KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 28 — A London court found Jemma Mitchell, 38, guilty of murdering and decapitating a Malaysian-born British resident Deborah Chong Mee Kuen, 67, over a financial dispute.

In a statement, the London Metropolitan Police said that Chong and Mitchell became friends in a church group, and the former had agreed to lend Mitchell £200,000 (RM1,093,000) for her house renovation but changed her mind at some point.

The decision eventually led to their fallout and the subsequent murder.

The London police authority reported that Chong’s decapitated body was found in Devon (320km away from her London residence) on June 27 and her head was found a few metres away.

A post-mortem examination showed that Chong had suffered a skull fracture consistent with an assault and police suspected Mitchell, who worked as an osteopath and have experience in dissection, had removed her head.

Mitchell was arrested at her home on July 6 and charged with Chong’s murder on July 9.

The police later found out that Mitchell had also made a false report to a missing person charity and Chong’s lodger saying she had gone to spend time with her family for a year "somewhere near the sea" after the murder.

They also found in Mitchell’s residence that she had forged a fraudulent copy of Chong’s will, stating that 95 per cent of her estate was to be left to her name, along with other possessions belonging to Chong.

"Deborah Chong was a vulnerable lady — in the weeks before her murder, she was seeking help for her declining mental health.

"However, Mitchell — so desperate to obtain the money she needed to complete the renovations on her house — sought to take advantage of Deborah’s goodwill, but when Deborah changed her mind, she callously murdered her and embarked upon an attempt to fraudulently obtain her estate.

"Over the course of two weeks following Deborah’s murder we can only speculate as to what Mitchell did with the body and what her wider plan was.

"However, what is clear is that Mitchell — seeing her chance to obtain the funds she so desperately desired disappear — decided to attack and murder a vulnerable lady for her own gain in a truly despicable crime,” said Detective Chief Inspector Jim Eastwood who led the investigation.