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August 24. 2011
Twelve-year manhunt ends with arrest
Ninderjit Singh, wanted after the slaying of an ex-girlfriend in Vancouver in 1999, eluded police as he lived on the run with a wife and two kids in the U.S
By Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun - August 24, 2011
Ninderjit Singh
http://www.{censored}/news/5295822.bin
Poonam Randhawa
For more than 12 years, Ninderjit Singh struggled to avoid capture after being suspected in the shooting death of his ex-girlfriend, 18-year-old Poonam Randhawa.
He fled to Los Angeles hours after the body of the Sir Winston Churchill secondary school honour graduate was found in a lane near Granville Street and West 47th in Vancouver on Jan. 26, 1999.
Los Angeles County was familiar to him; he had relatives on his mother's side in Van Nuys and he'd once worked at an uncle's gas station.
More darkly though, seven months before Randhawa was shot in the head while she sat in his car, he was charged in L.A. with assaulting a woman with a gun. Let out on bond, he moved back to Vancouver. But within hours of Randhawa's death, he boarded a plane in Seattle for a return trip to L.A., disappearing from police view.
He obtained high-quality false identification in New York in 2000. He used other aliases, and obtained a false U.S. Social Security card.
He moved to Northern California, then to San Jose, and ultimately to the relatively small city of San Jacinto, in Riverside County.
Singh, an Indian national, married outside of California during his time on the run and had at least two children. He grew a bushy beard and gained so much weight that he doesn't resemble the suspect photos released in 2000 by the Vancouver police department.
Sometimes he wore a turban. Often he did not.
He took up long-haul truck driving, working for a company in Irvine, on the opposite side of the Los Angeles basin. He made frequent trips between Southern California and Seattle, but was careful not to cross into Canada, where there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest.
He even fooled the people living around him as they watched his face flash on the TV show America's Most Wanted: No one ever twigged to who he really was.
But back in Vancouver, a small group of detectives never gave up on finding Singh, now 33.
SECRET IDENTITY UNCOVERED
A bushy beard and significant weight gain helped Ninderjit Singh (left), 33, evade capture by police for more than 12 years. Vancouver police released photos of Singh in 2000 (far left) after the shooting death of his ex-girlfriend Poonam Randhawa (above).
He'd been identified as a suspect almost immediately, according to Insp. Brad Desmarais, the head of the department's major crimes division. News reports in 1999 indicated Randhawa had complained Singh was stalking her, but she felt she could handle his unwanted advances. Two days after her 18th birthday, Singh and another man allegedly picked her up in Singh's car. Her body was found 10 blocks away.
Led by an undercover officer whose identity is protected by the department, Vancouver police mounted an intense investigation. They believed all along that Singh was getting help from family members. They offered a $10,000 reward, but over the last 12 and a half years never got close enough to arrest him. Several times, he caught on to the fact that investigators were closing in. Once, tantalizingly, they had him so close in their sights in San Jose that when they went to arrest him they discovered his apartment hastily abandoned. He'd sighted the police surveillance hours before.
In 2008, as the investigation became one of Vancouver's longest manhunts, the department appealed to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for help. Even with that federal muscle, Singh evaded arrest.
But last Friday, Singh's days on the run ended.
Two weeks ago, Vancouver investigators learned Singh's possible false identity. They alerted Homeland Security, which had set up a special team that included one officer each from the Santa Monica and El Monte police departments. The team tracked Singh to Washington state, where he was returning from a trucking trip.
Vancouver's lead investigator flew to California. Investigators visited Singh's workplace in Irvine. But by this time, he weighed more than 300 pounds and officers couldn't identify him from the original photographs, Desmarais said.
The officers arranged for the California Highway Patrol to pull Singh's rig over on the pretence of a traffic violation. The thumbprints obtained from the licence were rushed to a local police department, where they were compared to fingerprints held by the VPD.
Within two hours, they confirmed Singh's identity and within 45 minutes stopped him again at his home in San Jacinto while he was trying to leave in a vehicle with his wife and two children.
Desmarais said Singh "immediately confirmed his real identity and stated that he was aware he was wanted for murder in Canada."
But when his wife was shown the photographs of a slim, even gangly young man in his early 20s, she said, "that's not my husband," Desmarais said. She has denied knowing her husband's true identity or that he was wanted for murder.
In a statement Tuesday, the Randhawa family said it is pleased about the arrest, expressed gratitude to Vancouver police for not giving up and thanked U.S. authorities for cooperating.
The investigation cost the VPD in excess of $500,000, Desmarais said.
