trial told the court their mother’s hot water system was “an older-style storage hot-water system”, which would have given “30 to 40 minutes’ continuous hot water capacity”, which the defence claimed meant her time of death would not have placed Rebelo at the scene.

Why his appeal was withdrawn on Monday has not been made clear.

Colleen, a mother of four and grandmother to Rebelo’s young son, Romeo, was found dead in the ensuite shower of her Bicton home in May 2020.

A coroner could not find a cause of death and for months there was no explanation for why the “healthy and happy” woman who regularly exercised, lived a healthy lifestyle and had so much to look forward to, could have died.

After a tip-off, police discovered three life insurance policies had been taken out in her name in the weeks before her sudden and unexplained death. Two of the policies named Rebelo as sole beneficiary and if claimed in their entirety would have left him with more than $1 million.

Prosecutors said Rebelo’s main motivation for killing his mum was to prove to his then-girlfriend that he was financially successful and that he could contribute to the relationship.

Rebelo was dating an Instagram model, Grace Piscopo, when he murdered his mother in 2020. At that time, Piscopo was making six-figure sums modelling clothing and accessories via her social media profile, a role that became a full-time business for her.

In contrast, Rebelo had dropped out of university and was driving delivery trucks for Coles before becoming a stay-at-home dad to the couple’s young son and helping Piscopo with administrative errands.

He was also attempting – and failing – to become a successful crypto-trader and promised Piscopo that he would be coming into a $500,000 windfall around the time he “hatched a plan” to kill his mother and draw down on three life insurance policies.

In April last year he was sentenced to 25 years for Colleen’s murder, the judge telling him he did it for financial reasons.

“It was a premeditated offence, a monstrous act that was integral to a fraudulent scheme in which you intended to profit on life insurance,” Supreme Court justice Bruno Fiannaca said.