‘Absolute terror’: Young woman murdered by ex-partner was stalked, abducted and buried alive

Horrific new details have emerged about the murder of a young Adelaide woman by her ex-partner, including that she was buried alive.

WARNING: This story contains distressing details. 

Jasmeen Kaur, 21, was murdered one month after reporting to police that she was being stalked by her ex-partner, Tarikjot Singh, prosecutors told the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Singh has pleaded guilty to murdering Ms Kaur in March 2021, with details of his crime outlined during sentencing submissions on Wednesday.

Prosecutor Carmen Matteo SC said Ms Kaur was forced to endure “absolute terror” after she was abducted by Singh from her Adelaide workplace on March 5, 2021.

The court heard Ms Kaur experienced an “uncommon level of cruelty” after she was abducted by her ex-partner, bound with tape and cable ties, and buried alive while blindfolded and conscious at Death Rock near Hawker in the Flinders Ranges.

She said Singh made “superficial” cuts to her throat, but they did not cause her death.

Instead, she said, a post-mortem report showed Ms Kaur likely died on March 6, 2021.

“She had to have been aware in the moments of the hopelessness of her situation and she had to have been consciously suffering what can only be described as absolute terror,” Ms Matteo told the court.

Ms Matteo said the killing was “not efficient” and Ms Kaur was “made to suffer”.

She said Singh embarked on the “cold and clinical planning” of Ms Kaur’s murder after their relationship ended.

“The way in which Ms Kaur was killed involved, really, an uncommon level of cruelty,” she said.

“It’s not known when her throat was cut, it’s not known when or how she got into or was placed into that burial grave and it’s not known when that was dug, other than the prosecution says it had to have been while she was still alive and in preparation for her burial.

“[It was] a killing that was committed as an act of vengeance or as an act of revenge.”

Ms Matteo told the court Ms Kaur made a police report alleging she was being stalked by Singh on February 9 — about one month before she was killed.

She said Singh wrote several messages, which he never ended up sending, to Ms Kaur in the days leading up to her death.

They included statements such as: “Your bad luck that I am still alive, cheap, wait and watch, will get the answer, each and every single one will get the answer” and “‘deep inside what I feel but can’t get over”.

Singh swapped cars on night of murder

The prosecution told the court Singh downloaded a map of security cameras across Adelaide the day prior to Ms Kaur’s abduction.

Ms Matteo said security cameras showed Singh shopping for cable ties at a hardware store on the afternoon of the abduction.

She said Singh also removed the SIM card from his phone, placed it in a different phone and left it at his home “so as to engage cell towers that would give the impression that he was at or near home”.

The night of the abduction, Singh swapped his car with his flatmate’s car and asked him to work his shift.

When he was first questioned by police on March 6, he said he could not remember when he last saw Ms Kaur and asserted that he had been at home on the night of her murder.

One day later, Singh told police officers that Ms Kaur had committed suicide and he had buried her in the Flinders Ranges.

He took police to the burial site, where officers found Ms Kaur’s shoes, glasses and work name badge in a bin, alongside looped cable ties.

Martin Anders, representing Singh, said two months before the murder, Singh and Ms Kaur’s families held a meeting which “resolved unfavourably to the relationship continuing”.

He said after the relationship breakdown, Singh’s reasoning was “gravely impaired”.

“This is not a man who really was orientated well in terms of his understanding of whose wishes, how those issues unfolded and how he might reason appropriately through the circumstances of which he was confronted,” he said.

“He took steps which destroyed not only her life but his life.”

Mr Anders said Singh had poor mental health and he had started to experience hallucinations after Ms Kaur’s death.

He said Singh had a low risk of offending in the future.

But Justice Adam Kimber said Singh “put in train a series of careful steps over a period of time” to carry out the murder.

“He was punishing her (Ms Kaur) for having been rejected,” he said.

“He, the prosecution says, bundled her into a vehicle, restrained her in the back seat or the boot, drove her a considerable distance, killed her, buried her, disposed of evidence that might implicate him in that crime.”

Justice Kimber imposed a mandatory life sentence, with a non-parole period to be set next month.