Husband of Victim Arrested in Quadruple Homicide
West Chester police have made an arrest in connection to the April 29 shooting that killed four members of a Sikh family in their West Chester home.
Shalinder Kaur, 39, her parents, Hakiakat Singh Panag, 59, and Parmjit Kaur, 62, and her sister Amarjit Kaur, 58, were found dead with food burning on the stove.
It was Gurpreet Sing, Shalinder Kaur’s husband who found the bodies and made the frantic 911 call, often leaving his phone to beg for help from his neighbors.
“I have no words. The trauma has been too much. It’s too hard to even think of all that has happened. My brain is not working,” Singh told The Enquirer, breaking down as he communicated in a mix of Punjabi and English.
On Tuesday, West Chester Police Chief announced the arrest. He called the slayings a “heinous crime.”
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At about 2 p.m., Herzog said, authorities in Branford, Connecticut, arrested Singh without incident. Singh will be held in the New Haven County Jail pending extradition, Herzog added. Police did not reveal why he was in Connecticut
Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser, who also attended the conference, said Singh may face the death penalty, but a grand jury will ultimately make that determination.
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“There will be a day of reckoning in respect to this case,” Gmoser said.
Singh and his wife have three children. Two daughters ages 11 and 9, and a son, 5. They are staying with other family members and were not present at the Wyndtree Drive apartment at the time of the killings.
“I didn’t tell them yet. It’s difficult. I don’t know what to say and how to say it,” he said shortly after the incident. “They believe that their mother has gone to India.”
Herzog said during the conference that the children are safe.
Singh received an outpouring of support from the Guru Nanak Society of Greater Cincinnati, the local Sikh gurudwara.
The incident drew international attention. One of the victims was an Indian national, and the other three were of Indian origin.
Until the arrest on Tuesday, West Chester authorities were tight-lipped about the investigation. Two days after the killings, a dive team with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation recovered a gun from a pond near the scene of the crime.
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Within days of the slayings, authorities said no evidence suggested that the killings were hate crimes.
The community reaction to the news of the arrests came quickly.
“I hope the truth comes out and we get an answer to the question of why this happened or had to happen,” said Satinder Bharaj, past president of the gurudwara, the temple where the family worshipped.“If it is him, (Gurpreet) it is in no reflection of the Sikh community but the work of one person and as such should not reflect negatively on the Sikh Community in Cincinnati or the US or all over.”
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Ajaib Singh, who is the older brother of Amarjit Kaur and the younger brother of Parmjit Kaur and lives in Maryland thanked the West Chester police for the arrest.
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TIO has not verified the facts and takes no responsibility for the content. This news was published in Cincinity.com, Inquirer
