Obsession led to killing ex-girlfriend, court hears
Young mother slain in brutal prolonged attack by former lover, Crown alleges
An obsessed and infatuated man’s refusal to accept a break-up drove him to kill his ex-girlfriend during a brutal, prolonged and jealous rage, a court has heard.
Rohit Deepak Singh, 42, is accused of murdering Arishma Singh (Chand) last November after he lay in wait at her house with a large kitchen knife.
The 24-year-old mother was found dead in her South Auckland home by her parents Rakesh and Aradhana Singh, when they returned home after visiting relatives.
Yesterday Crown prosecutor Claire Robertson told the High Court at Auckland that Arishma suffered a “brutal and prolonged attack with a knife and a weapon”.
Arishma was living in a Maich Rd house in Manurewa with her parents and her 3-year-old daughter.
She was separated from her husband but they shared custody of their daughter, who was not at the house when she died. She was also known as Archana Chand, her ex-husband’s surname.
Arishma had attended a birthday party with her boyfriend, who accompanied her home but left soon after.
While alone, moments after her boyfriend left, the Crown alleges Rohit Singh attacked.
It would be less than 16 minutes before Arishma’s parents arrived home and found their dead daughter.
She had been stabbed in the back, shoulder and arm, bashed across the back of her head with a weapon, and had her face slashed.
A wound to her groin also cut a vital artery.
The year before, Singh had been in a secret sexual relationship with Arishma, which ended in August 2016, Robertson said.
He said the defendant was “obsessed and infatuated” with Arishma and “refused to accept she didn’t want to be with him”.
“It was this obsession which drove him to kill her,” Robertson said.
The court heard Singh believed Arishma, who worked as a child educator and had studied at the University of the South Pacific, was cheating on him and became preoccupied with the idea.
It led to Singh sending threatening Facebook messages, an inundation of daily calls and text messages and a tattoo of Arishma’s face on his chest,
Robertson said.
A couple of days before Valentine’s Day last year, Rohit Singh also took flowers to Arishma’s house and sent her a series of texts.
“I want to tell you something, every day I think about you, every day I talk to your photo . . . ,” one text read.
“Today I really miss you, all alone . . . One day you will realise when you get to my age. What goes around comes around,” another message said.
The killing, Robertson alleged, was a premeditated murder after Rohit Singh told a friend of his plans and sought “a large kitchen knife”.
He then began watching Arishma’s home from a car.
Before Arishma’s boyfriend left they also discussed a suspiciously out-of-place rock on her deck but passed it off as inconsequential.
But Arishma was growing concerned and called her parents who said they would be home in 15 minutes.
Robertson said Singh left his ex “lying in a pool of blood” before fleeing and driving to the North Shore. At 10.18am, Rohit Singh called police and said he had been a victim of a robbery where three girls had stolen his car, taken his belongings and scratched his face at 1.30am.
Robertson said the robbery claim was a fabricated alibi after Singh had dumped his clothes, blooded knife and weapon.