Chilling second mom and her lover chuckle and joke as they wheel murdered woman’s physique round in buggy – earlier than they have been arrested days later at Wetherspoons
Disturbing footage shows an evil couple laughing and dancing as they push the body of a toddler in a pushchair.
Scott Jeff, 24, and his partner Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell concealed the death of Gleason-Mitchell’s two-year-old daughter Isabella after Jeff had battered her to death.
Jurors heard how Jeff, 24, took sick ‘gratification’ from inflicting a ‘regime of escalating brutality’ on the helpless younger, leaving her with multiple fractures and angry bruises over much of her body before she eventually died from her injuries.
Police have now released a series of video clips showing the couple before and after Isabella’s murder, for which Jeff was jailed for a minimum of 26 years today.
In earlier footage, Isabella is seen smiling as she walks on a sandy beach at Caister-on-Sea in Norfolk, before skipping along beside Jeff and her mother through a nearby holiday park.
Jeff was already abusing the youngster at this time, and 11 days later she is pictured wearing sunglasses while on a train to Ipswich in an apparent attempt to hide her injuries.
Two days after the pair arrived at temporary housing in the city, Isabella would die at Jeff’s hands. Just 30 minutes later, he and Gleason-Mitchell are captured on CCTV grinning and laughing as they leave the flat with her dead body in a pram.
The next evening, the couple are seen returning to their temporary accommodation, with Jeff dancing and Gleason-Mitchell laughing in delight as he continues to push Isabella’s body.
Scott Jeff, 24, and his partner Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell laugh as they push the body of Gleason-Mitchell’s two-year-old daughter Isabella in a pram 30 minutes after he murdered her
Two days later, they were seen at CCTV laughing and waving at a bus driver while still pushing the body around
Subsequent clips over the coming days show Gleason-Mitchell joyously downing a large glass of wine at a Wetherspoons pub in Bury St Edmunds
Isabella Wheildon had been subjected to ‘a regime of escalating brutality’ before she died in June 2023
Their joyous mood continues the following day, with the pair pictured waving at a driver after leaving a bus during a trip into Ipswich. They then skip up the stairs as they return to their accommodation.
Subsequent clips over the coming days show Gleason-Mitchell joyously downing a large glass of wine at a Wetherspoons pub in Bury St Edmunds.
They are finally arrested just after midnight after yet another alcohol-fuelled evening, with Gleason-Mitchell heard replying ‘yes’ when asked by police if she knows what she had been arrested for. No emotion is detectable in her voice.
Meanwhile, Jeff is tracked down to a pub, where he tells officers he had gone to ‘have a drink’ before ‘handing myself in tomorrow’, although he lies that he ‘didn’t murder her’.
Jeff was convicted of the girl’s murder and two counts of child cruelty last month at Ipswich Crown Court, where he tried to claim the ‘tragic event’ was the result of ‘natural causes’. Gleason-Mitchell was cleared of murder but admitted causing or allowing the death of a child and two offences of cruelty to a child.
The couple returned to the court today, where prosecutor Sally Howes KC said Jeff had gained ‘gratification’ from ‘repeatedly’ abusing his partner’s daughter.
In time, the two-year-old stopped screaming and instead bore the pain and indignities in silence. Her mother told police: ‘It’s like all of her pain went away and stopped, like she didn’t know how to cry and didn’t know what pain was anymore.’
When she finally died from complications caused by her injuries, he and Isabella’s mother coldly dumped plastic bags on her corpse as they pushed her around for three days during trips to shops and pubs.
Isabella’s body was eventually found under blankets in the shower area of the temporary accommodation the defendants had been given.
In earlier footage, Isabella is seen skipping along beside Jeff and her mother through a Norfolk holiday park
Jeff was already abusing the youngster at this time, and 11 days later she is pictured wearing sunglasses while on a train to Ipswich in an apparent attempt to hide her injuries
Gleason-Mitchell, who has been unanimously cleared by a jury, claimed that she and Jeff had gone to Bury St Edmunds ‘to try and escape what had happened’
She was seen pushing the battered body of two-year-old Isabella Wheildon in a buggy with partner Scott Jeff for three days after the little girl’s death
‘There is a degree of out-and-out cruelty and indoctrination of a child for his own ends,’ she added.
Jeff was led down to the cells after learning the minimum term for his life sentence. Gleason-Mitchell, also 24, was jailed for ten years.
Moments earlier, they had sat in the dock listening to heart-rending victim impact statements from Gleason-Mitchell’s distraught and weeping relatives.
Her mother, Ann Mitchell, revealed she had ‘resorted’ to holding lonely vigils at the crematorium where the toddler’s funeral took place, ‘making her know her nanny is here’.
