Toyah Cordingley’s killer sentenced to 25 years in prison

A former nurse must serve a 25-year non-parole period for fatally stabbing Toyah Cordingley, seven years after her body was discovered on an isolated Queensland beach.

Rajwinder Singh, 41, was on Tuesday given a life sentence a day after being found guilty of murder in the Cairns Supreme Court following a four-week retrial.

Singh repeatedly stabbed the 24-year-old and slashed her throat on the far north Queensland beach in October 2018 before fleeing to India and spending years in hiding.

Cordingley’s body was discovered by her father half-buried in dunes at Wangetti Beach, north of Cairns, a day after she failed to return from walking her dog.

A jury reached a guilty verdict on Monday after about seven hours of deliberations.

Singh’s first trial ended in a hung jury eight months ago.

Cordingley had taken her dog to Wangetti Beach on October 21, 2018.

Her family raised the alarm when she didn’t return before her father made the grisly discovery the next morning about 80 metres from her car.

Police claimed Cordingley died after “a personal and intimate attack”.

Soon after the body was found, Singh, a nurse from Innisfail, about an hour’s drive south of Cairns, fled Australia.

He boarded a flight to India, the country of his birth, leaving behind his wife and three children.

A record $1 million reward was offered by Queensland Police in late 2022 for information leading to the location and arrest of the runaway suspect.

Weeks later, Singh was arrested in New Delhi, and he was extradited to Australia and charged with murder in March 2023.

Queensland Police later confirmed the $1 million reward had been paid to a number of people.

AAP