The couple plan to elope after little girl Isabella is murdered in Ipswich

About a month after “happy” little girl Isabella Jonas Wheldon came into her life, her killer Scott Jeff was scrambling to figure out how to bury her body and flee the country.

The 24-year-old had rekindled his relationship with Isabella’s mother Chelsea Gleeson-Mitchell, 24, about 36 days before he killed the two-year-old in Ipswich.

Meanwhile, Jeff beat his girlfriend’s daughter, causing her to suffer “psychological distress” and “traumatic injuries” that led to her death on June 26, 2023.

After his arrest and subsequent trial, Jeff was Manslaughter carries a minimum sentence of 26 years in prison. While Gleason Mitchell was acquitted of murder, he was jailed for 10 years for causing or allowing the death of a child.

Warning: This article contains descriptions of physical abuse.

High Court judge Mr Justice Neil Garnham described Gleeson Mitchell as a “weak and spineless person and pathetically desperate”.

She also said that Jeff’s attacks were “intense” and that Isabella would feel “absolute terror” in his presence.

CCTV footage released by Suffolk Police captured the pair laughing and joking just half an hour after the murder, and again in the days that followed.

After wheeling her body in a pushchair around Ipswich, the pair locked Isabella in a bathroom at the town’s East Villas housing unit and fled.

But how did they plan to escape from it?

During the seven-week trial at Ipswich Crown Court, the jury heard from countless witnesses and examined endless documents of evidence.

It included text messages and internet searches found on the couple’s phones after their arrest in the early hours of July 1 in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

“Chelsea said at trial that Scott had asked her to buy a shovel and that he was effectively setting himself up to dispose of Isabella,” said Det.

“In the days following Isabella’s death there was evidence that he was considering ways to leave the country without a passport and other means of travel, which would no doubt lead to escape.”

Some of the destinations they considered included Scotland and Amsterdam, while they also found a way to Southend-on-Sea in Essex.

But their escape plan was foiled on 30 June 2023 after police officers found Isabella’s body under a pile of blankets in a pushchair.

Gleeson-Mitchell’s friend Joanne Gardner raised the alarm when the mother told her that her daughter had been dead for almost three days.

Ms Gardner said Gleeson-Mitchell told her she did not contact the authorities for fear she would be “completed” by the injury to Isabella.

Before arriving in Ipswich on June 19, the couple left their hometown of Biggleswade in Bedfordshire and moved with Isabella to Great Yarmouth in Norfolk.

Over the next three weeks, they stayed at the town’s St George Hotel, slept in a tent on the beach at nearby Caister-on-Sea and spent time in a caravan park.

During this period they resisted offers of help, covered Isabella’s injured face with sunglasses, and lied to council housing officers by claiming Gleeson-Mitchell was fleeing an abuser.

By the time they had secured temporary accommodation in Ipswich, the previously “healthy and contented” toddler had been repeatedly beaten by Jeff.

The court heard Isabella suffered injuries consistent with “high speed traffic accidents” or “being kicked by a horse”.

The blonde toddler, who had traces of cocaine and cannabis in her system, died as a result of skeletal trauma from a bone marrow embolism.

After Isabella’s death, with her body in a pushchair, the couple acted as if nothing had happened, traveling on buses and buying Xboxes, showing “no grief or emotion”.

Her body was “treated with contempt” and a “shopping bag casually placed” on top of her in a pushchair.

Later, after leaving Isabella’s body in the flat, the pair went into Ipswich town center to look at the shops, McDonald’s and a pub.

They then caught a train to the Corn Exchange pub in Bury St Edmunds, where CCTV footage showed them having drinks and going about life as “normal”.

“As a parent I could not understand what we could see on the CCTV cameras, in no way were they showing any grief or emotion,” added DTCH Insp Powell.

“It was disgusting. I still struggle with his actions and his reactions at the time – there was very little emotion.”

Then, in the early hours of July 1, the two were arrested, with bodycam footage showing Jeff claiming: “I never killed him.”

But the court heard how the toddler became the target of repeated violent attacks out of frustration over Jeff’s “bad temper” and his struggles with potty training.

Bone pathologist Professor Anthony Fremont told the trial that in his 40-year career he had never seen such a severe pelvic injury in a child.

Jeff would kick and stamp on the toddler and punish him with cold showers, while his mother “stood by and did nothing”.

It was also said how the pair had previously been in a relationship in 2019, during which Gleeson Mitchell’s family said she had “changed” and was drinking more.

Gleeson Mitchell admitted she “didn’t do anything” to protect her daughter from Jeff but “thought it was just a phase he was going through”.

Gleeson Mitchell’s defense team argued that she had no phone or money and was isolated by Jeff.

Rhys Lloyd, from Leeway, a domestic violence support charity, told the BBC that partners controlling activities around money and daily tasks often indicate abuse.

“A lot of times criminals aim to isolate their victims and make them really dependent on them and ultimately it’s very difficult for them to get out,” he added.

However, DTH Inspector Powell said there was no evidence to show that Isabella’s mother had ever failed to get help by leaving Jeff.

“[Chelsea’s] Role is still really important in this,” he said.

A Local Children Safeguarding Practice Review (LSPR) has since been launched, examining the actions of relevant councils in Central Bedfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk before Isabella’s death.

A joint statement said: “It is important that we do everything we can to learn from such cases in order to reduce the risk of such cases occurring.”

Throughout the trial, members of Isabella’s family were often present in the public gallery, including her father, Thomas Wheeldon.

He said: “Isabella was the most amazing addition to my life – she was an extension of me and I miss her every day.

“His life was tragically cut short by your evil, sad and vile people.”

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