Man dumped body twice after drugs killed friend
Harmanjit Singh’s body found in creek
After his teenage friend overdosed and died, Dashminder Deol first Googled how to pump his stomach — and then how much his silver necklace was worth.
Deal, 38, has pleaded guilty to indignity to human remains in relation to the October 2014 death of his friend, 19-year-old Harmanjit Singh — a lesser charge than the manslaughter charge he’d also initially faced.
For the first time Friday, details of the teen’s suspicious death — and the callous disposal of his body — were finally revealed in court.
Singh, an international student from India, died of a drug overdose — a lethal combination of cocaine and Fentanyl, a powerful painkiller prescribed to Deol — early on Oct. 27, 2014.
According to the agreed statement of facts, he and Deol had been hanging out at a Hannon Crescent residence, where Deol had been house-sitting, when Singh voluntarily took the drugs.
Singh had been texting and videomessaging his girlfriend — who did not know about his drug use — throughout the night, saying goodnight to her around 2 a.m.
It seems he overdosed sometime in the next hour.
Deol — instead of calling for help — made two Google searches on his phone: “Fentanyl overdose” at 2:42 a.m., followed by “pumping stomach” at 3:12 a.m.
But Singh died, and just over an hour later, Doel hauled the body to an “unknown location,” using a white Ford Edge SUV on loan from a friend.
In the morning, when Singh failed to return home, his worried girlfriend contacted Doel. He lied and told her he’d dropped Singh off at a strip-mall restaurant across from their place around 8 a.m.
That afternoon, as she and Singh’s family frantically tried to track him down, Doel was Googling “current price of silver per ounce” and “cash for gold parkdale.”
This, court heard, was in relation to a thick silver chain necklace Singh had been wearing when he died.
Deol and a woman then went to a Walmart on Barton Street East that evening to pick up cleaning supplies.
The next day, now Oct. 28, Singh’s girlfriend reported him missing to police. Deol was interviewed, and repeated the story about dropping Singh off at the restaurant, adding that he’d mentioned a plan to go to Toronto.
Early on Oct. 29, Deol — with the help of an “unidentified male” — transported Singh’s body from the initial unknown location to a culvert on Seabreeze Crescent in Stoney Creek, again using the Ford SUV.
The next day, he gave the SUV back to his friend.
For almost a month — as police investigated the disappearance and Deol continued to play dumb about his whereabouts — the body stayed there, decaying.
On Nov. 24, a woman walking her dog discovered the partially submerged and badly decomposed body. Singh’s family — including his father who’d travelled from India — was unable to identify him. He had to be identified through DNA testing.
Deol was charged with manslaughter and indignity to human remains in February 2015.
Police had executed a search warrant of the Ford SUV on Nov. 3 — days after it had been returned to his friend. That revealed a cleanedup blood stain on the trunk carpet, which DNA testing determined was Singh’s.
On Nov. 6, another search warrant was executed at his family home on Isaac Brock Drive in which officers seized his cellphone and discovered a number of prescription drugs.
That search also led to the seizure of a locked safe — which police would later discover contained two restricted handguns (one loaded with the serial number erased), ammo and a small bag of cocaine.
On Friday, Deol also pleaded guilty to charges of possession of a loaded, restricted firearm, possession of a restricted firearm knowing the possession is unauthorized, and possession of a firearm while prohibited (following a robbery conviction in 2012).
His brother, Gurminder Deol, had also faced charges in relation to the firearms seizure, but they were withdrawn Friday.
Deol will return Aug. 5 for sentencing.