A man of Indian origin, aged 40, who is accused of murdering his wife and three of her family members in 2019, made an appearance in a county court in the US for a pretrial hearing with his third defense team.
The accused, Gurpreet Singh, a former truck driver, is currently being held without bond at the Butler County Jail in Ohio, and he could face the death penalty if found guilty.
Singh, who is currently on trial for the four murders that occurred at a West Chester apartment in 2019, appeared in a Butler County courtroom on Tuesday accompanied by his new attorneys.
In February of this year, Judge Greg Howard scheduled the trial for April 29, 2024, and he confirmed on Tuesday that the trial date would proceed as planned. The defense team requested a second pretrial hearing, which is scheduled for August 1.
During the first trial in October 2022, which involved nearly two weeks of testimony and 14 hours of deliberation, no verdict was reached.
Singh is facing four counts of aggravated murder for allegedly shooting and killing his wife, Shalinderjit Kaur, his in-laws, Hakikat Singh Pannag and Parmjit Kaur, and his aunt-in-law, Amarjit Kaur.
Prosecutors argued in court that Singh murdered his family by shooting them all in the head due to a strained relationship with his in-laws over money from land owned in India.
In his defense, Singh’s legal team, during the first trial, claimed that the killings were part of a professional hit orchestrated by the “land mafia” in India, citing Pannag’s financial troubles and a questionable land contract deal.
The defense stated that three masked men armed with baseball bats had broken into the apartment, and Singh had fled to save his own life. Upon his return, he discovered that everyone in the apartment was dead.
However, the defense team presented limited evidence to support this theory.
