Toyah murder investigation focused early on car movements and phone data
Police investigating the alleged murder of Toyah Cordingley whittled down a list of 219 vehicles believed to have driven south from Wangetti Beach. Video wrap of what the jury heard on day eight of the Rajwinder Singh trial.
Police combed through hours of CCTV footage from roadside cameras to identify vehicles travelling a similar route at the time Toyah Cordingley’s phone was moving away from the alleged murder scene at Wangetti Beach, Cairns Supreme Court has been told.
Nurse Rajwinder Singh, 41, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Ms Cordingley, who disappeared while walking her dog at Wangetti Beach on October 21, 2018, and whose body was found by her father in a sand mound a day later.
She had been stabbed and her throat cut, the court has been told.
Much of the evidence on day eight of the trial focused on the investigation into car movements south of Wangetti on the afternoon of Ms Cordingley’s death.
Detective Sergeant Matt Mattock was in the witness box for more than three hours, explaining how he eliminated vehicles from an original list of 219, which could have been carrying Mr Cordingley’s phone away from the alleged murder scene.
‘No time to stop for a murder’
Sergeant Mattock said he used three pieces of information to create the original list of possible cars, telling the jury he gathered images from the CCTV at a key “choke point” on Clifton Road from the afternoon of October 21, 2018.
He compared these with timed images from Craiglea near Port Douglas, agreeing with prosecutor Nathan Crane that some vehicles noted on these cameras were eliminated because “there was no time to stop at Wangetti for a murder and get back in the car.”
He narrowed the list down further by comparing images from other Transport and Main Roads cameras, and using timing advance data about the changing location of Ms Cordingley’s phone.
During earlier evidence, the jury has been told timing advance data can be used to determine the location of a phone, based on an analysis of the signal, base station and the timing of the connection with the phone tower antenna.
“We were trying to identify any vehicles that travelled consistently with the handset based on timing advance,” Sergeant Mattock said.
He said the original list of 219 was narrowed down to 70 vehicles that passed by in Clifton Beach in the time window of 5:02pm to 5:07pm.
Images of those 70 vehicles were circulated through the media, and their drivers asked come forward, he said.
“Police received contact from people who identified their vehicle … other times there was no contact and the drivers remained unknown,” Sergeant Mattock said.
Sergeant Mattock was showing the jury images of a blue Alfa Romeo at the end of the day - a car that the jury has heard was similar to Mr Singh’s - and he said that car had not been eliminated.
Witness describes seeing an Indian man in Wangetti carpark
A number of witnesses who visited Wangetti Beach that day also gave evidence on day eight of the trial.
Cairns woman Merinda Bong, said she went to the beach on October 21, 2018 with her friend, Ford Jia, to collect pippis and go fishing, and saw a “dark guy” in the the southern carpark soon after 2pm.
“I thought he was Indigenous like me and I went to say hello and that’s when I realised he was Indian, not Aboriginal or Islander,” Ms Bong said.
“He was wearing a long cream shirt and long pants. I’m not sure what colour, and he had a dark cap. He had a slim build. Was wearing glasses – dark glasses – I couldn’t see his eyes.”
She said the same man was staring at her and her friend later.
“He was just standing there with his hands in front of him. He was sitting down. He was sitting there staring at us, and it made me feel uncomfortable so I said to let’s move on.“
Ms Bong’s friend Mr Jia, said he could no longer remember the colours of clothes or makes of cars he saw seven years ago, but recalled seeing three men, all of them caucasian.
He said one man had “white gingery” hair and was “breathing rather raggedly, like he had been on a run or something”, one had a dog, and the third man he could no longer describe from memory.
White ute and a man with a camera
Eight people took the stand in quick succession, some in the witness box for less than five minutes.
Brett Liddell and Nicola Hatt told the court they visited Wangetti Beach on October 21 to collect rocks, arriving at the southern car park around 4.30pm with Ms Hatt in her car.
On the beach, he noticed two men, Mr Liddell said.
One was walking north to south with a camera and did not acknowledge him when he said hello, and the other was further in the distance.
Tourist Bradley Jack was holidaying with his family from Tambourine in south east Queensland in October 2018, and was also in the southern carpark of Wangetti Beach.
He described seeing a white ute and a Lancer in the southern carpark of Wangetti Beach when he first arrived around 4:40pm.
He noted the ute had gone when they returned a few hours later from grocery shopping to set up camp for the night, but the Lancer was still there.
He said there were three other ute-loads of campers in the southern carpark that night.
Mr Jack said he was woken by a police officer after midnight, but went back to sleep; when he woke and took a walk the next morning, he noticed a single officer arriving at the beach, followed by more police cars as he and his family were packing up and leaving.
Rajwinder Singh’s phone records show seven-hour gap
The afternoon Toyah Cordingley died, Rajwinder Singh’s phone stopped connecting to the internet for seven hours, the jury heard late on day seven of the trial.
Optus representative Daniel Qamar gave evidence about Mr Singh’s mobile phone ‘internet metadata’ records.
He said the records showed Mr Singh’s phone was regularly uploading and downloading information on the morning of October 21, 2018 until 1:16pm on the Sunday Ms Cordingley died, after which the records stopped.
They resumed at 8:15pm that same day.
“Some (reasons) might be that the battery has run out and the handset has switched off, the device may have been put on flight mode, or turned off, or data manually switched off by the user,” Mr Qamar said.
Mr Qamar said mobile phones could be connecting to the internet even when they were not being used directly.
Mr Singh’s mobile phone call data was also discussed, which showed he had called the Innisfail Hospital, where he worked in 2018, on Sunday night and Monday morning, and had also called his friend, Rajkaran Singh.
Originally published as Toyah murder investigation focused early on car movements and phone data
