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Ohio Family Found Viciously Executed in Apartment 154 · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want to take you back to a really specific
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: moment in time.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: OK.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's April 28th, 2019. It's late on a Sunday
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: night in Westchester, Ohio. Right.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: A very quiet area.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Exactly. I mean, if you were to drive through this area,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: you would see exactly what you picture when someone says,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: you know, a suburban haven.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Manicured lawns, quiet streets. Yeah.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: The kind of place where families move specifically for the
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: school districts, you know, and for the safety.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: But on this particular night, that quiet is just completely shattered.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: It really is. It's shattered by a 911 call that is, frankly,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: it's almost impossible to listen to.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: The audio is just so chaotic.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Right. So the man on the line is Gurpreet Singh,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: and he is screaming. I mean, he's hyperventilating.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: He's pleading for help.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's telling the dispatcher that he just walked into
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: his home, into apartment 154, and found his entire family
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: just bleeding on the floor.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is how immediately this case forces us
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: to examine the terrifying gap between a family's public facade
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: and their private reality.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Because, you know, the responding officers, they were expecting maybe
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: a medical emergency or perhaps a domestic dispute.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Which is pretty standard for that area, right?
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Right. But what they walked into is a massacre that
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: completely defied the logic of its surroundings. I mean, it
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: was a scene so horrific, it literally brought veteran suburban
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: officers to tears.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: It's just unimaginable. So for you listening today, we are
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: looking at a pretty thick stack of sources.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: We have a lot to go through.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: We really do. We're primarily looking at an extensive investigative
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: transcript and some police records from a Law and Crime
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Network special called The Decoder.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Which is a great source for this.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it really breaks it down. So our mission in
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: this deep dive is to deconstruct this quadruple murder. We
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: are going to examine the crushing pressure of, you know...
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: so-called American dream.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: And this scrawling, hidden double life.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Plus all these forensic contradictions that just violently collided
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: inside apartment 154.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: It's a lot to untangle.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: It is. And to understand this explosion, I mean, we
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: really have to understand the immense multi-generational pressure that was
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: basically built up inside that family.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: We have to look at the immigrant story that brought
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: them to Ohio in the first place. Right.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Starting with Gurpreet's father-in-law, a man named Hakikat.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Right. So Hakikat's story is I mean, it's basically a
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: master class in sheer willpower.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, for sure.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: And, you know, the extreme sacrifices that are often demanded
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: by the pursuit of American citizenship.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So take us back to the 1980s.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Well, in the 1980s, Hockeycott was living in India and
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: he basically set his sights on the United States. He
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: wanted to build a solid financial foundation for his family.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: But navigating that immigration system, especially as a blue collar
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: worker back then, I mean, that was a monumental hurdle.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, massive. So he made a staggering choice. He actually
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: left his Indian family behind.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Including his infant daughter, right?
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, Shalinder Jett. He left them and traveled to the U.S.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: completely alone.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: And to secure his legal status, he actually entered into
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: a marriage of convenience with an American woman.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, we really need to pause on that because the
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: logistics here are just mind-bending to me.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: They are incredibly complicated.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Right, because this wasn't just your standard, you know, paper
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: marriage to get a green card.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: No, not at all.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Part of this transactional arrangement involved this American stranger legally
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: adopting Hakikat's biological daughter.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, Shalinderjit, who was still thousands of miles away back
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: in India.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: That is just wild.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: It speaks to a profound level of ambition, honestly. Hakikat
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: was playing a very long bureaucratic game.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: And it eventually paid off, didn't it?
