Current Trial Toyah Cordingley * Murder Trial of Rajwinder Singh

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Coincidences happen but strange that the boyfriend who knew where she was, drives past that location and then driving past later that night, went looking for her and had a possible motive. (and didn’t see the text til after this?)
Will be interesting to see what evidence they have on the accused. Was he at the wrong place at the wrong time and was scared for his families safety?
The police must think they’ve got the right guy to extradite him, surely.
Was the picking up Tyson from the airport text message received by Toyah's boyfriend from Toyah's number at 3:17pm sent by someone other than Toyah?

As an obvious POI in the case, Toyah's boyfriend (Mr Heidenreich) got a grilling today by the defence barrister about his alleged aborted (due to their dog running away on the hike) Spring Creek Falls hiking with a friend (Joel Cuman) alibi photos evidence.

Yes I know. This is sounding fishy already.

Especially when you combine that with Heidenreich coincidentally driving past the crime scene and seeing Toyah's car there, before he even knew she was missing.

'Pre-trial hearing: Jack Gardiner tells court about search for sister Toyah Cordingley'

'April 30, 2024 - 2:29PM
...

Jack Gardiner, Toyah’s half-sibling, told the court he found out Toyah was missing in the early hours of October 22 because his sister Layna was trying to call him.

He said he went to the house Toyah shared with her boyfriend Marco Heidenreich and got on Toyah’s laptop to look at her Facebook account to see if he could identify anyone called “Tyson”.

Toyah had sent a text message to Marco at 3.17pm that she had to pick “Tyson” up from the airport between 7pm an 8pm and they did not know a “Tyson”.
...'

'Pre-trial hearing: Marco Heidenreich tells court about search for Toyah Cordingley'

'April 30, 2024 - 4:06PM
...

Mr Heidenreich, who shared a house with Toyah at Woree, was vigorously cross-examined by Mr Singh’s defence barrister Angus Edwards KC on Monday.

He has never spoken publicly about Toyah’s alleged murder.

The court heard that Mr Heidenreich last saw Toyah about 1.30pm on Sunday, October 21, 2018 – she had returned from Rusty’s Markets about midday and headed out to walk her dog about 1.30pm.

He left about 15-18 minutes later to drive to Port Douglas, pick up his friend Joel Cuman and hiked Spring Creek Falls.

The court heard on his way he saw Toyah’s car parked at the Wangetti Beach car park.

Mr Heidenreich thought about stopping but had already passed.

The hike at Spring Creek Falls did not go as planned because Mr Heidenreich’s dog ran off and could not be found.

He and Mr Cuman went to their friend Toby Petrack’s house to borrow torches at 7.05pm to keep searching for the lost dog, the court heard.

He was driving back down the Captain Cook Highway about 9.30pm and saw Toyah’s car abandoned in the car park.

Mr Heidenreich told the court he had tried calling Toyah from about 7.05pm but her iPhone went straight to voicemail.

He said he didn’t notice a text from Toyah sent at 3.17pm saying she was picking up a man named Tyson from the airport, and that he did not know anyone called Tyson.

He said he did not notice the text until he was at Wangetti about 9.30pm.

“Her phone was off, it went straight to message bank,” Mr Heidenreich said.

He saw that the car was open and ran out on to the beach.

“I ran up the beach screaming her name, trying to find her,” he said.

He said he ran about 1km up the beach.

“I didn’t really know what to think, I was just worried,” he said.

“I take it you’ve gone quite some distance,” Mr Edwards said.

“Not as far as … she was found,” Mr Heidenreich said.

He told the court he had walked the dogs at Wangetti with Toyah but did not usually walk as far as what Mr Edwards referred to as “the little creek that runs down”.

“You are familiar with the creek because of the following morning when her body was found,” Mr Edwards said.

Mr Heidenreich said yes.

He rang a friend, who told him to call the police, and he did.

“At some stage I realised there was a text from Toyah to me, I did not remember it seeing come through, I assumed I was out of phone range at Spring Falls. She said she had to pick up Tyson from the airport between 7pm and 8pm – I did not know any person called Tyson,” Mr Heidenreich said.

He agreed with Mr Edwards that he looked on Toyah’s laptop at her Facebook account later in the night “to work out who Tyson was”.

Crown prosecutor Nathan Crane asked if he recalled what time it was when it became dark while he was looking for his dog.

Mr Heidenreich could not recall, but sought a torch at 7.05pm and “it was dark some time before that”.

Mr Edwards asked Mr Heidenreich if he was aware metadata on the photographs at Spring Creek Falls, which showed the date, time, and location of the photograph, could be manipulated.

Mr Heidenreich said he was not aware of that.

