A jealous former lover who abducted his ex-girlfriend and buried her alive in an abhorrent act of cruelty is facing life behind bars.
Jasmeen Kaur, 21, was kidnapped from the South Australian aged care home she worked at in North Plympton, Adelaide in March, 2021.
Tarikjot Singh, 21, pleaded guilty to the murder and on Wednesday during sentencing submissions in the Supreme Court, prosecutor Carman Matteo SC said the killing was an act of ‘vengeance’ and ‘involved an uncommon level of cruelty’.
‘Ms Kaur was buried alive and she was buried while she was conscious,’ she said.
‘(She) had inhaled and swallowed soil that had made its way as far as her lower oesophagus. She was actively breathing in and swallowing soil while she was alive. That was the manner in which she died.
‘She had to have been aware in those moments of the hopelessness of her situation.
‘She had to have been consciously suffering what can only be described as the absolute terror of breathing in and swallowing soil and dying in that way.’
Ms Kaur had filed a complaint with police approximately a month before her death detailing how her ex-boyfriend was stalking her. Singh was formally cautioned by police on February 9, 2021.
The day before he murdered Ms Kaur, Singh downloaded a map of security camera locations in Adelaide.
Singh had also swapped cars with his flat mate and used that vehicle to drive to Ms Kaur’s workplace where he abducted her on March 5.
In the lead-up Singh purchased cable ties and a shovel from Bunnings.
Security footage on the evening of March 5 shows Singh heading north, with Ms Kaur out of sight.
The prosecution said this suggests she was either restrained in the back seat or the boot.
Ms Kaur was then callously murdered and buried in the Flinders Ranges that night.
Her body was later found with her hands tied together with a cable tie behind her back, her feet taped and cable-tied together and she was blindfolded.
At a rest stop nearby Singh disposed of her work ID, clothing and looped cable ties on his way back to Adelaide.
Following Ms Kaur’s abduction, Singh removed his SIM card and put it in a different phone at his house.
When questioned by police following the incident, Singh initially denied knowing anything about where she was before altering his story and saying she had taken her own life and then he had then buried her.
Singh’s lawyer Martin Anders said his client had fallen apart after the relationship breakup.
‘In essence, you have a young man, a very young man just out of his teens, and he was not able to cope with the breakdown of a relationship that meant everything to him,’ he said.
Mr Anders said Singh had a diminished capacity to murder due to his mental health spiralling out of control before he killed Ms Kaur.
He said his client still hears her voice and following her murder has experienced hallucinations where he believed he was still talking to her.
Justice Kimber formally imposed a mandatory life sentence for Singh for Ms Kaur’s murder, with a non-parole period set to be decided next month.