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: It did. Once he secured his citizenship through this marriage,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: he divorced the American woman.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Naturally.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Right. And then... He legally remarried his original Indian wife.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: And then, step by agonizingly slow step, over literally years,
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: he utilized his new citizenship status to bring his entire
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: family over.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Including Shalini Duterte.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He brought them across the globe to live with
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: him in New Jersey. They had basically achieved the impossible.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: They had their foothold in America. Right.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: They made it.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: So they established that foothold. But the cultural tether to
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: India obviously remains very strong. They travel back frequently.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: They kept those ties.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: And on one of those trips, this is in 2002,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Hakikat's daughter, Shalinderjit, enters into an arranged marriage with Gurpreet.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: And this is where Gurpreet enters the picture.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And our sources detail his background, which I think
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: is a really crucial piece of the psychological puzzle here.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's vital.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: He comes from this large landowning family in the Indian
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: state of Punjab, and their wealth was completely tied to agriculture.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: But Gurpreet, He had absolutely zero interest in being a farmer.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: None. No.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: He viewed the agricultural life as, you know, antiquated. He
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: thought it was just physically grueling work.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: He wanted out of the fields.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And marrying Shalinderjit, a woman whose family had already
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: successfully navigated that really treacherous path to American citizenship, well,
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: that represented an immediate ticket into the modern American economy
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: for him.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: So it was an incredibly pragmatic union for him.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Highly pragmatic.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: So Gurpreet moves to the U.S. with Shalinderjit. They start
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: a family and they eventually have three kids together.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: And by all accounts, Shalindrajit fully embraces her role. The
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: sources describe her as this fiercely protective, really devoted mother.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she basically structured her entire life around those kids.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: She did.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: And for a while, the trajectory looks exactly like, you know,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: the idealized immigrant success story.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: It really does. Gurpreet and his father-in-law, Hakikat, they actually
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: pool their resources.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Right. They go into business together.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they purchase a gas station. And in many ways,
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: that is the ultimate symbol of arrival.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, for sure. Owning your own business, building that generational wealth,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: being the boss. It's the dream.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: It is the dream. But then the 2008 financial crisis hits. Yeah.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: And we talk about 2008 a lot, but usually in
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: terms of like Wall Street executives and these massive bank bailouts.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Right. The macro level. Exactly.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: But the localized devastation from that crash was just absolute.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: It was catastrophic for small business owners, especially immigrant families.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: who were heavily leveraged in small cash flow dependent businesses.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Like gas stations.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Because the sudden evaporation of consumer spending and available credit,
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: it was fatal for those types of businesses.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: So Gerpreet and Hockey Cots' joint venture was just completely
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: wiped out.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Wiped out. They lost the business and they were suddenly
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: buried under some really significant debt.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: See, I look at that 2008 collapse as the exact
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: moment the structural integrity of this family's life really began
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: to fracture.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: That's a good way to put it.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Because Gurpreet left India specifically to be a financial success.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Like that was his entire identity. Right.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: He was the provider.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: So when that fails, they are forced into this really
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: brutal pivot.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: They had to downsize significantly.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Right. So let's look at their living situation a decade
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: later in 2019. They are living in apartment 154 in Westchester.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Which is just a standard suburban apartment.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But it is housing eight people.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Eight people in one apartment. The living conditions really outline
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: the financial desperation here.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Let's break down who is actually living there.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Okay. So you have Gurpreet and Shalinderjit. And they're three children. Right.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Then you have Hakikat, the father-in-law, who is now 59. Okay.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Hakikat's wife, Parmjit, she's 62. And Shalinderjit's aunt, a woman
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: named Amarjeet, who is 58. She had recently moved to
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: the U.S. and just joined the household.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: So that is eight people sharing one living space.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: One kitchen.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Fighting for bathroom time every single morning. Just existing in
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: this state of constant friction, you have to imagine.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: It had to be incredibly stressful.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: And every single adult in that apartment is working grueling
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: hours just to keep the lights on, right?
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Gerpert is driving commercial refrigerated trucks, so he is
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: disappearing for these long stretches on the road.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: And Hakikat, remember, he was the former business owner.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Right, he was the boss. But now he is working
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: as a clerk at someone else's gas station.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: That has to hurt the ego.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Unbelievably so. And the two older women, Parmjit and Amarjeet,
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: they are out working manual labor at a local laundry service.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: While Shalinderjit is... basically at home trying to manage the
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: chaos of three kids in this incredibly crowded environment.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: It really is a pressure cooker of exhaustion.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: But I feel like it is not just the physical exhaustion,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: you know. It is the psychological weight of expectation that
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: makes it so dangerous.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: That is exactly the invisible variable in this equation. Because
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: within many diaspora communities, there is an immense sociological pressure
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: to project success back to the homeland.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Right, because you left to achieve the American dream.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Right, so admitting that you are crammed into a tiny
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: apartment working minimum wage jobs in your 60s after losing
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: your business. It is perceived as this profound humiliation.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: There is a quote from one of their relatives in
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: the source material that I think hits this perfectly.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, the one about showing off?
