Gruesome photo shocks court as Toyah Cordingley’s injuries are detailed in murder trial – as grieving dad relives the horror of finding daughter’s body on remote beach

A distressing photo of the ‘cutting wound’ to Toyah Cordingley’s neck that likely her life has been shown to a shocked court, as her distraught father relived the horror of discovering her body on a beach.

Rajwinder Singh has pleaded not guilty in the Supreme Court to the murder of Ms Cordingley, 24, more than six years after her body was found at an isolated far north Queensland beach.

Forensic pathologist Dr Paul Botterill, who conducted the autopsy on her body, said the main injury to Ms Cordingley was a ‘cutting wound to the front of the neck’. 

A photo of the distressing injury showed a deep cut across her throat which severed her windpipe completely as well as major veins and arteries, news.com.au reported.

Dr Botterill said the wound ‘would not have resulted in her immediate death’.

The injury would have caused extensive bleeding, including into the windpipe and was ‘incompatible with life’, he said.

Ms Cordingley also had penetrating stab wounds to her torso on her left hand side and her breast.

One of these stab wounds went into her heart, which was also life-threatening, the court heard.

There were also ‘cutting wounds’ to her hands that were ‘typical of defensive wounds’, compatible with grabbing at or trying to push away a blade.

Ms Cordingley was also stabbed on her left thigh, over the right thigh and had several abrasions across her body. There were also stab wounds to her left lung and kidney. 

The pathologist said there was no physical evidence of sexual trauma.

He said determining what time Ms Cordingley died was difficult due to the temperature at the time and could only be narrowed down between the last time she was seen and when her body was found.

Her father Troy Cordingley testified how he was ‘horrified’ to find his daughter’s body, during an impromptu search for her after she went missing. 

Ms Cordingley drove to Wangetti Beach, north of Cairns, for a Sunday afternoon walk with her dog on October 21, 2018 and never returned.

Mr Cordingley told the jury on Wednesday he set out to search the beach before dawn the next day.

He said he felt tired and went to rest under trees where he saw a mound in the sand.

The jury heard Mr Cordingley dropped to his knees after thinking it was unnatural and looked odd.

‘I scooped the sand three times. On the third scoop there was a foot,’ Mr Cordingley said as his voice broke with emotion.

‘I reeled back. I was horrified. I yelled out ‘help me, help me’. I was shocked, stunned.’

Crown prosecutor Nathan Crane took the jury through the movements of Ms Cordingley’s phone leaving the beach at 5pm that day, which he said was after she likely died.

The jury was told her phone was roughly located in multiple areas that corresponded to a blue Alpha Romeo sedan seen on multiple CCTV cameras driving to Lake Placid Holiday Apartments.

‘The vehicle has features of its colour, its wheels and its distinctive grille … Rajwinder Singh owned a blue Alpha Romeo, a similar vehicle,’ Mr Crane said.

Jurors were shown photo of the mound that covered Ms Cordingley’s body after she was found the morning after she disappeared.

Singh, who sat in the dock with his hands clasped in his lap, closed his eyes and looked down while the images were displayed on a large screen.

Mr Crane said a stick was found partially buried with Ms Cordingley, who had been stabbed in the chest and hands and her throat slashed.

‘Mr Singh was 3.7 billion times more likely to contribute the DNA found on that stick,’ he said.

A male DNA sample 2,000 times more likely to be from Mr Singh than a random man was found on Ms Cordingley’s fingernails. 

The jury heard Singh left Australia for New Delhi a day after Ms Cordingley’s body was found and he was not seen again until tracked down in his native India in November 2022.

‘Did not return to (his wife) or his children. The house was lost. The mortgage was not paid. He did not return to work (as a hospital nurse),’ Mr Crane said.

Defence barrister Angus Edwards told the jury in his opening address that anybody at the beach that day could have killed Ms Cordingley.

‘As you go through trial, ask yourself if Mr Singh being the killer is the only possibility,’ Mr Edwards said.

He asked the jury to consider whether the evidence about the phone, DNA and the Alpha Romeo was as strong as the prosecution made it out to be.

Later in the day Mr Edwards cross-examined Ms Cordingley’s partner, Marco Heidenreich, a whitewater rafting guide from Port Douglas.

Mr Heidenreich denied having anything to do with Ms Cordingley’s death.

He agreed his stepfather was a former Cairns police officer and was friendly at the time with a detective investigating Ms Cordingley’s death.

‘Did you think there was anything unusual about your treatment by the police?’ Mr Edwards asked.

‘No,’ Mr Heidenreich said.

The trial is due to run for another four weeks in Cairns before Justice James Henry.