Jurors in Toya Cordingley murder trial visit beach where body was found

Jurors in a high-profile murder trial in Australia were taken to the remote Queensland beach where the victim was found.

Toyah Cordingley was stabbed “multiple times” with sharp objects and buried in a shallow sandy grave with “little or no hope of survival”, the jury heard.

Rajwinder Singh, 41, denies murdering Ms Cordingley on a Sunday afternoon in Far North Queensland in October 2018.

The 24-year-old’s body was discovered the next day by her father on Wanggeti Beach, a stretch of coastline between Cairns and the tourist hub of Port Douglas.

The jury of ten men and two women and three reserve jurors joined the judge and barristers on the beach on Monday morning local time as the second week of the trial began.

Judge Lincoln Crowley wore a T-shirt, running shorts and sneakers instead of a wig and gown to suit the tropical climate and temperatures in excess of 30 degrees Celsius. Both prosecution and defense attorneys opted for polo shirts, shorts and baseball caps.

Jurors were directed about 1.2 kilometers north of the sand to see where Ms Cordingley was found.

Earlier, when they arrived by bus, four red and white cones marked where the victim’s car was parked.

The purpose of the trip was to familiarize jurors with key locations in the case, but no official evidence was presented.

The Supreme Court in Cairns heard last week that Mr Singh flew from Australia to India the day after Ms Cordingley’s body was found, leaving behind his wife, three children and parents. Prosecutors said nothing was heard from him until after his arrest four years later.

Mr Singh, who was working as a nurse in the town of Innisfail, south of Cairns, allegedly clashed with Ms Cordingley, who prosecutor Nathan Crane described as “a young woman, blond and very attractive”.

The pharmacy worker was found wearing a bikini, with all other clothing and most of her belongings missing. Prosecutors said the killer took the items to avoid detection.

Ms Cordingley went for a walk on the beach with her dog Indie, who was found tied to a tree in bush about 30 meters from the grave.

No murder weapon was found and no witnesses were found.

But prosecutors said their case, while circumstantial, pointed to Singer “and to the exclusion of others.”

It included evidence that DNA extracted from a stick at the scene was 3.8 billion times more likely to come from Mr Singh than from a random sample of the public.

The jury has heard evidence that Ms Cordingley’s mobile phone left the beach after the incident and that its movements matched those of a blue Alfa Romeo owned by the defendant.

Prosecutors believe Singh’s sudden departure from Australia also points to his guilt.

“When police discovered Toya’s body, he was organizing… a hastily arranged one-way trip back to India,” Mr Crane said in opening the case last week.

The defense has yet to offer any evidence, but Mr Singer’s lawyer Greg McGuire used his opening address to describe his client as a “calm” and “caring” man who was “in the wrong place at the wrong time”.

He also foreshadowed evidence that would emerge later in the trial that after his arrest Singh told an undercover officer that he saw two masked men attack Ms Cordingley and then run away in fear – which he said was his “biggest mistake”.

Mr McGuire also said he would give evidence about other “known and unknown” people who deserve suspicion.

Ms Cordingley’s then-boyfriend Marco Heidenreich was one of those who gave evidence last week and police quickly ruled him out as a possible suspect.

The court heard he was an immediate suspect to police and had faced questioning from Ms Cordingley’s father about his involvement in his girlfriend’s disappearance even before her body was found.

Photos of Mr Heidenreich hiking with a friend on the day Ms Cordingley disappeared have been shown to the court, with an expert saying he believed they were authentic and had not been tampered with in any way.

Tuesday’s trial will take place in a more traditional setting at the courthouse.