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the relative said, and I quote, In our society,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: especially people who drive trucks, it is common to show off, Oh,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: I make this much money, even though they are not
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: making it right. Just to impress others.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: That explains so much of Gurpreet's behavior.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Gurpreet was essentially running a full-time PR campaign for a
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: life he just didn't possess.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: He really was. He was telling relatives back in India
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: that he was preparing to sponsor them to come to
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: the U.S.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Which costs thousands of dollars.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He was bragging about buying this massive brand new
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: mansion in Indianapolis.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: A house with enough room for the whole extended family, supposedly.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: Right. But meanwhile, he is literally looking... to his aging
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: father in law for financial help just to cover the
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: basic apartment bills.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Well, simultaneously broadcasting immense wealth to his entire social circle.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: It's crazy.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: It's a total disconnect from reality.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: You know, it reminds me as a deep sea submersible.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, how so?
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Well, when you're at the bottom of the ocean, the
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: hull of that sub has to project perfect integrity to
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: survive the crushing pressure of the water, right?
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: And if there is even a microscopic fracture in that hull...
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: The pressure of the ocean doesn't just slowly leak in.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: It implodes.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Exactly. It causes a violent, catastrophic implosion. So if Gurpreet's
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: entire ego and social standing were built on being this
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: wealthy provider, the reality of his massive crushing debt was
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: that microscopic fracture.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: That is a very apt analogy. Because when a core
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: identity is threatened like that, human psychology can become deeply dangerous.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: People will do crazy things to protect their image.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: They absolutely will. Some individuals will do anything to protect
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: the avatar they have created. They will lie. They will compartmentalize.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: And in extreme instances, they will violently eliminate the people
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: who hold up a mirror to their actual failing reality.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: And that suffocating underwater tension basically brings us to the
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: weekend of April 28, 2019.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: The day everything exploded.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Right. And this is where the timeline becomes the absolute
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: most crucial piece of evidence. Okay, let's unpack this.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Let's do it.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: It is a Sunday, and to the outside world, it
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: looks perfectly mundane. The three children are sent over to
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: their uncle's house for the day.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Right. He takes them out for ice cream and a movie.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Normal Sunday stuff. But that evening, Gerprick calls the uncle,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: and he says, Hey, just keep the kids overnight. Make
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: sure the girls go to sleep. Maybe watch another movie.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: I'll just pick them up tomorrow.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Which, in the context of a quadruple homicide that happens
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: just hours later, that phone call is terrifying.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: It really makes you wonder, was it a stroke of
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: miraculous luck that the children were spared from a random attack?
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Or is it cold, calculated premeditation?
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Did he actively clear the apartment of his own
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: children because he knew exactly what was going to happen
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: that night?
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Given the evidence, it's hard to see it as a coincidence.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I agree. I lean heavily toward premeditation, especially when we
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: look at a detail from our sources regarding a conversation
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Gerprud had with another uncle prior to the murders.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, the gun conversation.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Gerpret had approached this uncle expressing a desire to
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: buy an automatic rifle.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: An automatic rifle. Not exactly a home defense handgun.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Right. And the uncle actually warned him against it. You know,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: telling Gerpret that bringing firearms into a home only escalates
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: family problems.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: So he was already thinking about high-capacity violence.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: It seems like it. And returning to the timeline of
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: that Sunday night, we have corroborating digital and physical evidence
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: of Gerpret's actual movements.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Which really tightens the window.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. At exactly 9.05 p.m., security video from a local
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: UDF gas station captures him putting exactly seven gallons of
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: gas into his personal car.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Just a completely unremarkable errand on the surface.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Just pumping gas. But then the timeline basically fractures.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Because a forensic cell phone extraction shows Gerpreet actually took
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: a phone call at 9.03 p.m. right around the time
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: he was arriving at the gas station. Right.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: And after that call ends, there's absolute digital silence until 9.42 p.m.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: when he dials 911.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: And the critical piece of data during that silence is
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: the GPS.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: The phone tracking.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: Right. The phone raise location data places Gurpreet in the
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: parking lot of his apartment complex at 9.03 p.m.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Wait, I thought he was at the gas station at 9.05.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Well, the locations are very close, so he's basically at
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: the complex or arriving from the gas station right in
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: that window just after 9.00 p.m.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, got it.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: But the emergency call isn't placed for another 39 minutes.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: 39 minutes. What happens in 39 minutes of silence inside
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: an apartment filled with bodies?
