This is the chilling moment a cold-blooded killer casually strolls around Bunnings buying the equipment he needs to bury his ex-girlfriend alive in a shallow grave.
Tarikjot Singh kidnapped Jasmeen Kaur, 21, from the aged care home she worked at in North Plympton, Adelaide, in March 2021.
She was later bound with tape and cable ties then buried while she was still conscious at Death Rock near Hawker in the Flinders Ranges.
Ms Kaur died from ‘actively breathing in and swallowing soil’.
Singh was jailed on Thursday and handed a non-parole period of less than 23 years.
Now CCTV footage has emerged of Singh casually strolling through a hardware store buying a shovel, cable ties, gaffer tape, gloves and a jerry can in the hours before carrying out his callous crime.
CCTV footage has emerged of Singh casually strolling through Bunnings buying a shovel, cable ties, gaffer tape, gloves and a jerry can in the hours before carrying out his callous crime (pictured)
At one stage, he even asks a member of staff for assistance.
Singh, who was 20 at the time, initially pleaded not guilty to murdering Ms Kaur but changed his plea a month before his Supreme Court trial was due to start in March this year.
On Tuesday, Justice Adam Kimber ordered Singh to serve a non-parole period of 22 years and 10 months, which is only slightly longer than the mandatory minimum non-parole period for murder in South Australia of 20 years.
In handing down the sentence, Justice Adam Kimber said the killing was ‘horrific’ and ‘callous in the extreme’ and that he could not find words to describe the horror of Ms Kaur’s final moments, the ABC reported.
‘The terror she felt when she was abducted, restrained and kept in the car during the long drive to Moralana Creek is difficult enough to estimate,’ Justice Kimber said.
‘I cannot describe the terror Ms Kaur must have been experiencing when she realised you were burying her alive.’
Jasmeen Kaur (pictured), 21, was abducted from her workplace and later bound with tape and cable ties then buried alive at Death Rock near Hawker in the Flinders Ranges
Tarikjot Singh (pictured) has been handed a a non-parole period of 22 years and 10 months for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Jasmeen Kaur
The court heard Singh had not disclosed details of how he abducted Ms Kaur from her workplace or what he did to her in the hours following.
However, Justice Kimber said the evidence was clear that she had undergone immense suffering and had been forced to endure a long car trip while bound and gagged.
Justice Kimber said it was clear that the killing was planned and that Singh had taken steps to cover up the horrific deed.
‘The enormity of what you were doing must have been clear to you,’ Justice Kimber said.
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‘There was time for reflection. There was time to depart from the plan. Nonetheless you went ahead and killed Ms Kaur.’
Justice Kimber told Singh that he was ‘satisfied beyond reasonable doubt’ that the killer’s only concern was for himself.
‘You killed Ms Kaur in order to punish her for not wanting to be in a relationship with you and for going to the police,’ he said.
Singh will be aged in his early forties when he becomes eligible to apply for parole in January 2044
Ms Kaur was buried alive in a shallow grave in south Australia’s Flinders Ranges
Police had cautioned Singh for stalking in early February 2021, less than a month before the murder.
During sentencing submissions, the court heard Singh wrote several messages, which he never ended up sending, to Ms Kaur in the days leading up to her death.
One statement read : ‘Your bad luck that I am still alive, cheap, wait and watch, will get the answer, each and every single one will get the answer’ and ‘deep inside what I feel but can’t get over’.
When he was first questioned by police on March 6, he said he could not remember when he last saw Ms Kaur and insisted that he had been at home on the night of her death.
One day later, Singh told police officers that Ms Kaur had committed suicide and he had buried her in the Flinders Ranges.
He took police to the burial site, where officers found Ms Kaur’s shoes, glasses and work name badge in a bin, alongside cable ties.
Ms Kaur in 2021 provided a statement to police detailing how Singh had stalked her
Ms Kaur had provided a statement to police just five weeks before her death detailing how her ‘over possessive’ killer repeatedly stalked her at her workplace.
On January 28, 2021, Ms Kaur wrote she had been in a controlling relationship with Singh for about nine months.
‘He was over possessive and wanted to control who I spent time with,’ she said in the document released by the Supreme Court.
Ms Kaur told police she had ended the relationship on January 4, 2021, but Singh ‘didn’t take this well’.
‘He stated that I had to be with him or if not he would attempt suicide,’ she said.
During their relationship she said Singh had sometimes ‘got upset’ when she made plans to go out with friends and would call her and demand she go home.
Singh, an Indian national who came to Australia to study IT at university and who had also been working as a respite carer, will likely be deported when he is released from prision.
