Jury to hear final arguments in murder case against Rajwinder Singh
Rajwinder Singh’s defence team have confirmed he will be not be giving or calling evidence at his murder trial as the Crown closes its case.
The final witnesses have been called in the case against Rajwinder Singh, who says he is not guilty of murdering Toyah Cordingley at Wangetti Beach seven years ago, and he will not be calling or giving evidence.
The Crown has closed its case on day 15 as the trial enters its fourth week. Mr Singh was asked whether he wished to give or call evidence, with his barrister replying that he did not.
Prosecution will present its summing up arguments to the jury from Tuesday morning, followed by the defence, then presiding Justice Lincoln Crowley will sum up the case and give his instructions to the jury about aspect of law.
The final witnesses told the jury about “specialist testing” of DNA samples obtained from Toyah Cordingley’s body, and recent testing of pieces of hair taken from her hand seven years ago.
Mr Singh, 41, a former nurse from Innisfail, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Ms Cordingley at Wangetti Beach on October 21, 2018, where she had gone to walk her dog, Indi.
Ms Cordingley was stabbed and her throat cut, the court has been told.
Queensland Police Service scientific officer, Carl Streeting, told the jury he tested and inspected hairs taken from Ms Cordingley’s hand, but only one hair had a “root”, and it was at the “end of life phase.”
Under cross examination from defence barrister Kate Juhasz, Mr Streeting said he determined the hair was “not suitable for nuclear DNA testing at the time” because of the type of root.
He agreed he made a decision at the time “not to send those hairs for further testing, based on the characteristics they had,” saying the hair shafts were most likely from Ms Cordingley.
The court was told six hair samples of between 1.5cm and 11cm, described as being “light brown to blond” had since been sent to the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine.
The institute’s Chief Molecular Biologist Dr Dadna Hartman said two of the six strands yielded a mitochondrial DNA profile, and she presented an “analysis table” to the jury about the results.
Forensic scientist at the New Zealand Institute for Public Health, Jayshree Patel, also took the stand to explain the two “specialist” DNA tests her team performed.
She said she tested several “exhibits” from the investigation, including fingernail clippings, against three reference samples: Toyah Cordingley, her boyfriend Marco Heidenreich and the accused man, Rajwinder Singh.
The first test allowed her to isolate male-only DNA using Y chromosome testing, and the second allowed her to perform tests on exhibits that were of poor quality, the court was told.
Earlier the jury was told there may have been sand in the bag that contained the fingernail clippings.
“Exhibits may sometimes be degraded … the mini STR test helps us to detect DNA from molecules that have started to break down or have substances present that are preventing the standard test from working” Mr Patel said.
She said the Y chromosome testing “had the advantage of ignoring the female DNA and only looking for DNA sites on the Y chromosome.”
She told the court she tested a DNA profile from four fingernail clippings taken from Ms Cordingley’s body, and the profile was Ms Cordingley’s alone; there was no male DNA or such small amounts that they were undetectable.
She also talked about results from a “blue sports shoe” and other samples, but it was not clear to listeners in the public gallery who the shoe belonged to.
The jury has access to a folder of exhibits and printed material to aid their understanding.
On the shoe, she said there was a male DNA profile that was “700 million times more likely to have originated from Mr Singh”.
More Coverage
Originally published as Jury to hear final arguments in murder case against Rajwinder Singh