“Did you or Joel change the metadata?” Mr Edwards asked.

“No, we did not,” Mr Heidenreich said.

“So the metadata should remain accurate?

“Yes,” Mr Heidenreich responded.

He was questioned at length about the nature of his relationship with Toyah and said things were fine between them.

He was asked if he was having a problem in the relationship, if she wanted her independence and wanted to separate and Mr Heidenreich said none of that was the case.

Mr Edwards asked Mr Heidenreich if Toyah had been feeling unwell mentally.

“Not to my knowledge, she was maybe a bit quiet,” he said.

Mr Edwards asked if their relationship remained physical and Mr Heidenreich said it had.

The pre-trial hearing ran on April 29 and 30 in Cairns, and is set to reconvene on June 3.
...
A jury trial is set for July 22.'
I would think a girlfriend wouldn’t just blurt out that they were picking up a random guy that night from the airport unless she’d already discussed at least knowing him already. This is bizarre.
 
The police must think they’ve got the right guy to extradite him, surely.
Maybe a means to an end.

Charging him with murder might have been the agreed surer way of getting him back to Australia as a key witness.
As it enabled extradition and a $1m award to entice bounty hunters to assist find him in India.
 
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Maybe a means to an end.

Charging him with murder might have been the agreed surer of getting him back to Australia as a key witness.
As it enabled extradition and a $1m award to entice bounty hunters to assist find him in India.
That scenario would never have crossed my mind. Is that possible?
 

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I would think a girlfriend wouldn’t just blurt out that they were picking up a random guy that night from the airport unless she’d already discussed at least knowing him already. This is bizarre.
Maybe Toyah accidentally sent the txt to the wrong person.
 
He said he didn’t notice a text from Toyah sent at 3.17pm saying she was picking up a man named Tyson from the airport, and that he did not know anyone called Tyson.

So a 3:20pm txt was reportedly sent from Toyah's phone to Mr Heidenreich's phone after she was thought to have been killed. (2pm - 2:30pm).


'The 24-year-old was killed while walking her dog on Wangetti Beach, 40km north of Cairns, on Sunday afternoon between 2pm and 2.30pm'
 
More Tyson/Toyah relationship details than in the Nine vid, in the below 7news video.

Tyson told the court he met Toyah 3-4 weeks before she died, and that the sexual contact between them was 1 week before she went missing. (reportedly)

A friend of Toyah told the court that Toyah had spoken about breaking up with her boyfriend. (reportedly).

5 witnesses are still to be cross-examined in the pre-trial hearings, including DNA expert witnesses.

 
He added cryptically: “There were two killers and two victims."

That’s what Singh said last year. I’m very interested to see how this plays out because we have a situation where there is now a motive and timeline for the boyfriend to be involved. Not to mention he was with an additional person. Killers (boyfriend & accomplice) and victims (Toyah & Singh)?

Singh has always maintained his innocence. Obviously flying to India the next day looks guilty but if he witnessed something that frightened the life out of him, you could make a case that’s how someone would react.
 
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Ok, we now have a name for Marco Heidenreich's dog (Jersey), and a whole lot more on what went down in Court yesterday from the below just published by ABC article.

Still nothing about whether Jersey was ever found.

Toyah Cordingley was in secret relationship before her alleged murder, Supreme Court hears in Cairns

ABC Far North
By Conor Byrne, Lily Nothling, and Holly Richardson
Posted 12m ago
...
The court heard evidence that Ms Cordingley had started a relationship with podiatrist Tyson Franklin and arranged to pick him up from Cairns Airport the night she died, but she never arrived.

Ms Cordingley was living with her long-term partner Marco Heidenreich at the time.

The court in Cairns heard Ms Cordingley and Mr Franklin met at a podiatrist appointment and "hit it off" just over two weeks before her death.

Mr Franklin confirmed to the court that the pair had spent time together while Mr Heidenreich was interstate.

He said they were in regular contact by text message until her death.

Defence barrister Brydie Bilic read to the court a text message sent by Ms Cordingley to Mr Franklin about Mr Heidenreich.

"He's an angry person. Not at me. Just at the world, which I totally get," the message read.

"But often when I come home, I'm feeling calm, and then I get those emotions projected onto me."

Mr Franklin confirmed that in some messages, Ms Cordingley said she was considering moving into her own place and to continue seeing him.

"I believe we had chemistry," Mr Franklin told the court.

Ms Bilic read to the court another of Ms Cordingley's messages to Mr Franklin — sent three days before her death — after the return of Mr Heidenreich from interstate.

"He said that I seem different and asked if I was still happy, because he was scared of losing me and me finding someone else," the text message read.

