NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. March 05, 2005
CP
Mr. Rajinder Singh Atwal stabbed his 17-year-old
daughter to death to prevent her from living with
her boyfriend was found guilty Friday of second-degree
murder.
A jury delivered its verdict against Rajinder Singh
Atwal, 48, after five hours of deliberations that
began Thursday. A conviction for second-degree murder
carries an automatic life term with no chance of parole
for between 10 and 25 years.
Justice Catherine Wedge of the B.C. Supreme Court
will decide when Atwal will be eligible for parole
at a later hearing.
The trial heard Atwal left the Vancouver area July
30, 2003, to drive his daughter to Prince George,
B.C., to be with her boyfriend, Todd McIsaac.
Later that afternoon, Atwal drove her bloodied body,
with multiple stab wounds, to Langley Memorial Hospital,
where she was pronounced dead.
He claimed his daughter had stabbed herself when
he stopped for a rest break at Cache Creek. Atwal
said he had left the car and when he returned, he
found his daughter had stabbed herself.
But a pathologist told the court the knife blows
that killed the popular girl were not self-inflicted.
During his testimony, McIsaac wept as he recalled
the last time he spoke with Amandeep after she had
returned home from Prince George to visit relatives
in the Vancouver suburb of New Westminster.
"She said she missed me and wanted to come back,"
McIsaac said. "I told her I loved her."
McIsaac, 20, broke down when Crown counsel Keith
Kinash asked what arrangement they had made to meet
the next day in Prince George.
He said Amandeep's father was planning to drive her
there from New Westminster and he had wanted to meet
her half way.
The lovers, who met in school in Kitimat, B.C., had
run away to Prince George 10 days before over the
objections of the girl's family, McIsaac said.
They had only been in Prince George three days when
she went with her parents to relatives in New Westminster
so she could explain away her sudden move to Prince
George.
Her relationship with McIsaac wouldn't be mentioned,
he said. Instead, she would tell relatives she was
going to Prince George to attend school.
But when Amandeep called him July 29, she said her
relatives were making her uncomfortable and she was
cutting short her visit. Her father would be driving
her back the next day.
"She said he wanted to bring her back,"
McIsaac said. "He insisted on driving her back."
McIsaac said he met Amandeep in a high-school science
class in 2001 and they became inseparable.
"But we had to keep it secret from her parents
and other East Indians because she'd get into trouble,"
he said.
He said her parents didn't want her dating boys.
The trial also heard that about two months before
she was fatally stabbed, Amandeep had told a friend
that her father pulled a knife on her.
"She said her dad got a knife and went after
her with it and she got scared and went to the bathroom
and locked the door," said Andrea Mendoza, 18,
who lived across the street from the Atwal family
in Kitimat.
Mendoza said the earlier knife incident occurred
around June 3 when Amandeep and McIsaac were also
involved in a car accident.
She said Amandeep was "shook up and scared"
when she talked about the fight she'd had with her
dad.
"There was an argument about Todd and her dad
got a knife and she got scared," Mendoza said.
"They were fighting and it escalated."
The court also heard from Amandeep's best friend,
Andrea Spowart, about the secret affair she had carried
out with McIsaac and how Amandeep used "alibis"
to keep it from her parents.
"She told them she was out with me and she said,
if they tried to contact me, to stall them,"
said Spowart.
Spowart said that after the car accident, Amandeep
told her Atwal had said he wished his daughter had
died "so he wouldn't have to deal with her."
