Friends of a Sydney woman found dead in her eastern suburbs unit are demanding to know what happened to the young mother, who they say was happy and healthy.
The North Bondi apartment block where Yolonda Mumbulla, 19, was found unresponsive shortly after 9am on Tuesday sits sadly empty of flowers or tributes, despite the tragic circumstances around her death.
Detectives combed over the flat and left by Wednesday with a few remnants of police tape and a boarded-up door the only signs that anything had happened at the scene.
‘Yolonda always had such an uplifting spirit, she was funny, full of joy and she was always there to help anyone,’ her friend Alyah Pera said.
A strike force has been established to investigate the cause of Ms Mumbulla’s mysterious death, with a drug overdose one of many lines of inquiry.
Yolonda Mumbulla (pictured) was found unresponsive in her North Bondi unit on Tuesday morning
The unit now sits sadly empty of flowers or tributes despite the tragic circumstances around the young mother’s death
‘She was still always happy. You never saw her mad, and if you did it didn’t last long,’ another friend, Isabella Pike, told news.com.au.
‘We’re just so angry … we want answers.’
Ms Mumbulla had only recently moved to North Bondi after growing up in Macquarie Fields in Sydney’s south-west.
She went to Guise Public School where she had been heavily involved in netball and then James Meehan High School with Ms Pike and Ms Pera.
‘She was just always a joyful, very bubbly person,’ Ms Pike said.
Ms Pera has made a GoFundMe to raise funds to give Ms Mumbulla a ‘proper send off’.
Ms Mumbulla’s partner Aaron Carey, 32, claimed to have found her not breathing at the North Bondi unit before she was pronounced dead at the scene after paramedics arrived.
Shortly after, police arrested Carey, who was wanted on an unrelated outstanding warrant for larceny.
Teenage mum Yolonda Mumbulla and her partner Aaron Carey seen in a filtered photo on social media
The block of units in Hardy Street, North Bondi, where Ms Mumbulla’s body was found is pictured
Her shattered father Derek Mumbler is completely ‘cut up’ over the loss of his youngest daughter.
‘She is my beautiful daughter,’ the father-of six told The Daily Telegraph.
‘This shouldn’t happen. It shouldn’t.’
‘I’m so lost.’
Mr Mumbler recalled how detectives came to his home on Tuesday morning to deliver the harrowing news that Yolonda had died.
‘It shocked me big time,’ he recalled.
‘It’s still hard to process it all at the moment.
‘I miss my daughter. I miss her.’
Yolonda regularly travelled from North Bondi to visit her dad in Macquarie Fields.
‘She was here last week. She was here for a couple of days,’ he said.
‘She was alright. I was glad to see her. We sat down and talked.
‘We had a beautiful relationship.’
Mr Mumbler said his daughter – who descends from the Yuin and Yaegl tribes – left James Meehan High School in Year 11.
Derek Mumbler (pictured) said he is ‘lost’ without his youngest daughter
Emergency services were called to the unit on Hardy Street at North Bondi, where police discovered the body of Yolonda Mumbulla (pictured), 19, at about 9.20am on Tuesday
Daily Mail Australia previously revealed the troubled couple – who were allegedly taking drugs together the night before – had a child together last year.
Mr Carey gushed about his new family in a social media post from January 2023.
‘I love you so much babe. Thank you for starting a family with me,’ he wrote.
‘I’m the luckiest guy ever to have you in my life Yolonda.
‘You make me the happiest man ever. I love you so much.’
However, Mr Mumbler claimed he didn’t know Carey ‘from a bar of soap.’
The unit where Ms Mumbulla was living is part of a squalid public housing apartment block in the otherwise largely affluent suburb.
A neighbour told Daily Mail Australia the unit complex is notorious for loud disturbances.
‘It’s a housing commission block, there is always fights and loud music coming from the units,’ she said
‘I used to live in a housing block so I know what they’re like, now I live next door, this specific block has a lot of junkies living there.’
The pair were known to police, with an apprehended domestic violence order between them, which included standard conditions preventing them from associating.
NSW Police are now investigating if a drug overdose led to what detectives have described as Yolonda’s ‘suspicious’ death.
Aaron Carey (pictured) has been charged with a string of offences not connected to his partner’s death
Following inquires, officers executed a search warrant at an address in nearby Flood Street in Bondi on Tuesday night, where police allegedly seized methylamphetamine and cannabis at the scene.
Carey was charged with the outstanding warrant for larceny value less than or equal to $2,000, three counts of enter vehicle or boat without consent of owner/occupier, destroy or damage property less than or equal to $2,000, hinder or resist police officer in the execution of duty, and goods suspected stolen in/on premises.’
Mr Carey was refused bail to appear in Downing Centre Local Court on Wednesday.
A second man, 34, was issued a field court attendance notice to appear at Waverley Local Court on June, 18.
Specialist forensic officers remained at the unit until late Tuesday as they continued investigations into her injuries.
It is understood that multiple lines of inquiry into Ms Mumbulla’s cause of death remain open.
A strike force was set up to investigate Ms Mumbulla’s death and lines of inquiry include ‘misadventure’, NSW Police said on Wednesday.
