Was West Chester family's killing the work of 'someone they trusted' or somebody else?

Gurpreet Singh’s second murder trial began Monday in Butler County Common Pleas Court – five years and one day after his family was gunned down inside a West Chester Township apartment.

A mistrial was declared at Singh’s last trial in late 2022 after the jury couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict. A three-judge panel is hearing the case this time and will decide on an outcome.

Singh, 41, is charged with four counts of aggravated murder and faces the possibility of the death penalty if found guilty.

Four people were killed at the Lakefront apartment complex where Singh lived on April 28, 2019:

• 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.

Each of the victims suffered numerous gunshot wounds to the head. They were all dead by the time West Chester police reached the apartment, according to trial testimony.

Prosecutors say Singh was the only one who emerged from the apartment alive that night and he’s the only one with the motive and opportunity to kill his wife’s family.

It was Singh who reported the shooting to police in a frantic 911 call in which he claimed he'd just arrived at the apartment and found his family hurt.

However, Singh lied to the police about not being home during the shooting as evidence shows he entered the apartment almost an hour before officers arrived, according to prosecutors.

His attorneys do not dispute that fact but say he witnessed his family's execution and cradled his wife's head while phoning 911 for help.

“Five people entered that apartment, only one survived,” Assistant Butler County Prosecutor Jon Marshall said during opening statements.

Singh put careful consideration into planning the killings, prosecutors said, adding he called in sick from his truck driving job and arranged for his children to be out of the apartment.

Prosecutors said Singh’s motive for shooting his family stemmed from an ongoing affair and his repeated demands for money from his father-in-law, with whom they said Singh had a strained relationship.

In court filings, prosecutors said Singh gifted $20,000 to his mistress in Indianapolis so she could buy a house, bought her a car and even purchased a home on the same street she lived on, indicating his plan for a long-term relationship.

Singh and his mistress repeatedly called and messaged each other in the hours before and after the killings, prosecutors said, adding Singh tried to delete evidence of those communications.

Prosecutors said Singh gunned down his father-in-law who was asleep in bed and executed his wife while standing overtop of her.

Singh had gunshot residue on his hands and his clothes were covered in his family’s blood, prosecutors said. A handgun with the serial number pried off was recovered from a pond near Singh’s apartment.

After a months-long investigation, West Chester police found that all signs pointed to Singh as the killer, according to Marshall, who noted that none of the victims had defensive wounds.

“That is because the person who killed them was someone they trusted,” Marshall said. “That is because the person who killed them is someone whose presence in that apartment did not give them alarm or concern.”

Singh’s attorneys alluded to evidence of other possible suspects, saying prosecutors have failed to explain how killing his wife and her family would solve any of the alleged problems stemming from his affair.

Alex Deardorff, one of Singh’s attorneys, said Pannag got into a legal dispute with two foreign nationals, both of whom have criminal histories, over the sale of 10 acres of land he owned in India.

Those men were at imminent risk of losing roughly $1.2 million worth of investments due to that dispute and they had been threatening the family and their representative, Deardorff said.

Deardorff said the gunpowder residue found on Singh is only evidence that he was in the room, not that he pulled the trigger and there’s no DNA tying him to the recovered weapon.

She also pointed to the apartment door being ripped from its hinges as clear evidence someone forced their way inside.

“He could not have been the shooter and the background proves that someone else orchestrated this crime,” Deardorff said.

The trial will resume with testimony Tuesday morning. It is expected to run through this week and into next week.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Gurpreet Singh trial: Man accused of 2019 family killing back in court