News East West
TORONTO: On the first day of the trial in the Indo-Canadian love triangle murder in an Ottawa court on Friday, shocking details emerged of how bus driver Bhupinderpal Gill and his mistress Gurpreet Ronald plotted to kill Gill’s wife so that they could become a couple.
Gill’s wife Jagtar Gill was killed in her home on Jan 29, 2014, on her 17th wedding anniversary. A day before, she had a hernia surgery. The couple had three children – aged 8, 9 and 15 at the time of the crime.
Gill and Ronald, who both worked as bus drivers with for OC Transpo, face first-degree murder charges. A 12-member jury started hearing the case in Ontario Superior Court on Friday.
Prosecutor Jason Neubauer told the jury that Gill hated his wife because he was having a love affair with Gurpreet Ronald for almost two years when he plotted his wife’s murder. The prosecutor alleged that Gill and Ronald arranged their work shifts in such a way so that they could meet quite often. They also moved within blocks of each other to become neighbours.
But since it was not easy for Gill to get divorce from his wife, he conspired “to get rid of his wife,” the court heard.
In fact, days before he plotted his wife’s murder, Gill and Gurpreet Ronald went to see a psychic to know about the future of their relationship.
Gill and his mistress spoke more than 250 times on the phone for a total of 48 hours in the 28 days before the murder.
On the day of the murder, Gill’s two children went to school and his teenage eldest daughter stayed home to be with her mother who had a hernia operation a day earlier.
But Gill managed to convince his teenage daughter to come with him for shopping, leaving Jagtar alone. It was then when Gurpreet Ronald entered the couple’s home and murdered Jagtar Gill by slashing her neck and left wrist, stabbing her in the stomach and smashing her head with a weightlifting metal bar.
The prosecutor told the jury that “cuts to the palms of Jagtar’s hands and bruises and fractures to the forearms revealed that she did what she could to defend herself.’’
After committing the crime, Gurpreet Ronald called Gill and also met him at a Sotheby’s parking lot before the two drove away separately.
When Gill and his teenage daughter reached home, his daughter discovered the “shocking and gruesome” murder of her mother. She called the police from the home phone while Gill called from his cell phone.
The jury heard that before cops and first responders could reach the crime scene, Gill removed two bloodied knives and washed them in the kitchen sink. He told investigators later that he did this because the knives had his fingerprints and he was scared.
Gill also removed the metal bar used by his mistress to kill his wife and hid it in a box in the basement.
During search of the basement, police seized the bloodied metal bar and replaced it with a replica bar with blood in the box. The cops also set up a concealed surveillance video camera next to the replica bar.
That surveillance video captured Gill removing the bar from the basement. He threw the replica metal bar in a wooded area near Cedarview Road. Police followed him and recovered the metal bar.
Police surveillance of Gurpreet Ronald also showed her driving to a National Capital Commission (NCC) trail and dumping something there. Later, latex gloves and a big kitchen knife were recovered from that spot by an NCC employee.
The jury heard that the victim’s blood was found on the recovered knife while one of the latex gloves also had Gurpreet Ronald’s blood.
As the trial resumes on Tuesday, over 30 witnesses, including the psychic, will be called to testify.
Both Gill and Gurpreet have denied the charges. Gurpreet is married to Jason Ronald who is also a bus driver with OC Transpo.
READ ALSO: Gurpreet Ronald, her lover found guilty in love triangle murder
