The grieving father of a teenage mother who died under suspicious circumstances has told of the harrowing moment he discovered she was dead and he is lost without her.
Yolonda Mumbulla, 19, was found dead in her North Bondi unit on Tuesday morning after her partner Aaron Carey, 32, claimed she was not breathing.
Ms Mumbulla was pronounced dead at the scene.
When police arrived a short time later, they arrested Carey, who was wanted on an unrelated outstanding warrant for theft.
Her shattered father Derek Mumbler has been left completely ‘cut to pieces’ by the loss of his youngest daughter.
“She is my beautiful daughter,” the father of six said The Daily Telegraph.
Yolonda Mumbulla (pictured) was found unconscious in her unit in North Bondi on Tuesday morning
Derek Mumbler (pictured) said he is ‘lost’ without his youngest daughter
‘This should not happen. That shouldn’t happen.’
“I’m so lost.”
Mr Mumbler recalled how detectives came to his home on Tuesday morning to deliver the heartbreaking news that Yolonda had died.
“It really shocked me,” he recalled.
‘It is still difficult to process it all at the moment.
‘I miss my daughter. I miss her.’
Yolonda has traveled regularly from North Bondi in recent years to visit her father in Macquarie Fields.
‘She was here last week. She was here for a few days,” he said.
‘She was fine. I was happy to see her. We sat down and talked.
“We had a beautiful relationship.”
Mr Mumbler said his daughter, who is descended from the Yuin and Yaegl tribes, left James Meehan High School in Year 11.
Daily Mail Australia previously revealed the troubled couple who allegedly took drugs together the night before had a child together last year.
Mr. Carey talked about his new family in a January 2023 social media post.
“I love you so much honey. Thank you for starting a family with me,” he wrote.
The North Bondi unit where Yolonda’s body was found is part of a notorious social housing apartment complex in the otherwise largely affluent suburb
“I’m the luckiest man to ever have you in my life, Yolonda.
‘You make me the happiest man ever. I love you so much.’
However, Mr Mumbler claimed he did not know Carey ‘from a bar of soap’.
The unit where Ms Mumbulla lived is part of a squalid social housing block of flats in the otherwise largely affluent suburb.
A neighbor told Daily Mail Australia the unit complex is notorious for loud disturbances.
“It’s a housing committee block, there are always arguments and loud music coming from the units,” she said
‘I used to live in a residential block, so I know what they are like. Now I live next door, a lot of junkies live in this particular block.’
The pair were known to police, with a domestic violence warrant in place, which contained standard conditions preventing them from associating.
Yolonda and her partner Aaron Carey welcomed a child together in 2023
NSW Police are now investigating whether a drug overdose led to what detectives have declared Yolonda’s ‘suspicious’ death.
Following investigations, officers executed a search warrant at an address on nearby Flood Street in Bondi on Tuesday evening, where police reportedly seized one gram of methylamphetamine and cannabis at the scene.
Carey was charged with the outstanding warrant for theft valued at 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 $2000, obstructing or resisting a police officer in the execution of duty, and property suspected of being stolen from/on premises.”
Mr Carey was refused bail at Downing Center Local Court on Wednesday.
A second man, 34, was summoned to appear at Waverley Local Court on June 18.
Specialist forensic officers remained at the unit until late Tuesday as they continued their investigation into her injuries.
It is understood that several lines of inquiry remain open into Ms Mumbulla’s cause of death.
A strike force was set up to investigate Ms Mumbulla’s death. The lines of inquiry include “accidents”, NSW Police said on Wednesday.
Aaron Carey (pictured) has been charged with a series of crimes unrelated to his partner’s death