Fresh plea in Toyah case

TOYAH Cordingley’s family have told of the hole her death has left in their lives as the brother of the man suspected of killing her pleads for him to hand himself in to police.

Officials are liaising with Indian law enforcement agencies to make it a priority to track down the key “person of interest”, former Innisfail nurse Rajwinder Singh, who fled overseas two days after the brutal murder 10 months ago.

But family of the missing father-of-three said they fear he has vanished without a trace, changed his identity, and abandoned his young children to thwart any chance of justice for Toyah (above).

“What happened to him, nobody knows,’’ his brotherin-law Harpreet Singh said.

“We’re still looking for him. His father is still in India searching to get him to hand himself in to police.

“He has not touched his money. No one knows. What can we do?”

The fugitive’s wife and children have been forced to moved out of their two-storey family home at Innisfail because of financial stress and the “bad memories”.

Toyah, a beloved 24-yearold pharmacy assistant of Cairns, was walking her dog on Wangetti Beach, 40km north of the city, when she was attacked and killed in broad daylight on October 21, 2018.

Her body was found partly buried in sand dunes with “visible and violent injuries” early the next day.

Queensland homicide detectives have filed a formal request the ex-Innisfail nurse be arrested and detained for questioning but the case has been stonewalled by an overstretched legal system in India.

Toyah’s mum Vanessa and stepfather Darren Gardiner, in a post to 12,200 supporters of the Honour Toyah Facebook page on June 30, shed light on her loss.

“We stand here in blinking horror staring at the hole that was a huge part of our family,’’ it said.

“We don’t need solutions except for some justice for Toyah and our family.

“We are not ready to move on or forward till someone is accountable.”