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: It's a huge gap.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: It's a shim in eternity. I mean, is he washing
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: his hands? Is he pacing around the living room? Is
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: he experiencing some kind of psychological paralysis?
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: We can only speculate on what he was physically doing.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: But when he finally breaks that silence and calls 911,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: he sounds completely overcome. He tells the dispatcher, you know,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: my wife and my family are down.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: And the dispatcher, who's just trying to triage the scene,
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: asks if they've been shot or stabbed.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Right. And Gurpert says he doesn't know. They're just bleeding
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: from the head.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: So the dispatcher asks him to check if they're breathing.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: And he replies, no, they're killed.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Now, dispatchers are trained auditory analysts. They are actively listening
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: for anomalies in cadence, in tone, and in how information
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: is delivered.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: They hear people in panic all day long.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And the panic in Gurpreet's voice, it sounds authentic,
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: but his answers are very disjointed.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: They don't quite make sense.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: Right. So the dispatcher's suspicion peaks, and it leads to
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: a highly unusual, incredibly direct question from a 911 operator.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. The dispatcher literally asks him, point blank, did
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: you do something to them?
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Which is a heavy question to drop on a grieving
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: survivor unless something feels very wrong.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Gerprit pauses before answering and then just says, no, I
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: just got home.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: But the chaos isn't just contained to the phone line.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Not at all. Because Gerprit is physically running through the
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: apartment complex, hammering on his neighbor's doors.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: And the neighbors are, understandably, terrified by this erratic behavior.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: They actually start calling 911 themselves. One caller tells dispatch,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: some guys run around banging all the doors. He just
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: doesn't sound right.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: So when police finally arrive, they find Gerprit outside. He
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: is completely drenched in blood. And he's claiming he had
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: his wife in his lap.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: The police secure him out in the parking lot and
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: then make entry into apartment 154.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, the crime
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: scene the officers enter tells a story of complete domestic interruption.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: It's eerie. I mean, the smoke alarm is blaring loudly
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: because food is actively burning on the kitchen stove.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Someone was right in the middle of preparing dinner.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: The officers clear the rooms and they find the victims.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Hakikat is in his bed, shot while he was lying down.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Shalinder Jit is on the kitchen floor. She had been
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: in the middle of making tea.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Pramjit and Amarjit are in the living room, and they
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: were struck down while watching television.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Four people, 16 gunshot wounds, all to the head.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: And the forensic reality of this scene is just paramount,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: because the medical examiner found zero defensive runes on any
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: of the victims.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: None. No one put a hand up to block a shot.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: No one attempted to flee the room.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Which completely rewrites the narrative of a home invasion.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because if an intruder kicks in your front door,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: there is noise, there is screaming, people scrambling.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: And tactically, an intruder engages the first people they see.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Right, which would be the women in the living room.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Exactly. An intruder does not sneak past the television, walk
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: quietly down the hall, execute a man in bed, and
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: then systematically work their way backward into the kitchen in
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: the living room.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: It just doesn't happen that way. The killer was already
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: inside the apartment.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: The killer was someone the victims felt entirely comfortable turning
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: their backs on.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Because they were just engaged in their evening routines, they
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: perceived absolutely no threat from the person in the room
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: with them.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Right up until the weapon was drawn.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: It's chilling. So while the crime scene unit is processing
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: the apartment, Gurpreet is transported to the police station.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: And the transition from that chaotic, blood-soaked parking lot to
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: the sterile interrogation room, it really highlights Gurpreet's bizarre behavior.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he is breathing heavily. He's demanding help. But he
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: is completely uncooperative with standard police procedures.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Well, first of all, he is covered in blood. His jeans,
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: his socks, his hands.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: But noticeably, he has no shoes on.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: Right. He claims his unlaced work boots simply slipped off
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: in his panic when he discovered the bodies.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: But back at the apartment, crime scene technicians are finding
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: bloody boot prints tracking all through the rooms, moving between
