Gurpreet Singh has been sentenced to death by the State of Ohio for a quadruple murder in West Chester Township
According to court documents Gurpreet Singh would fatally shoot Hakikat Singh Panag, 59, his wife Parmjit Kaur, 62, their daughter Shalinderjit Kaur, 39, and Paramjit Kaur’s sister, Amarjit Kaur, 58. Gurpreet would call 911 before fleeing the home
Gurpreet Singh would eventually be arrested and extradited back to Ohio
During the first trial the jury was unable to reach a verdict however he would be convicted of four counts of murder during the second trial and ultimately be sentenced to death
Gurpreet Singh Case
A three-judge penalty has sentenced Gurpreet Singh to death following his May 10 conviction for killing four family members in 2019.
Gurpreet Singh will find out if he will face the death penalty after he was convicted on Friday of killing four family members five years ago.
The same three-judge panel who convicted him Friday of four counts of aggravated murder were the ones who decided the fate of the 41-year-old Singh on Tuesday.
Three Butler County Common Pleas Court judges – Greg Howard, Keith Spaeth and Greg Stephens – reached a unanimous decision.
They deliberated less than three hours Friday before agreeing that Singh killed his wife, Shalinderjit Kaur, 39; her parents Parmjit Kaur, 62, and Hakiakat Singh Pannag, 59 and his wife’s aunt, Amarjit Kaur, 58.
It happened on the evening of April 28, 2019, at the Lakefront at West Chester apartment complex on Wyndtree Drive.
Singh’s financial troubles and a romantic relationship with a woman who lived out of state were possible motives for the slayings, according to prosecutors.
Singh’s first trial ended with a hung jury and mistrial in October 2022.
This time, he opted for a bench trial.
Because he faced the possibility of the death penalty, his fate was decided by the panel of judges, not just one.
Taxpayers footed the bill for Singh’s legal expenses at both trials because he was declared indigent and this is a death penalty case.
Now, if Singh is sentenced to death, it’s not clear it will be carried out.
Gov. Mike DeWine halted the death penalty in Ohio in December 2020.
He said there weren’t enough lethal injection drugs available unless state lawmakers picked an alternative execution method.
So far, they have not.
Ohio’s death penalty law was enacted in 1981.
The last prisoner put to death in Ohio was a local man, Robert Van Hook, 58, of Sharonville.
He was executed on July 18, 2018, more than 30 years after murdering a man he met in a bar in downtown Cincinnati in what prosecutors say was a particularly vicious and gruesome slaying.
There are 119 Death Row inmates right now in Ohio with a combined 121 death sentences pending throughout the state, according to the “2023 Capital Crimes Report” from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.
From 1981 through Dec. 31, 2023, the report says, 336 people have received a combined 341 death sentences.
Of those, only 56 sentences – just one in every six – have been carried out.
On average in Ohio, a condemned inmate spends more than 21 years on Death Row – mostly due to the numerous avenues for appeal – before an execution date is set, according to the report.
The reluctance of pharmaceutical suppliers to provide lethal injection drugs for executions also contributes to delays.
In January, Attorney General Dave Yost and two lawmakers proposed a solution to the drug impasse, announcing legislation to permit the use of nitrogen hypoxia as an alternative to lethal injection.
The announcement followed the Jan. 25 execution in Alabama of murderer Kenneth Eugene Smith – the first time that a state used nitrogen, a colorless and odorless gas, in an execution.
“No criminal penalty – capital or otherwise – should carry an empty promise of justice,” Yost said in a news release last month.
“Ohioans on both sides of the death penalty debate can agree that our current system of capital punishment is unworkable, and something needs to change.”
A bipartisan mix of lawmakers have proposed various legislation over the years to abolish the death penalty and replace it with a life sentence without the possibility of parole, most recently Senate Bill 101 and House Bill 259.
Support is waning for the death penalty in the state, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio.
But so far no bill has passed both the House and the Senate and made it to Gov. DeWine’s desk.
Ohio juries haven’t returned a death sentence in three years and recent polls indicate most Ohioans favor other sentencing options, the ACLU said in a news release earlier this year.
https://www.fox19.com/2024/05/14/live-gurpreet-singh-receives-death-penalty
