From trusted workers to murder accused: 3 Indian men facing trial in brutal murder of senior Canadian couple

The accused, identified as Gurkaran Singh, Abhijeet Singh and Khushveer Toor, were arrested in December 2022 and charged with two counts each of first-degree murder.

Outlining the prosecution’s case in her opening statement, Crown prosecutor Dorothy Tsui said Arnold De Jong, 77, was found with duct tape wrapped around his nose and mouth and died of asphyxiation due to smothering, the Vancouver Sun reported.

His wife, Joanne De Jong, 76, was found surrounded by blood and died from a combination of sharp and blunt force trauma, according to the newspaper.

Tsui told the court the accused were allegedly driven by “debt, financial pressure and greed,” and were aware that the elderly couple lived alone and owned a trucking business.

According to the prosecution, Abhijeet Singh operated a company that had cleaned the roof and gutters of the De Jongs’ Abbotsford home about a month before the killings.

Gurkaran Singh and Toor reportedly worked for Abhijeet Singh.

The prosecutor said the Crown plans to present cellphone and financial records linking each of the accused to the murders, along with forensic evidence from the crime scene, including a fingerprint allegedly belonging to Gurkaran Singh.

Police also recovered a weapon connected to the killings through DNA evidence from the trunk of a car allegedly used by all three men, Tsui said.

Sandra Barthel, one of the couple’s daughters, told the Vancouver Sun that attending court proceedings has been emotionally overwhelming.

“There’s no manual for what we’re going through, so sitting in the courtroom today is hard. Our brains comprehend that our parents are gone, but our hearts have a really hard time understanding how this could happen to such loving parents,” she said.

Recalling the moment she saw the accused in court for the first time, Barthel added, “To see them in front of you, and to think of these two senior citizens, who were innocent and in the sanctuary of their home … and hearing some of the details this morning was just really, really hard — to imagine what those moments must have been like for our parents.”