3 Surrey men killed Abbotsford couple for money, says Crown

Three men accused of killing an elderly Abbotsford couple in 2022 were motivated by “debt, financial pressure and greed,” a packed courtroom was told Monday (Jan. 12) at the opening of their trial.

Co-Crown counsel Dorothy Tsui, in her opening statements in B.C. Supreme Court in Abbotsford, said Khushveer Toor, Gurkaran Singh and Abhijeet Singh of Surrey acted together to commit first-degree murder.

“The ultimate cost of accomplishing their shared objective of stealing money were the senseless deaths of Arnold and Joanne De Jong,” Tsui said.

The bodies of the De Jongs were discovered on the morning of May 9, 2022 in their home in the 33600 block of Arcadian Way, a rural road in east Abbotsford.

Tsui told the court that Joanne, 76, was found in her bed with her hands and feet tied by rope and surrounded by a “significant amount” of blood. A pathologist determined she had died as a result of “sharp-force trauma and blunt-force trauma,” Tsui said.

Arnold, 77, was also found in bed – in a separate bedroom – with his hands and feet also bound, and his entire head and face rightly wrapped in duct tape. His cause of death was determined to be asphyxiation due to smothering, Tsui said.

She said the De Jongs were last seen alive on the evening of May 8, 2022. They had hosted a family celebration earlier in the day, and Arnold’s sister visited them in the evening, leaving at around 10 p.m.

His sister later tried to contact the home several times to no avail. The De Jongs’ son-in-law went to check on them the next morning, and called police immediately after discovering Joanne’s body.

Officers who arrived also checked on Arnold, and quickly determined that the pair were the victims of a homicide.

Tsui said the De Jongs knew the three accused because Abhijeet Singh owned and ran a cleaning company, called AS Cleaners, which had cleaned the roof and gutters of the De Jong home in July 2021 and April 2022.

The other two men also worked for the company, and the three men lived together in Surrey.

Tsui said Gurkaran arrived in Canada on an international student visa on April 16, 2022. She said he was supposed to attend North Lights College in Dawson Creek the next month, but he never made it there.

“The Crown’s theory is that the three men acted as a team and violently confined the De Jongs in their separate bedrooms and murdered them,” Tsui said.

She said the three men stole Arnold’s credit cards, cheques and a pressure washer, which was later sold.

Tsui said the evidence will also show that later on the day of May 9, 2022, Toor deposited a $5,600 cheque in person at a bank in Surrey. The cheque was purportedly signed by Joanne on May 6, and the memo line stated it was for “cleanup of house.”

Tsui said a second cheque for $5,100 was deposited into Gurkaran’s bank account and was also purportedly signed by Joanne – on May 1 – also for a house cleanup.

Two days after the murders, the three men travelled to Brampton, Ont. When they returned to B.C., they immediately moved to a new basement suite that they rented together.

They were all arrested together at that residence on Dec. 16, 2022.

Tsui said on the day of the arrest, an object used in the murders was located in the trunk of a vehicle that was jointly used by the three men and parked near their residence.

“The Crown anticipates that there will be DNA evidence linking this object to the murders,” she said. “The Crown’s over-arching theory is that, from cleaning the De Jong residence, the three men knew that the De Jongs were an elderly couple who lived alone and owned a trucking business.”

Tsui said the Crown anticipates that cellphone records, financial records and evidence from electronic devices will link each of the accused to the murders.

As well, the Crown will present “a body of forensic evidence,” she said.

The three men are being tried by judge alone. The trial is expected to last eight weeks, and Tsui said the Crown will call “at least” 24 witnesses.