Singh is now in Los Angeles County Jail awaiting extradition.
jefflee@{censored}
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
source: http://www.{censored}/news/Twelve+year+manhunt+ends+with+arrest/5298288/story.html
Twelve-year manhunt ends with arrest
Ninderjit Singh, wanted after the slaying of an ex-girlfriend in Vancouver in 1999, eluded police as he lived on the run with a wife and two kids in the U.S
By Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun - August 24, 2011
Ninderjit Singh
http://www.{censored}/news/5295822.bin
Poonam Randhawa
For more than 12 years, Ninderjit Singh struggled to avoid capture after being suspected in the shooting death of his ex-girlfriend, 18-year-old Poonam Randhawa.
He fled to Los Angeles hours after the body of the Sir Winston Churchill secondary school honour graduate was found in a lane near Granville Street and West 47th in Vancouver on Jan. 26, 1999.
Los Angeles County was familiar to him; he had relatives on his mother's side in Van Nuys and he'd once worked at an uncle's gas station.
More darkly though, seven months before Randhawa was shot in the head while she sat in his car, he was charged in L.A. with assaulting a woman with a gun. Let out on bond, he moved back to Vancouver. But within hours of Randhawa's death, he boarded a plane in Seattle for a return trip to L.A., disappearing from police view.
He obtained high-quality false identification in New York in 2000. He used other aliases, and obtained a false U.S. Social Security card.
He moved to Northern California, then to San Jose, and ultimately to the relatively small city of San Jacinto, in Riverside County.
Singh, an Indian national, married outside of California during his time on the run and had at least two children. He grew a bushy beard and gained so much weight that he doesn't resemble the suspect photos released in 2000 by the Vancouver police department.
Sometimes he wore a turban. Often he did not.
He took up long-haul truck driving, working for a company in Irvine, on the opposite side of the Los Angeles basin. He made frequent trips between Southern California and Seattle, but was careful not to cross into Canada, where there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest.
He even fooled the people living around him as they watched his face flash on the TV show America's Most Wanted: No one ever twigged to who he really was.
But back in Vancouver, a small group of detectives never gave up on finding Singh, now 33.
SECRET IDENTITY UNCOVERED
A bushy beard and significant weight gain helped Ninderjit Singh (left), 33, evade capture by police for more than 12 years. Vancouver police released photos of Singh in 2000 (far left) after the shooting death of his ex-girlfriend Poonam Randhawa (above).
He'd been identified as a suspect almost immediately, according to Insp. Brad Desmarais, the head of the department's major crimes division. News reports in 1999 indicated Randhawa had complained Singh was stalking her, but she felt she could handle his unwanted advances. Two days after her 18th birthday, Singh and another man allegedly picked her up in Singh's car. Her body was found 10 blocks away.
Led by an undercover officer whose identity is protected by the department, Vancouver police mounted an intense investigation. They believed all along that Singh was getting help from family members. They offered a $10,000 reward, but over the last 12 and a half years never got close enough to arrest him. Several times, he caught on to the fact that investigators were closing in. Once, tantalizingly, they had him so close in their sights in San Jose that when they went to arrest him they discovered his apartment hastily abandoned. He'd sighted the police surveillance hours before.
In 2008, as the investigation became one of Vancouver's longest manhunts, the department appealed to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for help. Even with that federal muscle, Singh evaded arrest.
But last Friday, Singh's days on the run ended.
Two weeks ago, Vancouver investigators learned Singh's possible false identity. They alerted Homeland Security, which had set up a special team that included one officer each from the Santa Monica and El Monte police departments. The team tracked Singh to Washington state, where he was returning from a trucking trip.
Vancouver's lead investigator flew to California. Investigators visited Singh's workplace in Irvine. But by this time, he weighed more than 300 pounds and officers couldn't identify him from the original photographs, Desmarais said.
The officers arranged for the California Highway Patrol to pull Singh's rig over on the pretence of a traffic violation. The thumbprints obtained from the licence were rushed to a local police department, where they were compared to fingerprints held by the VPD.
Within two hours, they confirmed Singh's identity and within 45 minutes stopped him again at his home in San Jacinto while he was trying to leave in a vehicle with his wife and two children.
Desmarais said Singh "immediately confirmed his real identity and stated that he was aware he was wanted for murder in Canada."
But when his wife was shown the photographs of a slim, even gangly young man in his early 20s, she said, "that's not my husband," Desmarais said. She has denied knowing her husband's true identity or that he was wanted for murder.
In a statement Tuesday, the Randhawa family said it is pleased about the arrest, expressed gratitude to Vancouver police for not giving up and thanked U.S. authorities for cooperating.
The investigation cost the VPD in excess of $500,000, Desmarais said.
Singh is now in Los Angeles County Jail awaiting extradition.
jefflee@{censored}
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
source: http://www.{censored}/news/Twelve+year+manhunt+ends+with+arrest/5298288/story.html