"I was trying to just be myself, but he could tell something was off about me."

Under cross-examination, Mr Franklin admitted he had initially concealed the new relationship when questioned as part of the investigation.

"The fact that a young woman might have developed feelings for another man could be a very important matter for the police to know about," Ms Bilic said.

"But you were not candid with the police."

The court has previously heard from Mr Heidenreich, who said Ms Cordingley had left their Cairns home about 1:30pm on the day of her death to walk her dog Indie.

He told the court Ms Cordingley said she was unsure which beach she would visit.

Under cross-examination, the court heard on Monday that Mr Heidenreich left home about 15 to 18 minutes after Ms Cordingley to drive to Port Douglas to visit a friend.

He told the court he had seen Ms Cordingley's car parked at Wangetti Beach, about 30 kilometres north of Cairns, but did not stop.

The court heard after arriving at friend Joel Cuman's home in Port Douglas, the pair took Mr Heidenreich's dog Jersey for a walk at nearby Spring Creek.

Mr Heidenreich told the court Jersey ran off and the pair spent hours looking for the dog, including driving to another friend's house nearby where Mr Cuman borrowed a torch.

After failing to find the dog, Mr Heidenreich said he returned the torch and the friends had a drink.

The court heard he attempted to call Ms Cordingley at about 7pm.

The court heard Mr Heidenreich failed to see a text message from Ms Cordingley sent at 3:17pm, saying she was collecting a person named Tyson from the airport.

Mr Heidenreich told the court he saw Ms Cordingley's car was still parked in the same position at Wangetti Beach on his journey back from Port Douglas between 9:30pm and 10:30pm.

He told the hearing the car was unlocked and he searched the beach about a kilometre north of the car park before calling a friend who suggested he call police.

"I ran up the beach screaming her name … trying to find her," Mr Heidenreich told the court.
...'
 

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Based on what we now know after yesterday in court, you'd think that if Singh wasn't in the picture at all for this case, that there's a good chance that Toyah's BF would have years ago been arrested and charged with her murder based on circumstantial evidence alone.

The text is weird AF in all this.

How would Singh know about Tyson?

Very conceivable that the BF would find out about the arrangement, confront her, <shit goes down>, then after the fact realise he needs to cover his tracks.
 
Maybe a means to an end.

Charging him with murder might have been the agreed surer way of getting him back to Australia as a key witness.
As it enabled extradition and a $1m award to entice bounty hunters to assist find him in India.
No the Police can not do and that and would not do that, it is against the law.
Also the defense throwing shade on others to 'finger' them as being the murderer is the old trick in the 101 book of defense.
 
Also the defense throwing shade on others to 'finger' them as being the murderer is the old trick in the 101 book of defense.

It is, but in this case it seems there's a hell of a lot of things that would justify reasonable doubt.

I don't know how much of it was known, but I hadn't heard it until now.
 
Cairns only newspaper (in the Courier Mail/Dakily Telegraph stable), has finally caught up with it's media competitors with their first mention of Podiatrist Tyson Bryan Anthony Franklin's intimate/adulterous relationship with Toyah.

Given Franklin's 2018/19 possession of child exploitation material case (see article below today) , and the risk of mistaken identity relating to Franklin's name, it's understandable that the Cairns Post were being cautious publishing anything of the cross-examination of Franklin.

Podiatrist Tyson Bryan Anthony Franklin dated Toyah a week before her death, Cairns Supreme Court hears in Rajwinder Singh pre-trial

Intimate text messages between Toyah Cordingley and another man have revealed the pair “had a connection” sparked by their mutual enthusiasm for Harry Potter in the weeks before she was allegedly murdered, a court has heard.
Bronwyn Farr

May 1, 2024 - 11:50AM
The Cairns Post
...
Defence barrister Brydie Bilic, assisting senior counsel Angus Edwards KC, cross-examined Franklin on Tuesday, asking if he had posted information about Toyah on the dark web.

He said he had never used “the dark web” but had used a “sharing website” to access and share pornography.

Ms Bilic asked if it included pr0n that could be described as “rough sex” and pr0n that included depictions of women being r*ped, and Franklin said yes.

She asked him if he had ever posted any details about Toyah on the website and Franklin denied this.

“You never mentioned her to other users,” Ms Bilic asked.

“No,” Franklin said.

In 2019, Franklin was sentenced to two years’ probation after being convicted for possession of child exploitation material.

The court heard at the time he downloaded the images over the course of a year and nine months and viewed links with titles such as “10-year-old jail bait twins” and “tied-up young girls”.

His podiatry licence was suspended when he was charged.

