‘Ottawa’ Co-accused Chatted About Cauliflower After Jagtar Gill’s Body Found, Murder Trial Hears
Gurpreet Ronald was too “shaken up” to tell Bhupinderpal Gill she had been to his home and saw his wife lying dead on the floor with her neck “wide open,” she testified Monday at her first-degree murder trial.
Ronald testified that she called her former lover twice on his cellphone after she left the house to find out where he was, but when she finally found him paying for groceries at a Sobeys store with his daughter at his side, she asked about the cauliflower and flowers he was buying.
“Jagtar Gill is lying dead and you’re making small talk about cauliflower and flowers?” Crown prosecutor Brian Holowka asked during cross examination.
“In my state of mind, it doesn’t make sense but I was rambling and babbling,” Ronald replied. “I saw something horrific I’ve never seen in my life and I was shaken up completely to my core.”
- ‘I did no such thing’: Gurpreet Ronald killing Jagtar Gill
- Bhupinderpal Gill’s lawyer accuses Gurpreet Ronald of ‘fatal attraction’
- Gurpreet Ronald begins testifying in own defence at Jagtar Gill murder trial
Ronald and Bhupinderpal Gill have both pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Gill’s wife, who was found stabbed and bludgeoned to death in the Gills’ Barrhaven home on Jan. 29, 2014.
The mother of three was killed on her 17th wedding anniversary as she was recovering from a recent surgery.
The Crown has argued throughout the trial that Ronald and Bhupinderpal Gill, both OC Transpo drivers, were in a longstanding affair.
Bhupinderpal Gill previously testified that his affair with Ronald began in 2010 and ended in the fall of 2013 before his wife was killed.
Ronald didn’t specify exactly when her intimate relationship turned to a friendship with Gill, but said she had an affair with another OC Transpo driver at the same time as she was involved with Gill in 2012.
The co-accused are being represented by different lawyers.
‘Shaken up completely’
Ronald testified last week that she panicked when she walked through an unlocked door and discovered Gill’s body. She said she stepped on a knife, picked it up, then put on gloves to clean up after realizing what she’d done, taking the knife and the glove with her when she left.
‘I was just trying to contain the chaos inside me.’ – Gurpreet Ronald
Ronald admitted that it didn’t make “any sense” to take evidence from the crime scene, but maintained that’s what happened in the chaos of the moment out of fear she would be accused of being involved in the violent killing.
“Yes, nothing makes any sense but that’s what I did,” she said.
Court previously heard that blood matching Ronald’s DNA was found on the rug next to Jagtar Gill’s body and elsewhere in the house, including on the fingertip of a latex glove left at the scene.
Ronald said that when she found Gill at Sobeys she asked him, “Do you know what’s going on in your house?” but can’t remember what he answered.
“I was just trying to contain the chaos inside me,” she said.
Holowka argued it didn’t make sense that Ronald would go to Sobeys after finding a body and not mention it when she arrived.
“At the time, it was my state of mind. That’s what I did,” Ronald said.
Crown Brian Holowka asked Ronald if she thought Bupinderpal Gill could have been involved with killing his wife.
“I don’t know,” she said, then added when asked again, “I don’t think so but can’t be 100 per cent sure.”
‘This is a piece of theatre’
Holowka accused Ronald of using a weight lifting bar to beat the mother of three repeatedly on the head and legs.
“When the bar didn’t work, you turned to the knives. You cut open her neck, didn’t you?” he said.
“No, sir,” Ronald responded.
Holowka questioned why Ronald returned to the Gill home after dumping the knife and gloves she took from the scene.
“This is a piece of theatre, isn’t it? You’re trying to portray yourself as the concerned neighbour,” he said.
Ronald replied that even though she knew what she saw, her mind wasn’t processing it.
“I’m not believing what I have seen. It was a huge shock and trauma,” she said.
Earlier in the trial, court heard from Susanne Shields, hired by Ronald as a clairvoyant. Shields testified Ronald came to see her with her lover, Bhupinderpal Gill, and that the adulterous couple wanted to know if they would ever be together.
Shields also testified that Ronald told her she hated her lover’s wife — a point Holowka asked Ronald to confirm.
“I never mentioned anything like that to anyone,” Ronald said, adding that she hired Shields in the hopes of being able to communicate with her dead mother.