Jury in Prominent Australian Homicide Trial Visits Shoreline Where Deceased Was Found

Members of the jury overseeing a high-profile Australian murder trial have traveled to the isolated shore where the victim was located.

Toyah Cordingley was repeatedly stabbed with a sharp object and buried in a shallow grave with minimal hope of surviving, the court has been told.

The remains were found by her father the next day on Wangetti Beach – a stretch of coastline between the popular destinations of Cairns and Port Douglas.

Rajwinder Singh, 41, has pleaded not guilty to killing Ms Cordingley on a Sunday afternoon in October 2018 in northern Australia.

Court Inspection to Beach

The jury of 12 individuals plus several alternates visited the beach along with the judge and legal counsel on Monday morning in Queensland.

In a acknowledgment of the tropical conditions and temperatures above 30C, Justice Lincoln Crowley opted for a T-shirt, sport shorts and trainers rather than traditional court attire.

Both the prosecuting and defence barristers chose polo shirts, shorts and baseball caps.

Location Details

The jurors were led around three-quarters of a mile along the beach to observe where Ms Cordingley's body were discovered.

Earlier, as they traveled to the site, several red and white cones showed where the vehicle had been parked.

The visit was designed to help the jurors become familiar with important sites in the case and no official evidence was presented.

Context of the Trial

Last week, the court was informed that the following day Ms Cordingley's body were found, the accused departed from Australia to India – leaving behind his spouse, family and relatives.

He was not heard from until he was arrested four years later, the state said.

State Case

It is claimed that the defendant, who was employed in healthcare in the community of Innisfail, near Cairns, had a altercation with Ms Cordingley.

The pharmacy worker was found wearing a swimwear, with all her other clothes and most of her possessions absent.

Those items were removed by the assailant to conceal evidence, the prosecution allege.

Her dog, Indie, which Ms Cordingley had taken to the beach for a stroll, was located secured to a tree hidden in bushland about 30 metres from the burial site.

No murder weapon was found, and no one have been identified.

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 genetic material obtained from a stick at the location was 3.8 billion times more probable to have originated from Mr Singh than a random member of the population.

The jury has previously been told evidence suggesting that Ms Cordingley's phone departed the beach after the incident – and that its movements matched those of a vehicle belonging to the defendant.

Mr Singh's sudden departure from Australia also pointed to his involvement, the prosecution has claimed.

Defense Stance

"As the police were discovering Toyah's body, he was organizing... a hurriedly arranged single journey back to India," Mr Crane said previously as he began arguments.

The defence is yet to provided testimony, but in his initial statement, the defense attorney Greg McGuire portrayed 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 subsequently that, after his apprehension, Mr Singh told an undercover officer he had seen assailants attack 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 "identified and unidentified" who should come under suspicion.

Additional Testimony

Ms Cordingley's partner, Marco Heidenreich, whom police excluded as a person of interest, was one who gave evidence last week.

The trial heard he was an immediate person of interest – and that he had faced questions from Ms Cordingley's father about whether he was involved in his girlfriend's disappearance, prior to her body were found.

Images depicting the witness on a hike with a companion on the date Ms Cordingley went missing have been shown to the court, with an specialist saying he was certain the photos were authentic and had not been altered in any manner.

The case will return to the more conventional setting of the courthouse on the next day.