A Supreme Court jury in Cairns has been shown photographs of Toyah Cordingley's boyfriend, Marco Heidenreich, taken on a waterfall hike the afternoon she died, with a police analyst testifying the images showed no signs of manipulation. Ms Cordingley, 24, was allegedly murdered at Wangetti Beach on October 21, 2018, where she had gone to walk her dog.
Former Innisfail nurse Rajwinder Singh, 41, is standing trial for her murder and has pleaded not guilty. The court heard Singh left his family the day Ms Cordingley's body was found and flew to India, not returning until his extradition in 2023.
Much of the evidence has focused on the movements of Ms Cordingley's partner, Marco Heidenreich, who was the first to raise the alarm after finding her car parked at Wangetti Beach late that night. Joel Cuman, a friend of Heidenreich's since primary school, testified the two hiked to a swimming hole at Spring Creek Falls near Port Douglas that afternoon.
Police digital forensic analyst Acting Sergeant Mathew Rohde told the court he analyzed the phone used to take the eight photographs, which were time-stamped between 3:41pm and 5:09pm with location data in the Spring Creek and Port Douglas area. He found no evidence of manipulation, stating that editing metadata on a phone leaves traces, and he did not believe the images could have been altered without a trace within 72 hours.
The court also heard from Monique Steele, a friend of Cuman and Heidenreich, who said she went to Spring Creek the next morning to search for Heidenreich's missing dog, Jersey. An audio recording of Heidenreich calling for the dog was used to coax it out of the scrub. The jury was shown crime scene photos, including the grave where Ms Cordingley's body was found, with a saturated area of sand where blood had penetrated deeper than 10 centimeters. Items at the scene, including a branded selfie stick and a plastic glowstick, were swabbed for DNA.
The trial before Justice Lincoln Crowley continues.
