Trial date set for couple charged in 2017 hammer murder
A jury trial date finally has been set for two people connected to a 2017 hammer slaying in Suisun City.
Amarjit Singh, 66, and Surjit Kaur, 71, were scheduled to appear Monday in Department 15 for a trial setting, and Judge Robert Bowers set it for 9 a.m. Nov. 10 in the Justice Building in Vallejo.
Singh and Kaur face some pretrial proceedings: a trial readiness conference will be at 1:30 p.m. Oct. 4 and a trial management conference will be at 1:30 p.m. Nov. 8, also in Department 15.
The latest court schedulings come after Kaur’s defense attorney, Leslie Prince, asked Judge John B. Ellis during a late January 2020 proceeding in the Hall of Justice in Fairfield to consider a motion to dismiss all — or parts of — a June 2019 Solano County grand jury indictment of her client.
Ellis denied Prince’s motion, saying the co-defendants “came away with blood on them and made incriminating statements” to investigators after their alleged crime.
Deputy Public Defender Max Fuentes represents Singh.
Singh and Kaur, who rely on a Punjabi translator to understand court proceedings, face first-degree murder charges in connection to the death of Singh’s daughter-in-law, Shameena Bibi, 29, whom investigators believe was fatally bludgeoned with a hammer inside the attached garage of a Suisun City home.
The grand jury indictment also resulted in naming a third suspect in the case, Megh Singh Chouhan, 30, who was charged with being an accessory after the fact, but his case was dismissed on Jan. 8, 2020, according to court records and Deputy District Attorney Bill Ainsworth, who is prosecuting the case.
After the grand jury indictment, Singh was arraigned for the second time in the case and entered a not-guilty plea to a new first-degree murder charge.
In an earlier interview with The Reporter, Fuentes said Singh’s original murder charge was dismissed so his client would not be charged with the same offense in two separate cases. The newly filed charge in June 2019 was based on the same evidence, he said.
Shortly after being questioned extensively about the crime, Singh confessed, according to Suisun City police records. However, Fuentes, at a subsequent proceeding heard by Ellis, successfully argued to suppress the confession.
Solano County District Attorney Krishna Abrams last year announced the indictment of Singh, Kaur and Chouhan.
The court set a $2 million bail bond for both Singh and Kaur, who remain in Solano County Jail.
The Suisun City Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted the investigation.
Bibi was found dead in the garage of her home in the 800 block of Blue Bill Way, one she shared with her husband, in-laws, and son, who was 2 years old at the time.
According to court records, she had walked away from a conversation with Singh on March 7, 2017, that involved her son and entered the garage. Singh later joined her there, and, at some point, reportedly became enraged, striking Bibi several times in the head with a hammer, killing her.
The extent of Kaur’s alleged involvement in the crime is somewhat unclear.
If found guilty of firstdegree murder, Singh and Kaur face 25 years to life in prison.