Jury in Prominent Australian Homicide Case Tours Beach At Which Deceased Was Found
Members of the jury overseeing a widely publicized Australian murder trial have traveled to the isolated beach where the young woman was located.
Toyah Cordingley was repeatedly attacked with a bladed weapon and placed in a shallow resting place with minimal hope of surviving, the court has been told.
The remains were discovered by a family member the following day on Wangetti Beach – a section of coastline between the tourist centres of Cairns and Port Douglas.
The accused, 41, has pleaded not guilty to killing Ms Cordingley on a Sunday afternoon in October 2018 in northern Australia.
Court Visit to Crime Scene
The jury of 12 individuals plus three alternates visited the beach along with the presiding officer and barristers on Monday morning local time.
In a nod to the hot climate and sweltering heat, the judge opted for a T-shirt, athletic wear and sneakers rather than traditional court attire.
Both the lead prosecution and defense attorneys selected casual shirts, shorts and baseball caps.
Location Details
The jurors were guided around three-quarters of a mile along the beach to see where Ms Cordingley's body were uncovered.
Earlier, as they arrived by bus, several red and white cones showed where the vehicle had been parked.
The trip was intended to help the jurors become familiar with important sites in the trial and no official evidence was given.
Background of the Trial
Last week, the court was informed that the following day Ms Cordingley's body were discovered, the accused flew from Australia to India – abandoning his spouse, family and relatives.
He was out of contact until he was apprehended years after, the state said.
Prosecution Argument
It is alleged that Mr Singh, who was working as a nurse in the community of Innisfail, near Cairns, had a confrontation with Ms Cordingley.
The victim was discovered wearing a swimwear, with all her other clothes and most of her possessions missing.
Those items were taken by the assailant to avoid detection, prosecutors allege.
Her dog, Indie, which Ms Cordingley had taken to the beach for a walk, was found tied up to a post hidden in bushland about 30 metres from the burial site.
The weapon was ever recovered, and no one have been found.
But the state says the evidence – though indirect – was made up of findings that pointed to Mr Singh "and eliminated others."
This will involve testimony that DNA recovered from a stick at the scene was extremely more probable to have come from Mr Singh than a unrelated individual of the public.
The court has previously been told evidence indicating that Ms Cordingley's phone departed the scene after the killing – and that its movements corresponded with those of a blue Alfa Romeo owned by the defendant.
Mr Singh's sudden departure from Australia also pointed to his guilt, the state has argued.
Defense Position
"While authorities were finding Toyah's body, he was arranging... a hurriedly arranged single journey back to India," Mr Crane said last week as he opened his case.
The defense is yet to provided testimony, but in his opening address, the defense attorney the lawyer described his client as a "calm" and "compassionate" man, who was in the "incorrect location at the unfortunate moment."
He also foreshadowed evidence to come later in the trial that, after his apprehension, Mr Singh told an undercover officer he had seen two masked men assault Ms Cordingley and then had run away in fear – something he said was his "biggest mistake."
The defense attorney has also said he will give evidence about other people "both known and unknown" who should come under investigation.
Additional Evidence
Ms Cordingley's partner, Marco Heidenreich, whom police quickly ruled out as a person of interest, was among those 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 involved in his partner's disappearance, even before her body were found.
Photographs depicting the witness on a walk with a companion on the date Ms Cordingley went missing have been presented to the jury, with an expert saying he was confident the pictures were genuine and had not been altered in any manner.
The trial will return to the more conventional setting of the courtroom on Tuesday.
