Jury in Prominent Down Under Murder Case Visits Beach At Which Victim Was Found
Jurors involved in a high-profile Australian murder trial have traveled to the isolated beach where the victim was discovered.
Toyah Cordingley was multiple times stabbed with a sharp object and buried in a shallow grave with little or no hope of surviving, the jury has heard.
The remains were discovered by a family member the following day on Wangetti Beach – a stretch of shoreline between the popular destinations of Cairns and Port Douglas.
The accused, 41, denies murdering Ms Cordingley on a weekend in October 2018 in Far North Queensland.
Jury Inspection to Beach
The panel of 12 individuals plus several back-up jurors attended the beach along with the presiding officer and legal counsel on the start of the week in Queensland.
In a acknowledgment of the tropical conditions and temperatures above 30C, Justice Lincoln Crowley opted for a T-shirt, athletic wear and sneakers rather than traditional court attire.
Both the lead prosecution and defence barristers chose casual shirts, bottoms and baseball caps.
Location Details
The court members were led around 1.2km north up the sand to observe where Ms Cordingley's body were uncovered.
Earlier, as they traveled to the site, four red and white cones showed where the victim's car had been left.
The trip was intended to help the jurors become acquainted with key locations in the case and no official evidence was given.
Context of the Trial
Last week, the court was informed that the following day Ms Cordingley's body were discovered, Mr Singh departed from Australia to India – abandoning his spouse, three children and parents.
He was out of contact until he was arrested four years later, the prosecution said.
Prosecution Argument
It is claimed that Mr Singh, who was employed in healthcare in the community of Innisfail, south of Cairns, had a altercation with Ms Cordingley.
The pharmacy worker was found wearing a bikini, with all her other clothes and belongings absent.
Those items were removed by the killer to avoid detection, the prosecution contend.
Her pet, Indie, which Ms Cordingley had taken to the beach for a stroll, was located tied up to a tree concealed in bushland about 30 metres from the grave.
No murder weapon was ever recovered, and no eyewitnesses have been found.
But the prosecution says the evidence – though indirect – was made up of findings that indicated Mr Singh "and eliminated others."
This will involve evidence that DNA recovered from a stick at the location was 3.8 billion times more likely to have come from Mr Singh than a unrelated individual of the population.
The court has already heard testimony suggesting that Ms Cordingley's phone left the beach after the killing – and that its travel corresponded with those of a vehicle belonging to the defendant.
Mr Singh's sudden departure from Australia also suggested his guilt, the state has claimed.
Defence Stance
"While authorities were finding Toyah's remains, he was organizing... a rushed single journey back to India," Mr Crane said previously as he began arguments.
The defense is yet to present any evidence, but in his initial statement, Mr Singh's barrister Greg McGuire described his defendant as a "calm" and "caring" man, who was in the "wrong place at the wrong time."
He also hinted at testimony to come later in the trial that, after his apprehension, Mr Singh informed an undercover officer he had seen two masked men assault Ms Cordingley and then had fled in terror – something he said was his "biggest mistake."
Mr McGuire has also said he will testify about other people "both known and unknown" who should come under suspicion.
Additional Evidence
Ms Cordingley's partner, Marco Heidenreich, whom police excluded as a person of interest, was one who gave evidence last week.
The trial was informed he was an immediate person of interest – and that he had been interrogated from Ms Cordingley's father about whether he was implicated in his girlfriend's vanishing, prior to her body were discovered.
Photographs depicting the witness on a walk with a friend on the day Ms Cordingley disappeared have been shown to the jury, with an specialist saying he was confident the photos were genuine and had not been doctored in any way.
The trial will return to the more conventional setting of the courtroom on the next day.