New footage shows the moment a drug-addicted psychotic killer appears to realise the gravity of the situation he’s in during a police interview over the brutal death of his new girlfriend.
Synamin Bell, 26, a mother of three, was found beaten to death at her home in Millicent, near Mount Gambier in the south-east of South Australia, in 2022.
Her crushed skull had been bludgeoned with a baseball bat before she was repeatedly stabbed.
Her new boyfriend at the time, Cody James Edwards, then 26, was at the scene after calling police himself.
The startling police body camera footage – and Edwards’ police interview – can be shown for the first time after he changed his plea a week into his murder trial last month.
He initially pleaded not guilty to the murder charge, but changed his plea to guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter.
Body camera footage showed the dramatic moments that unfolded after police arrived at the scene.
“Get on the ground! Get on the ground! Get on the ground!” the officers shouted.
Cody James Edwards had difficulty answering detectives’ questions during his police interview
Synamin Bell, a mother of three, was beaten and stabbed to death by her new boyfriend
The camera then zoomed in on Edwards, who was lying on the ground.
“I’m circling,” he said.
Edwards admitted to being under the influence of drugs when an officer asked him what had happened.
“LSD, sir,” he replied.
The police then head inside the house, where they come across the gruesome scene of Mrs. Bell’s body in one of the bedrooms.
‘Shit!’ said one shocked officer.
Officers eventually escorted Edwards into the back of a police vehicle.
Back at the police station, an incoherent Edwards was captured as he struggled to answer questions during an interview with detectives.
“Are you okay?” the officer asked worriedly.
Edwards replied: “Am I okay? Yes.”
‘This is real, isn’t it? Holy shit!’
He is seen lying with his head on the table and hitting his head several times.
‘Damn it!’ he said.
Edwards placed his head face down on the table as he accepted the consequences of his actions.
The court heard Edwards was in the throes of a “full-blown paranoid psychosis” and acted in “self-defence” after taking psychoactive drugs on the night Ms Bell died.
Ms Bell’s family are angry at the prospect that Edwards could spend less time behind bars as a result of his manslaughter plea being accepted.
They firmly believe that drug use should not be an excuse to lower charges.
“This guy is going to be moving on in six or seven years, we’ve been told,” his brother Paul said. Nine news.
“It’s absolutely mind-blowing that they can accept this.”
Edwards remains behind bars and will return to court to make his sentencing arguments in September.
At the time of her death, friends said Ms. Bell had a dream of giving her children the life and opportunities they wanted.
“She aimed to study medicine to help (her daughter) through her struggles and give her the best chance at a fulfilling life,” one online fundraiser said.
‘She was doing her best, with limited resources and support, trying to be the best mother she could be.’
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