Rajwinder Singh appealing murder life sentence
Cairns court
Rajwinder Singh has filed an appeal against his conviction for the murder of Toyah Cordingley at Wangetti Beach.
Former Innisfail nurse Singh was convicted by a jury of 12 people last month in the Queensland Supreme Court in Cairns of the 2018 murder of the former Paws and Claws animal shelter volunteer.
Given a month to appeal his life sentence, which included a non-parole period of 25 years, Singh this week exercised his option not long before the deadline expired.
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In early December, the jury deliberated for about seven hours to come up with a unanimous guilty verdict during an about month-long retrial following a hung jury in the original trial earlier in the year.
The nine men and three women decided Mr Singh was guilty of murdering Ms Cordingley on the afternoon of Sunday, October 21, 2018, at the remote beach, about 30km south of Port Douglas.
Ms Cordingley’s body was found buried in a shallow grave the next day by her father Troy.
Although Singh did not set foot in the witness box during either trial, he told an undercover police officer in a Cairns holding cell in 2023 he saw masked assailants kill Ms Cordingley and fled the country to escape them.
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