Recalling the once ‘happy’ child who ‘was always singing and playing’, she added: ‘Sometimes I want to fall asleep and never wake up because when I do I remember she is not here.’
Gleason-Mitchell’s sister, Jade Anglem, said the loss had been ‘excruciatingly painful’ and she was taking anti-depressants to cope.
‘Every day has been hell. I carry around a feeling of emptiness,’ she told the court.
Thomas Wheildon, Isabella’s father, said he had been unable to work ‘as I am always tearful’ and he tried to find ‘comfort’ in referring to her in the present tense.
Reverting to the past tense for his statement, which was read out in court, he said: ‘No parent should outlive their child. Part of me died with her and it pierces my heart every day.’
Jeff beat Isabella and put her naked in cold showers as punishment if she had accidents while potty training or because he was in a mood and ‘needed some drugs’
Scott Jeff, 24, was convicted of murdering two-year-old Isabella Wheildon
Her mother, Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell coldly dumped plastic bags on her corpse as they pushed it around for three days during trips to shops and pubs
CCTV from June shows Jeff carrying Isabella, who was wearing the dark glasses he had allegedly given her to cover up her black eyes and heavy bruising
Isabella, pictured here on a swing with her mother Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell, was found dead at a homeless unit in Ipswich, Suffolk
He described the defendants as ‘two most wicked, sadistic and violent people’, adding: ‘It is difficult to comprehend how the two of you acted towards Isabella. You should have protected her.’
Isabella’s body was found under blankets in the shower area of the temporary accommodation the defendants had been given in Ipswich on June 30 last year after police were alerted by a friend Gleason-Mitchell had confided in about the death.
A post-mortem revealed she had fractures to both her wrists and a complex pelvic fracture involving several bones likely to have been caused by ‘kicking or stamping’ that were likened to injuries seen in car crashes.
There were also soft tissue injuries to her head, neck, torso, limbs and back, as well as a torn perineum, while traces of cocaine were in her blood, probably from being close to crack cocaine as it was smoked, and cannabis traces were in her hair.
Isabella’s death on June 26 was caused by an embolism in her lungs after bone marrow from her fractures seeped into her blood stream.
There were also traces of cocaine in her blood, probably from being close to crack cocaine as it was smoked, and cannabis traces in her hair.
But the couple kept her death a secret, pushing her body around in the pushchair with the hood pulled up to hide her face.
CCTV showed Jeff pushing the buggy with Gleason-Mitchell ‘smiling at his side’ as they went to a pub on June 28.
The following day, they went to Ipswich town centre on a bus before visiting shops where they bought after shave and X-Box equipment and chargers.
Miss Howes said: ‘They put their purchases in a yellow plastic bag which they put in the pushchair on top of Isabella.’
They were eventually arrested in the early hours of July 1 after they were tracked down to a Wetherspoons pub in Bury St Edmunds.
Gleason-Mitchell, a nursery nurse, told police that Jeff had ‘beaten Isabella constantly, punching and kicking her ‘from head to toe’ and smacking her with a shoe as they moved around hotel rooms and camp sites in East Anglia after leaving Bedfordshire to escape the protective gaze of her family.
The little girl was made to wear sunglasses to hide her black eyes.
Isabella’s other punishments for not learning potty training was cold showers and being force fed to the point of vomiting.
In time, the toddler stopped screaming and instead bore the pain and indignities in silence.
Her mother told police: ‘It’s like all of her pain went away and stopped, like she didn’t know how to cry and didn’t know what pain was anymore.’
Jeff pleaded not guilty to all the charges but was convicted of murder
Isabella’s body was discovered on June 30 after a friend of Gleason-Mitchell reported getting a message from her, saying that her daughter had ‘died in her sleep’
Isabella’s body was discovered at a property in Sidegate Lane, Ipswich (pictured)
Jeff, who had a record of abusive relationships and had ‘Pure Hell’ tattooed on his knuckles, blamed his partner – although the jury saw through this.
Sarah Wass KC, defending Gleason-Mitchell, said she had no previous convictions and was an exemplary mother before rekindling her relationship with ex Jeff.
She described her client as ‘easily bullied and weak and possibly not the most intelligent young lady’.
Chris Paxton KC, for Jeff, accepted there had been ‘psychological torment of Isabella’ and ‘numerous assaults leading up to her murder’.
His client was of previous good character, he added, and a young an immature 22-year-old when his victim died.
Speaking after their convictions, senior investigating officer Detective Chief Inspector Craig Powell, of Suffolk Police, said: ‘The murder of any child is, in my opinion, the worst crime imaginable.
‘When they are killed at the hands of those who were supposed to protect them and care for such a young and innocent life, it is somehow even worse.’