His penchant for child abuse material was discovered on October 22, 2018, when police seized Franklin’s phone when they were interviewing him in relation to Toyah.
...
The court heard he met Toyah 17 days before she died when she attended a podiatry appointment and the pair “had a connection” sparked by their mutual enthusiasm for Harry Potter – he saved her number as Slytherin and she saved his as Gryffindor, and they sent each other text messages frequently, often late into the night.

They went to Fairy Falls on October 14 and afterwards continued texting, often late into the night, with Franklin admitting they were “flirtatious” and “intimate” texts.

Ms Bilic quoted a text Franklin sent which said at the waterfall he “I noticed your shivering open lips. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t notice your nipples feeling the cold too” and Toyah responded she had a good time, but would wear better swimmers next time.

She revealed her boyfriend was away for the weekend and Mr Franklin sent a message about 11pm saying he’d like to come over and catch a movie.

Mr Franklin told police there was no physical contact between himself and Toyah but admitted to Ms Bilic that was a lie.

He gave a statement to police on October 22 but police called him back in on October 30 and confronted him with the text messages.

Toyah told him there were “little things not adding up” with her boyfriend, such as that she loved swimming and he wasn’t keen, and she was thinking of living on her own, the court heard.

“The police would never have known the true nature of your relationship if they had not found those messages,” Ms Bilic said.

“Correct,” Mr Franklin replied.

He told police he went to Toyah’s on October 14 at 11pm and they “rubbed and stroked” each other for hours.

In his second statement, Mr Franklin told police “after I stopped rubbing parts of her body, Toyah became upset, she said she was cheating on her boyfriend and ‘I am not that kind of person, Tyson’,” the court heard.

In a subsequent text he said “I get the feeling you’re into role play, quite fun, possibly kinky, possibly rough but passionate”.

Ms Bilic asked if he understood how important it was to tell police everything about his interactions with Toyah.

“Police needed to know about Marco and Toyah’s relationship,” Ms Bilic said.

“You are aware when a young woman goes missing her boyfriend may well be a suspect … the fact a young woman might have developed feelings for another man might be an important matter for police to know about,” Ms Bilic said.

“It is not until the police read out your text messages to you that you gave an honest account, do you accept that?”

Mr Franklin, who gave evidence via video link from a takeaway restaurant he said he was working in, said yes.
...
Mr Franklin flew to Sydney on October 18 and arranged for Toyah to pick him up at Cairns airport at 7pm on October 21.
...'
 
Given Franklin's 2018/19 possession of child exploitation material case (see article below today) , and the risk of mistaken identity relating to Franklin's name, it's understandable that the Cairns Post were being cautious publishing anything of the cross-examination of Franklin.

Could well explain why he didn't give them all the information at the time, was wary of police looking too closely at his affairs...
 
This is insane. Was Singh's trip to India already booked/planned, or did he somehow get that organised at the last minute?
There's also the distinct possibility that Singh witnessed the incident or was nearby and had DNA planted on Toyah by the perpetrators. He may have been threatened by them or scared and jumped on the next plane to India in a classic fight or flight response.

It might not have occurred like that but it's certainly explainable.
 
Geez after years of Singh being the obvious guilty party it seems absolutely nuts that there's a legitimate way and reason it could have been the BF.

Yeh I think Singh's lawyer is going to make it difficult, to Singh's advantage there are a couple of things that might just cast doubt on him as the doer and have the jury looking elsewhere.

Singh still has to get over the DNA we can be pretty sure investigators found in the least, under Toyah's fingernails, the scratches witnesses saw on his face and arms, his odd behaviour of disappearing in the days before presumably going on long beach walks and just not going home and the apparent confession he made post arrest in Delhi.

The confession he made in Delhi will probably be thrown out as evidence.
 
“It is not until the police read out your text messages to you that you gave an honest account, do you accept that?”

Mr Franklin, who gave evidence via video link from a takeaway restaurant he said he was working in, said yes.
...
Mr Franklin flew to Sydney on October 18 and arranged for Toyah to pick him up at Cairns airport at 7pm on October 21.
...'

So, is he a podiatrist or is he a barista?
 
Yeh I think Singh's lawyer is going to make it difficult, to Singh's advantage there are a couple of things that might just cast doubt on him as the doer and have the jury looking elsewhere.

Singh still has to get over the DNA we can be pretty sure investigators found in the least, under Toyah's fingernails, the scratches witnesses saw on his face and arms, his odd behaviour of disappearing in the days before presumably going on long beach walks and just not going home and the apparent confession he made post arrest in Delhi.

The confession he made in Delhi will probably be thrown out as evidence.

A strange case just got even more strange.
 

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Current Trial Toyah Cordingley * Murder Trial of Rajwinder Singh

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