Andre Rebelo: Failed Perth crypto-trader convicted of murdering his mum gives new theory on how she died

A failed crypto-trader found guilty of killing his mother in her Bicton home for $1.15 million in life insurance has a new bombshell theory on how she died. The alternative scenario was put forward by Andre Zachary Rebelo’s lawyer Anthony Elliott on Friday as he secured a fifth time extension for an appeal against his client’s conviction in WA’s highest court. The 29-year-old was convicted a year ago of murdering Colleen Rebelo and he was in April sentenced to at least 25 years behind bars. The reason the 58-year-old died has never been pinpointed. But it emerged in September that her older sister had lived with the heart condition atrial fibrillation her whole life, Mr Elliott told Court of Appeal Justice Robert Mazza on Friday. Mr Elliott is now gathering evidence to see if Ms Rebelo was “herself susceptible to a cardiac event”. The lawyer told the judge how an expert testified at his client’s trial that cardiac arrhythmia could have caused the mother-of-four’s death. Mr Elliott said he hoped to gather evidence from the sister, including medical records from the late 1950s, to secure a fresh expert opinion that could “elevate possibility to a higher level of probability”. “I need to know more . . . in order that I can give the doctor a better foundation to express an opinion,” he said. “When I saw this, I thought ‘this is really going to change the way that I present the argument’.” Justice Mazza granted the further extension to January 15 “with some reluctance” as the appeal was taking too long, having been on foot since April. “This is all quite speculative at the moment,” the judge said. “I really expect some progress.” Justice Mazza said the grounds contained in the draft appeal notice, revealed in September, could alone be pursued even before the potential fresh evidence emerged. That was based on an argument Rebelo could not have been at the home when his mum collapsed in the shower. Mobile phone tower records put him in the area between 10.33am and 11.40am. And when his younger brother Fabian returned home around 2.30pm, the still-warm water was running. But the hot water system’s size gave it a continuous hot water capacity of about 40 minutes, according to testimony by their other brother, Julian. “In the absence of some other person entering the dwelling, the only person who could have turned on the hot water in the shower was Ms Rebelo herself,” the appeal notice read. “She could not have done that if she were killed by the appellant before 11.40am. “That would leave an event such as a cardiac arrythmia or an anaphylactic episode (or similar) as the only plausible cause of death.” At the heart of the prosecution case was that Rebelo took out three life insurance policies in his mother’s name just days before she died, naming himself as the sole beneficiary of each. In his sentencing remarks, Justice Bruno Fiannaca said Rebelo was driven by a desire to keep up the façade of the lavish lifestyle he shared with his Insta-famous ex Gracie Piscopo, with whom he fathered a son. Rebelo did not appear at the directions hearing.