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: the bodies.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Prints that they can't immediately match to Gurpry because his
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: boots are conveniently missing.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Very convenient. And then the interrogation escalates. The police want
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: to conduct a gunshot residue test, a GSR test, on
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: his hands.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Which is standard for anyone found at a shooting scene.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But Gurpreet completely loses his temper. He yells at them,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: you think this is so easy for me? No, my
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: family's blood.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: And when they inform him they're getting a warrant for
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: his hands, he tells them, you bring your search warrant,
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: bring FBI, you bring your army on me, I'm not
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: giving anything. Defiance to a simple forensic swab is a
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: massive red flag for investigators.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Oh, a huge red flag.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: But his physical resistance in the room is matched by
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: some really bizarre physical evidence found during a search of
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: his person.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: The cash.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Yes. In his wallet, police discover $ 1, 836 in cash. And
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: that includes 14 crisp $ 100 bills. We have to contextualize
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: this money. This is a family drowning in debt. Right.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: With multiple adults working minimum wage, manual labor jobs just
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: to pay rent on a shared apartment.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: So why is Gerprit walking around with nearly two grand
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: in his pocket on a random Sunday night?
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: It makes no sense. And the cash wasn't just on
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: him either.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: No. Inside Gerprit and Shalinderjit's bedroom, police find a pink
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: purse stuffed with $ 8, 250 in cash. Just sitting in the bedroom....
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: And out in the living room, sitting on a prayer
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: table near one of the victims is another $ 930.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: It really suggests a shadow economy.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: What do you mean?
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: A desperate hoarding of liquid assets that completely contradicts his
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: narrative of impending wealth and buying a mansion.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Ah, I see.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: And during the search of the apartment, police also locate
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: a firearm in Gurpreet's closet.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Right, a Beretta handgun with ammunition.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: But ballistics quickly rule the Beretta out. The rifling on
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: the bullets recovered from the victims does not match that gun.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: But two days later, the investigation gets a massive, massive break.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: A pond.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. A neighbor in the apartment complex reports hearing a
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: distinct splash in this murderous gun. retention pond located directly
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: behind the building.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: And they heard this on the night of the murders.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Right. So the police send in a dive team.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: And dredging that pond, the divers recover a Ruger SR9
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: 9mm pistol.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: And it's equipped with a 17-round magazine.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: 16 shots fired in the apartment, and they find a
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: weapon with a 17-round capacity.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: The math adds up, and the serial number plate on
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: the weapon had been violently pried off.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: Which indicates a deliberate premeditated attempt to render the gun untraceable.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Of course, ballistics confirmed the Ruger is the actual murder weapon.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: The bullets in the victims match it perfectly.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: So let's look at the logistics of this. Okay. The
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: pond is directly behind the apartment. This means whoever committed
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: the murders... didn't jump into a getaway car and speed
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: off into the night.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Right, they just walked out the back door and chucked
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: the gun into the nearest body of water.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: It is the action of someone working with an incredibly
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: tight time window, panicking to dispose of evidence before initiating
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: the next phase of their plan.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Which, in this case, was calling 911 and playing the survivor. Now,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Gurpreet's defense for the blood on his clothes and his
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: positive GSR test was that he was frantically trying to
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: shake his family awake.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Right, cradling his wife's head in his lap.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: And honestly, if you are interacting with victims who have
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: suffered catastrophic head trauma, you are going to get covered
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: in blood.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: You might even pick up gunshot residue from their skin
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: or their clothing if you are moving them around.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: That is a scientifically valid defense for transfer stains on
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: the front of his clothing, right? Like his knees or
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: his hands.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: It is. But the forensic analysts discovered something that fundamentally
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: dismantled his story.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: The back spatter.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Yes. They found Hikikat's blood spatter on the middle of
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: the back of Gerpreet's shirt.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Okay. This is where we need to explain the mechanics
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: of blood spatter. Because how does a man's blood end
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: up on the back of the person supposedly trying to
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: save him?
