Dad Found His 24-Year-Old Daughter Stabbed on Beach, with Dog Tied to Tree Nearby — and Suspect Is Nurse By KC Baker

The trial for the man accused of fatally stabbing a 24-year-old woman and burying her in the sand has begun with jurors visiting the isolated Australian beach where she was killed in 2018.

On Oct. 22, 2018, the body of Toyah Cordingley, 24, was found on Wangetti Beach in Far North Queensland after she had gone missing while walking her dog the Sunday afternoon before.

Her father, Troy Cordingley, went looking for her when she vanished and found her body when he was resting against a tree and saw an unusual mound in the sand.

“I dropped down to my knees and I scooped the sand three times, and on the third scoop, there was a foot,”he said, the Australian Associated Press (AAP) reported.

“I reeled back. I was horrified. I yelled out ‘Help me, help me.’ I was shocked, stunned,” he said, according to the AAP.

Toyah, who worked at an organic food store, suffered an “extraordinarily deep” 17-centimeter neck wound as well as injuries to her abdomen, chest, and fingers, forensic pathologist Dr Paul Botterill told jurors in February, per the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). 

The young woman may have been buried alive, Crown prosecutor Nathan Crane said in court, per news.com.au, adding that she was “buried shortly before or after her death.”

Rajwinder Singh, 40, a nurse, was arrested in March 2023 and charged with Toyah’s murder. He pleaded not guilty.

His first trial ended in March when the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict, The Guardian reports.

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On Monday, Nov. 17, jurors, the judge and lawyers for both sides were driven to the beach where the murder took place, walking nearly 2.5 miles to get to the exact spot where her body was found, the ABC reports.

Prosecutors allege that after killing Toyah, Singh took her phone and other items and drove by “bodies of water” so he could get rid of them, ABC reports.

Her phone pinged at locations far from the beach after she was killed, prosecutors said.

Traffic cameras showed a blue car similar to Singh’s blue Alfa Romeo driving in an area where Toyah’s phone had pinged, prosecutors allege.

After Toyah’s body was found, Singh, a married father, jetted out of Australia, quit his job and stopped paying the mortgage on his family’s house, Crown prosecutor Nathan Crane said during the first trial, The Guardian reports.

Her mother found her daughter’s dog, Indie, tied to a tree near where her body was found, according to the ABC.