Case of slain Sikh family ends in death row 5 years, 2 trials later. Here's what happened

By all accounts, the night of April 28, 2019, was warm and pleasant.

Residents of the Lakefront apartment complex in West Chester Township were reading with the windows open, walking their dogs and unwinding with a cigarette after a weekend shift.

That was before they heard gunfire.

It wasn’t long until first responders swarmed the apartments to find a Sikh family gunned down and Gurpreet Singh covered in blood.

It took more than five years and two trials before a three-judge panel in Butler County Common Pleas Court found Singh guilty of four counts of aggravated murder – one for each slain family member. Singh, 41, was formally sentenced to death on Wednesday.

What emerged at trial were tales of competing motives. Prosecutors argued Singh’s costly affair and subsequent financial woes led him to carry out the killings, while his attorneys said Singh only witnessed the murders, which stemmed from a legal dispute over land in India.

“All of the evidence pointed to (Singh) having been the person responsible for the murder of each of the members of his family,” said Judge Gregory Howard, who read the panel’s decision.

While the panel set a November execution date, Ohio’s been under an unofficial moratorium on executions since 2020 when Gov. Mike DeWine declared lethal injection “no longer an option.”

Singh’s attorneys also asked for the judges to appoint public defenders to handle his appeal. He didn’t make any statements in court during his trial or at sentencing.

What happened on April 28, 2019?

It was Singh who called 911 that night, telling a dispatcher he’d just arrived home to find his family bleeding and unresponsive.

Police officers reached the apartment roughly 10 minutes later to discover a bloody and chaotic scene. Among the dead were:

• Shalinderjit Kaur, 39, Singh's wife.

• Parmjit Kaur, 62, Singh's mother-in-law.

• Amarjit Kaur, 58, Singh's wife's aunt.

• Hakiakat Singh Pannag, 59, Singh's father-in-law.

Parmjit Kaur was lying by the front door, Amarjit Kaur was by the couch and Shalinderjit Kaur was near the kitchen where a pot of food was smoking on the stove, according to trial testimony. Pannag was still lying in bed with a blanket over him and pillows under his head.

Dr. Karen Looman with the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office performed the family’s autopsies and found they each died from gunshot wounds to the head, with a total of 16 gunshot wounds between them.

Prosecutors said Singh started with Pannag – the person he liked least – before gunning down his wife, her aunt visiting from India and her mother.

Shalinderjit Kaur was wounded and immobile when two “double tap” rounds killed her, Looman said. Prosecutors pointed to that as evidence Singh stood over his unconscious wife before pulling the trigger.

The killings sent shockwaves throughout the Sikh community and beyond, while Singh – who was not immediately charged – received an outpouring of support and compassion.

“I have no words. The trauma has been too much. It’s too hard to even think of all that has happened. My brain is not working,” Singh said a week after the shooting.

Singh was eventually arrested in July 2019 by police in Connecticut, where he traveled for a family wedding. His first trial in late 2022 ended in a mistrial after the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict amidst fighting and name-calling between two jurors.

‘He paid everything’

Singh spoke with detectives on the night of the killings in a recorded interview at the West Chester Police Department.

Despite saying that he wanted to help police find the person responsible, Singh never mentioned being home and witnessing an intruder carry out the murders.

Singh initially helped detectives put together a timeline of the day but became agitated and tried to leave once they asked to do a gunshot residue swab, according to footage played at trial.

“Now you are treating me like I am the criminal,” Singh said. Police obtained a search warrant to carry out the swab, which showed he had gunshot residue on his hands.

He also lied to police about his years-long affair with a woman in Indianapolis.

“Always faithful. Never a problem,” Singh said when asked about conflicts in his marriage.

However, Singh made almost weekly trips to Indianapolis working as a commercial truck driver, according to records from a logistics company Singh contracted with.

Investigators later learned Singh was supporting his mistress financially and bought a more than $330,000 home on her street, though police found the home mostly empty.

Singh gave the woman $20,000 toward her house’s downpayment, paid her mortgage and bought her a luxury SUV.

“He paid everything,” said Navkiran Kaur, Singh’s ex-mistress. She said Singh wanted to move his family to Indianapolis, though the pair never seriously discussed him leaving his wife.

Life at home wasn’t as peachy as Singh led police to believe. Prosecutors said Singh’s affair put his finances in jeopardy and he couldn’t afford the lifestyle he was living.

Amrik Tiwana, a member of the local Sikh community, testified that Pannag complained of Singh beating him in early 2019 and showed bruises his son-in-law allegedly caused.

Records from Pannag’s February 2019 hospital visit stated that he described Singh as “no good,” adding that Singh demanded money.

"We knew there were disputes in the family and we expected fist fights or a divorce but we never expected the whole family to be killed,” Ajaib Singh, brother of Amarjit Kaur and Parmjit Kaur, previously told The Enquirer.

Was land deal motive for killings?

The family was embroiled in a dispute over money and a community meeting was held to resolve it, Tiwana said, adding that it was decided Singh would travel to India to collect money from the sale of Pannag’s land there.

However, police recovered documents showing those plans somehow changed, with Parmjit Kaur expected to board a flight on April 30, 2019, headed for India.

She wrote in a notarized affidavit that she was canceling her nephew’s power of attorney because he was being threatened and wanted out of representing the family in a legal dispute with Pannag’s two ex-business partners over the land sale.

Alex Deardorff, Singh’s attorney, pointed to those documents as proof the family was under threat from those men, who were at imminent risk of losing more than $1 million worth of investments. One of them had also fought criminal extradition to the U.S.

Pannag sold part of a 10-acre property he owned in India and was to be paid in installments for the rest while development began, Deardorff said.

She said hostilities intensified after payments started to fall behind in 2014 and Pannag was suing to get his land back.

Singh’s attorneys alluded throughout the trial to an international conspiracy to kill the family and halt the legal proceedings in India. They also pointed to damage to the front door’s moulding as evidence someone forced their way inside.

"They're asking you to convict him because someone didn't prove who else did it," Deardorff told the judges. "Gurpreet did not shoot his family."

However, prosecutors said Singh was familiar with the land deal and his uncle was the one who purchased the property from Pannag, adding that Singh wanted the money from that deal.

“Maybe there was a conspiracy, but this defendant was the triggerman for his uncle if there was one,” Butler County Assistant Prosecutor Josh Muennich said. “Or maybe he did it for himself.”

Prosecutors: Family alive until Singh came home

Prosecutors said that Singh put careful planning into the killings, created his opportunity to strike and took steps to ensure no one saw him do it.

He called off work and asked a cousin to take his children to a restaurant and then back to her place to watch a movie, saying he’d be by later to pick the kids up, according to trial testimony.

However, Singh drove past his cousin’s apartment to go home, prosecutors said.

His car’s GPS data shows Singh arrived at the apartment complex at 9:09 p.m. and cellphone and Google records placed him inside at 9:11 p.m. He didn’t call 911 until almost 30 minutes later.

Prosecutors said the victims’ injuries and the location of where the shell casings were found show the shooter started from the back of the apartment and attacked from behind. Parmjit Kaur likely ripped the door moulding from the wall trying to escape, they added.

Police recovered the murder weapon from a pond behind Singh’s apartment, however, the 9mm handgun’s serial number had been drilled off and investigators were unable to trace where it was last purchased and by whom.

While there was no evidence tying Singh to the gun, prosecutors said he threw it from the patio because he had to stay on scene until police arrived, adding that Singh didn’t want it found.

“These four people were all alive until this defendant came home,” said Butler County Assistant Prosecutor Jon Marshall.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: How did Gurpreet Singh end up on death row for killing own family?