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: Right. It's all about physics. When a bullet enters a
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: human skull at close range, the physics are incredibly violent.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: The rapidly expanding gases from the muzzle, combined with a
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: temporary cavity created by the bullet entering the tissue, it
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: essentially creates a micro-explosion.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: As that cavity collapses, it forces atomized blood and tissue
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: backward and toward the vacuum created by the barrel of
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: the gun. Okay. This is known as backspatter. So if
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: a shooter rapidly fires, absorbs the recoil, and swings their
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: arm back or pivots their body to move to the
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: next target.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Which we know happened because there were multiple targets in
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: different rooms.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: Exactly. That fine mist of backspatter can easily land on
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: the back of their own arm or the back of
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: their shirt as they turn.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: So it is mechanical fluid dynamic proof of being the shooter.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Yes. It is not consistent. with someone kneeling over a
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: body to render aid.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Furthermore, they found Hockey Cot's DNA on the very end
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: of the barrel of the Ruger pulled from the pond.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: The physical evidence is basically an iron cage closing around
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Gurpreet at this point.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: But evidence only tells us how he did it. It
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: doesn't tell us why.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: The motive. Right.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Why would a father systematically annihilate his own family?
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: To find the motive, investigators had to look past the
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: physical crime scene and uncover the invisible double life Gurpreet
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: was leading.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: And what a double life it was. During interviews with
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: the extended family, a very different picture of Gurpreet emerged.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Very different from the honorable family man he portrayed in
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: the interrogation room. Exactly.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Despite his claims to police that infidelity was unthinkable in
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: his culture and would result in an instant end to
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: his marriage, Shalinderjit's uncle revealed that Gurpreet actually had a
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: history of hiring prostitutes.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: And more significantly, he was currently involved in a long-term
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: affair with a woman named Navkiran Kaur.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: And where did Navkiran live? Indianapolis.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: The same city where Gurpreet was telling everyone he was
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: going to buy a massive family mansion.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Right. He met Nafkiran while driving his commercial truck, Roots.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: And she was vulnerable, you know. She had recently escaped
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: an abusive marriage.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: So Gurpreet played the savior.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: He really did. He was attentive. He texted her constantly.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: And he became her emotional and, crucially, her financial escape hatch.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: The financial hemorrhage is just staggering when you look at
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: the records.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: It's unbelievable.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: While his mother-in-law is doing manual labor in a laundry
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: facility to help pay the rent for their cramped eight-person apartment,
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Gerpreet hands Navkiran $ 20, 000 in cash to help her buy
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: a house.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: $ 20, 000.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Yes. And he purchases an Infiniti SUV for her.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: While his family has nothing.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: He is actively making her mortgage payments. Yeah. He is
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: single-handedly funding a separate, comfortable household in another state.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: And he didn't just buy her any house. This is
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: where it gets crazy. Navkiran purchased her home in the
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: exact same Indianapolis subdivision where Gurpreet was telling his wife
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: they were going to move.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: He was geographically merging his lies. It's incredibly risky.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: But in March 2019, just a month before the murders,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: the microscopic fracture I mentioned earlier finally happened.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: The bank statement? Yeah.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: A bank statement arrived in the mail at apartment 154.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Shilandarjit opened it and saw a massive $ 20, 000 withdrawal.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: So she confronted him. And Gurpreet admitted he gave the
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: money to Navkiran, though he obviously attempted to downplay the
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: romantic nature of the relationship.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Naturally.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Shalinerjit was deeply distressed, as you would be, and she
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: sought counsel from friends at her local temple.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: But she refused to divorce him.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: She did.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Why? I mean, if she knows he drained their non-existent
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: savings for another woman, why stay in that marriage?
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: It really comes down to the immense cultural weight of
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: divorce in their specific community.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: It's heavily stigmatized, right?
