She Was Walking Her Dog on the Beach When Nurse Emerged and Stabbed Her 26 Times — and Heartbroken Father Found the Body By Christina Coulter 14

A former nurse who fled to India after 24-year-old Toyah Cordingley was found fatally stabbed and half-buried on a Queensland, Australia beach has been sentenced to life in prison seven years after the brutal killing.

Rajwinder Singh, 41, was convicted Monday, Dec. 8, in the Supreme Court in Cairns at the end of a four-week retrial — about eight months after a previous jury was unable to reach a verdict in the case, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), the BBC and The Guardian.

Jurors deliberated for roughly seven hours before returning a unanimous decision, per the outlets.

On Tuesday, Dec. 9, Justice Lincoln Crowley sentenced Singh to life in prison and set a 25-year non-parole period, per the ABC.

Cordingley disappeared on Oct. 21, 2018, after driving to Wangetti Beach to walk her dog, PEOPLE previously reported. When she didn’t return home that night, her family searched for her. Her father found her body the next morning half-buried in sand dunes, while the dog was located alive and tied tightly to a tree nearby.

Her body was discovered with a slashed throat and at least 26 stab wounds, the court heard, per the ABC and BBC. She had been left in a shallow and sandy grave.

Cordingley’s killing rattled Far North Queensland. Hundreds marched against violence toward women, bumper stickers bearing her name appeared on cars and residents called for justice, the outlets reported.

Outside court Monday, Cordingley’s mother, Vanessa Gardiner, called the guilty verdict “a long awaited day for us as a family,” but “not one to celebrate,” the ABC reported. “Today is a big piece of this journey that needed an ending and most of all, justice for our Toyah,” she said, describing her daughter as a “lovable, innocent, full of life young woman.”

“We are different people now because of this tragedy,” Gardiner added, per the outlet. “We will always wonder what could’ve been if her life was not cut so short.”

She said the family would never forgive Singh and noted there were “multiple victims,” including Toyah’s partner and Singh’s wife and children, who she said were “collateral damage from this man’s actions,” the outlet reported.

Inside the courtroom, Cordingley’s father could be heard saying “rot in hell, you bastard” after the verdict was read, per the outlet, before he later thanked jurors, prosecutors and investigators for their work in the case.

“Today’s verdict has delivered a form of justice but for us there can never be true justice because we live in a world without Toyah,” he said. “And the world will always be poorer for it.”

Queensland Police Inspector Sonia Smith said Cordingley’s murder left a “deep scar” in the community and called the case “one of the largest and most complex in Far North history,” the ABC added. She said detectives made “significant sacrifices” to ensure no stone was left unturned.

Singh, who is originally from India’s Punjab state, had been living in Innisfail at the time of the killing, PEOPLE previously reported.

Investigators identified him as a person of interest when they realized the movements of his blue Alfa Romeo matched those of Cordingley’s phone as it traveled away from the beach, per the ABC.

During sentencing, Justice Crowley addressed the question of motive, saying it remained “unknown” but characterizing the murder as an “opportunistic killing,” the outlet reported.

He said an “obvious explanation” for Singh’s “shocking and sickening act of violence” was that Cordingley had stumbled upon him engaged in “some type of disgraceful, embarrassing activity” of a “sexual and perverted” nature at the secluded beach, prompting a confrontation.

Singh’s decision to take Cordingley’s phone, Crowley said, raised the possibility that she may have recorded him or intended to report what she saw, per the ABC.

The judge also called Singh a “selfish and heartless individual” who “took flight like a gutless coward,” saying he left Australia without even saying goodbye to his wife or children.

The morning after Cordingley was killed, Singh booked a one-way flight to New Delhi and told a travel agent his grandfather was very sick before leaving his family behind, according to the ABC. His wife and three young children — who depended on him financially — did not hear from him for more than four years and ultimately lost their home, the outlet reported.

Crowley said Singh’s years in India “prolonged the anguish” of Cordingley’s family and showed he had taken no responsibility for the crime.

Prosecutors said DNA recovered from a stick at the scene was 3.8 billion times more likely to have come from Singh than from a random member of the public, and argued that the evidence pointed to him and “eliminated others,” the BBC reported.

In late 2022, Queensland police offered a record $1 million reward for information leading to Singh’s arrest, per the ABC and The Guardian.

Weeks later, he was located at a Sikh Gurdwara in New Delhi. Singh did not contest extradition and returned to Australia in early 2023, the ABC reported.

He was charged that March, The Guardian reported, and his first trial earlier this year ended in a hung jury, as previously detailed by PEOPLE.

Before his extradition, Singh told the Australian Associated Press (AAP), “I did not kill the woman,” and said he wanted to “reveal all the details” in an Australian court, per The Guardian.

A jury ultimately rejected that claim in his retrial.