22-year-old Khushveer Toor, 20-year-old Gurkaran Singh and 22-year-old Abhijeet Singh were taken into custody in Canada and charged with two charges of first-degree murder each in December 2022. They are accused of killing Arnold (77) and Joanne De Jong (76) in May 2022 at their Abbotsford residence, in British Columbia of Canada. Notably, a message left on an answering machine led to the capture of the criminals.
On 9th May 2022, the elderly couple was discovered dead in their separate bedrooms with their hands and feet tied by ropes. Arnold De Jong’s entire head and face were tightly wrapped in duct tape. The attackers stole their credit cards, cheques and a pressure washer, which was later sold after murdering them. Afterwards, they fled British Columbia and stayed in a basement flat in Surrey until their capture. Each of them has entered a not guilty plea to two counts of first-degree murder.
Notably, the trio had cleaned the home and gutters of their victims months prior to the deadly conspiracy. The work was done by Abhijeet’s company, AS Cleaner,s in July 2021 and April 2022. Khushveer Toor and Gurkaran Singh worked for the company owned and run by Abhijeet. Gurkaran is an Indian national visiting Canada on a visa, while the other two are Indian origin Canadian citizens. All three men are of Punjabi origin.
After the heinous act, Khushveer and Gurkaran placed cheques totalling more than $5,000 into their bank accounts. They reportedly featured the signatures of Joanne De Jong. The message lines on both claimed that the money was for “clean up of house.”
The trial started on 12th January (Monday), and the prosecution highlighted that “debt, financial pressure, and greed” drove the perpetrators to commit the shocking crime. During the trial, a police officer revealed that a message left for the couple on their answering machine was crucial in solving the case. When the forensic officers were working on the crime scene, they overheard a message saying that they would like to speak to someone regarding suspicious credit card purchases.
“While processing the scene, a forensic identification officer heard a voice mail being left on the landline phone of De Jongs, indicating that there were suspicious transactions on a credit card,” prosecutor Dorothy Tsui stated in the courtroom. “The police quickly followed up on that lead and obtained banking records and phone records in an attempt to identify potential suspects,” she added.
Police later found that the suspicious credit card transactions were associated with Rogers Communications accounts in the names of Abhijeet Singh and Khushveer Toor.
Tsui informed that Gurkaran landed in the country on 16th April on a student visa only a few weeks before the fatal assault. He was meant to attend Dawson Creek’s Northern Lights College, but he didn’t.
The Crown anticipates summoning at least 24 witnesses during the 40-day trial. According to the prosecution, a “substantial body of circumstantial evidence” will connect the three men to the killings. It will include finderprints, DNA from a murder weapon located in their vehicle, cellphone and financial records alongside proof from electronic devices. Over the past three and a half years, the trial has already been postponed multiple times.
Duct tape was wrapped around Arnold’s face and a business card along with two receipts were beneath his corpse. According to the prosecutor, the evidence will demonstrate that he suffocated to death because of smothering. Joanne was surrounded by blood and three pieces of duct tape were spotted next to her. The prosecution asserted that she died from blunt and sharp force trauma.
