Yolonda Mumbulla death: The tragic secret of the baby a teenage mother took to her grave, as her family gives a grim update after she was found dead in a squalid unit block

EXCLUSIVE

The grieving father of a teenage mother who died in suspicious circumstances in a squalid unit block has revealed his anguish at learning of his secret grandson.

Young mother Yolonda Mumbulla, 19, was found dead in her unit in North Bondi, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, on Tuesday after her partner Aaron Carey, 32, discovered she was not breathing.

It has now been revealed that Mumbulla’s young daughter was not with her mother when she died, and the girl’s grandfather did not even know she existed.

Mumbulla managed to keep her pregnancy a secret from her own father, before giving birth to the child and handing him over to her mother, Kylie, in Queensland.

Her devastated father, Derek Mumbler, told WhatsNew2Day Australia he is still in shock to learn of his daughter’s secret pregnancy.

“She was too scared to tell me,” she said at her home in Sydney’s southwest, where she receives support from her friends Alyah Pera and Lillian Dibb.

‘I told her not to get pregnant at 17, she is too young to be a mother. I didn’t get a chance to see her and her baby together.’

Her childhood friend, Alyah, said Yolonda and Aaron’s daughter, Zara, was born last September but has been in her grandmother’s custody since then.

“He’s had it since he was born,” Mrs. Pera said.

He said Mulumba was able to conceal her pregnancy by wearing baggy clothing throughout 2023.

Despite a troubled history with drugs, her friend said the teenager could have been a model mother.

“He was kind-hearted and never lost his temper,” she said. “She would have been a good mother.”

Mrs Mumbulla was allegedly using drugs the night before her death. Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene.

When police arrived a short time later, they arrested Carey, who was wanted on an unrelated outstanding warrant for larceny charges, for alleged stolen property and other crimes.

Police in New South Wales are investigating his “suspicious” death amid fears it was drug-related.

Police executed a search warrant at an address on nearby Flood Street in Bondi at around 5.10pm on Tuesday.

“During the search, police confiscated 1 gram of methylamphetamine and cannabis at the scene,” a New South Wales Police spokesperson alleged.

Carey was charged on the outstanding warrant with theft of a value less than or equal to $2,000, three counts of entering a vehicle or boat without the consent of the owner/occupant, destroying or damaging property less than or equal to $2,000, hindering or resisting a police officer in execution. duty and goods suspected of theft in/on the premises.’

Mumbler says he knows nothing about his daughter’s mysterious death.

“We will sit and wait to hear the facts,” he said.

In the months before his death, court documents reveal Mumbulla stole a debit card and driver’s license belonging to a woman in Rose Bay on October 16.

That morning he used the ANZ card to make three transactions, one to Optus, another to Telstra and a third to Spotify.

He failed to appear in court to face charges of theft, possession of a stolen driver’s license and obtaining a financial advantage by deception in February.

She was found guilty in absentia and fined $1,550.

TO GoFundMe Now a campaign has been launched to cover funeral expenses and give him the farewell he “deserves”, which has already raised close to its goal of $10,000.

“There will be music, dancing and color; her indigenous roots were important to her,” Mrs. Pera explained.

“She loved the colors purple and red, so we could wear scarves in those colors.”