ABBOTSFORD — A prosecutor says three men accused of murdering an Abbotsford, B.C., couple kept a bat used to bludgeon one of the victims to death, displaying it with “pride” in videos recorded months later.
The B.C. Supreme Court in Abbotsford was shown the videos recorded by the men displaying the softball bat alleged to have been used to kill Joanne De Jong in a May 2022 home invasion.
Crown prosecutor William Dorsey says the videos “show unmistakably” that the suspects “treasured” the weapon, with Gurkaran Singh seen smiling while holding it.
Dorsey says in his closing statements that it was “the smile of a murderer.”
Singh, Abhijeet Singh, and Khushveer Toor, all in the 20s, have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murders of De Jong and husband Arnold De Jong.
Dorsey’s voice cracked with emotion as he described the killing of Arnold De Jong after his wife was bludgeoned to death in her bed.
He says the three accused could have let him live as he was tied up and in “no position to fight.”
“All three of them collectively decided that they could not risk Mr. De Jong taking away what was most valuable to them, which was their freedom,” Dorsey said on Friday. “They could not leave behind a living witness.”
They didn’t use weapons to kill Arnold De Jong to avoid a “mess” of blood that they’d left in Joanne’s room, Dorsey said Friday.
Instead, his face was wrapped in duct tape and he died of asphyxiation.
The bat, Dorsey said, had been bought by Abhijeet Singh in the lead-up to the murders, and was found by police in the trunk of a car they shared.
Joanne De Jong’s DNA was detected on the weapon, but Dorsey said the suspects kept it.
“They all wanted to maintain their connections to the bat while knowing full well what it had been used for, to take a woman’s life,” he said.
The court also heard that Abhijeet Singh had conducted “exceptionally damning” Google searches about punishment of murderers in Canada after media reports of the deaths.
Dorsey said searches extracted from Abhijeet Singh’s cellphone showed he was “deeply concerned” about punishment faced by murderers after the killing of the De Jongs in their home.
The public gallery was packed with family and friends of the De Jongs as Dorsey made his closing submissions.
The couple’s three daughters, Sandra Barthel, Kimberley Coleman and Heather Hoogland were among dozens of people in attendance.
Coleman said outside court that the family had faith in police and prosecutors, and the courtroom being filled with supporters showed “a lot of love behind us.”
“We have hope. We have the hope that there will be the right decision made in this case,” Coleman said.
The De Jongs were found in their separate bedrooms on the morning of May 9, 2022, their hands and feet bound with rope, the court heard.
Dorsey said circumstantial evidence was a “major component” of the case against the three men, and he told the judge that the Crown had established the case for first-degree murder.
He said the data from Abhijeet Singh’s phone showed he had accessed news articles about the deaths, and soon after made Google searches about murder punishments in Canada, killing someone in self-defence and “third-degree murder sentence for international students.”
The articles, Dorsey said, didn’t name the victims or contain the address of the home, but Singh had also searched the couple’s address on Google before the home invasion.
“Obviously the De Jongs were not named, nor was their address provided, but Mr. Singh already knew that information,” Dorsey said.
Online data also showed Singh had accessed a Wikipedia page on culpable homicide in Canadian law, as well as legal education and lawyers’ websites explaining the differences between first, second and third-degree murder.
The Google searches, he said, “are exceptionally damning.”
The three accused were arrested in December 2022 at a home they shared in Surrey, B.C.
They left the province on May 11, Dorsey said, after media reports about the murders
Dorsey said the men were motivated by debt, financial pressure and greed to invade the De Jongs’ home and violently rob the couple, detailing how bank and cellphone records, fingerprints, DNA and other evidence implicated the men in the killings.
Dorsey told Justice Brenda Brown that the three suspects went to the couple’s home to do cleaning work before the murders, and they “hastily” left British Columbia shortly after the killings, fleeing to Brampton, Ont.
Dorsey said the three men moved at “breakneck speed” to steal money after killing the couple, paying off cellphone bills, cashing cheques totalling more than $10,000, and attempting to set up a fraudulent money transfer account in Arnold De Jong’s name.
Helen Leusink, Joanne De Jong’s sister, said outside the Abbotsford courthouse that “shock, anger (and) disbelief is what occupies your mind, that something like this could happen to our family.”
Leusink said there’s been disappointment about how long it took for the trial to begin, and she was still reeling from the evidence presented in the case.
“You can’t imagine that for a bit of monetary gain they could commit such a heinous crime,” she said.
Her memories of Arnold and Joanne De Jong are overwhelmingly positive.
“My sister was a loyal and loving sister who stood by me through every joy and trial of my adult life,” she said.
“Arnie was a unique man, but very loving and kind and willing to give to those in need. They were wonderful people, honourable people. Delightful to be with.”
Defence submissions are set for next week.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 6, 2026.
Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press
