ABBOTSFORD — Arnold and Joanne De Jong spent their last night alive surrounded by family, not knowing that three men who had done cleaning work on their property in of Abbotsford, B.C., would later invade their home, rob them and kill them.
Four years to the day after the De Jongs were last seen alive, their loved ones and their community turned out in force Friday to hear a judge declare Abhijeet Singh, Gurkaran Singh and Khushveer Toor guilty of first-degree murder after a months-long trial.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Brenda Brown outlined an array of circumstantial evidence she said proved the men’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in the brutal home-invasion killings.
The trial heard that 77-year-old Arnold De Jong died by asphyxiation, with his entire head and face wrapped in duct tape, while 76-year-old Joanne De Jong was bludgeoned and had her throat slashed with a screwdriver.
Heather Hoogland, one of the couple’s three daughters, said outside court that it had been a “long road” to the guilty verdict.
“Four years ago today, we spent the last time with my parents, Arnold and Joanne De Jong, so it’s actually very, I guess, moving that today is the four-year anniversary,” she said.
Family and friends had packed the Abbotsford courtroom and three overflow rooms were needed to accommodate them as they listened to Brown’s verdict.
Sandra Barthel, another of the De Jongs’ daughters, said the week leading up the verdict was sleepless and “excruciating.”
“I think we all tried to distract ourselves somewhat with work and our kids. And I think we went in knowing that no matter what, we’re the ones with the life sentence,” she said. “I think we had to tell ourselves that a verdict isn’t going to make us whole again.”
She said she thought her heart was going to come out of her chest as Brown read out her ruling in the hushed courtroom.
“There was joy in knowing that the judge saw this for what it was,” she said, while Hoogland said the family was grateful to police and prosecutors for their efforts.
All three men had pleaded not guilty earlier this year, claiming there was no intent or plan to kill the couple, who were found dead in their home, bound with ropes and duct tape, on May 9, 2022.
But Brown said evidence showed the three acted together to plan the murders to “eliminate” the De Jongs as witnesses to the home invasion.
“I’m satisfied that the murders of both victims were carefully planned, deliberated and executed,” she said.
Prosecutors told the trial the suspects had done cleaning work at the property before the home invasion, and the men killed the couple before stealing cheques, credit cards and a power washer.
The killers had driven from their shared suite in Surrey, B.C., to the De Jongs’ home in Abbotsford, and began using the stolen credit cards in the early hours of May 9, the court heard.
They opened a money transfer account and attempted to pay their cellphone bills with Arnold De Jong’s card, and cashed stolen cheques into their accounts in Joanne De Jong’s name.
Brown said the Crown portrayed the murders as “not the work of one of the accused or two accused,” rather as committed by all three as a team.
She said the prosecution argued that “no matter who in fact inflicted the mortal injuries” the three men shared “equal culpability.”
The three men, prosecutors told the trial, “hastily” fled from B.C. after the killings, with phone data evidence showing Abhijeet Singh conducted “exceptionally damning” internet searches after reading news articles about the deaths, making queries about how murderers are punished in Canada.
The three worked together for a cleaning company owned by Abhijeet Singh, which had done work at the couple’s home on more than one occasion. The trial heard evidence recovered from the men’s phones included videos of the De Jongs’ property from the roof of the home during one of the cleaning jobs.
Prosecutors also laid out how DNA from all three men was found. Some was at the crime scene, some on rope used to tie up Arnold De Jong and some on a metal baseball bat found in the suspects’ vehicle.
Crown attorney William Dorsey said outside court that the case was unlike any other prosecution he’d ever conducted, and said the family looking on “gave me the strength and the willpower to fight through and just do the best job I could for them, for Arnold and Joanne.”
Dorsey’s voice cracked with emotion during his closing argument in March, and he was near tears as he urged the judge to find the men guilty of first-degree murder.
“We’re happy with the decision,” Dorsey said Friday outside court.
Andrew MacDonald, another Crown counsel, said Dorsey and his co-counsel Dorothy Tsui poured “their heart and their soul into the case.”
“It’s been a really, really difficult case, and I thought that when William gave his closing, what we saw was the culmination of years of work,” he said.
Kimberley Coleman, another of the De Jongs’ daughters, said her parents were “kind, loving, sweet people.”
“They were people that could never be replaced,” she said.
“They had so many things about them that were so special to us that we miss every day. It’s so bittersweet. We have this first-degree conviction for all three suspects on both counts. But yet we still grieve, so it’s a mixed bag of feelings,” she said.
The three men are set to be sentenced on May 28 in Abbotsford.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 8, 2026.
Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press