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Exactly. As the uncle testified, an affair with a mistress
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: often meant instant social excommunication. The shame is profound. For Shalinderjit,
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: who had endured a 17-year marriage, crossed continents and raised
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: three children, the prospect of tearing her family apart and
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: facing that cultural stigma back in India and in their community,
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: it was likely unbearable.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: So she chose to endure the humiliation privately.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: But for Gurpreet, her discovery was catastrophic.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: His secret was out. His finances were completely exposed and
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: the avatar of the successful honorable provider was destroyed in
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: the eyes of his wife.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: He had lost control of his own narrative.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: And this brings us to the inheritance motive, which the
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: prosecution argued was the ultimate catalyst for the violence.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Because Hakikat and Parmjit, the parents-in-law, they still owned highly
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: valuable land back in India.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Right. And they were in the final legal stages of
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: actually selling it.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: In fact, Parmjit had a flight booked to India for
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: April 30th.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Which is just two days after the murders.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: Right. She was flying back to finalize the paperwork and
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: collect the funds.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: The prosecution theory of motive is ruthlessly pragmatic here.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: How so?
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Well, Gurpreet is drowning in debt from funding Nafkiran. His
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: wife is aware of his financial betrayal. If Parmjit goes
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: to India and finalizes the land sale... That money belongs
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: entirely to his in-laws.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: Right. It doesn't help him.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: But if his wife and his in-laws die before that
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: transaction is complete, Gurpreet, as the surviving spouse, stands to
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: inherit the proceeds of that land sale.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: It would be a massive, immediate influx of cash.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Cash that could erase his debts and allow him
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: to start a completely new life in Indianapolis with Nafkaren.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: It reduces four human lives to a ledger. It's terrifying.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: It really is. And there were physical warning signs that
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: his internal tension was boiling over.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Yes. A few months prior to the killings, Hockeycott was
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: actually seen with visible bruises.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: And when questioned about it, Hockeycott admitted that Gurpreet had
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: pushed him down during an argument.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Assaulting the patriarch of the family is a massive cultural taboo.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: It shows a complete deterioration of respect within that household.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: And it is highly notable that Hockeycott was the very
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: first person executed on the night of the murders.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting to me, though, from
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: a psychological standpoint. On the night of April 28th, while
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: his family is bleeding out in the next room, Gurpreet
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: is casually texting Nafkiran.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: They were exchanging messages on and off all evening.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: He never mentions the carnage. He doesn't text the woman
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: he loves in a panic saying his family is dead.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: He just maintains this casual banter until the police detain him.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: It's deeply unsettling.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: I struggle to comprehend that level of compartmentalization. How does
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: the human brain physically allow a person to do that?
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: It requires a profound mechanism of cognitive dissociation. Right. The
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: brain basically constructs entirely insulated rooms to avoid the psychological
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: collapse that would come from acknowledging reality.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: So he's living in two different rooms in his head.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Exactly. In one cognitive room, Gurpreet is the attentive lover,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: the successful provider chatting with Navcuring.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: And the other room.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: The other room, the physical apartment filled with the bodies
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: of his family, is literally locked away from his consciousness
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: in that moment.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: To acknowledge the bodies would destroy the avatar he is
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: currently occupying on his phone. He categorized his family as obstacles,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: and once they were removed, he simply pivoted his attention
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: back to his desired reality.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: On July 2, 2019, U.S. Marshals finally tracked Gurpreet down
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: to a Walmart parking lot in Brantford, Connecticut.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: He was actually attending a family wedding.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Which is just... bold. So he is arrested, extradited back
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: to Ohio and charged with four counts of aggravated murder.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: And the prosecution arrives at trial with an absolute mountain
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: of evidence.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, they have the financial ruin, the mistress, the
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: inheritance timeline, the GPS data, the bloody boots, the back spatter,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: the weapon in the pond.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: It looks completely insurmountable.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: It really does. But the defense strategy was not to
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: deny Gurpreet was there. Instead, they introduced a wildly different counter-narrative.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: They presented the theory of the Sikh land mafia.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Let's pause and actually look at this seriously, because if
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: you are on a jury, you have to entertain the
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: defense's alternate theory, right?
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: You have to weigh it.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: And a multi-million dollar land dispute in Punjab is serious business.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: The defense actually got a police sergeant to acknowledge on
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: the stand that the name Shahbaz Khan... a man allegedly
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: associated with a violent land mafia in India, had come
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: up during the investigation.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: So they had a hook. The defense's narrative basically positioned
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Gerpreet as an innocent bystander.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Right. He comes home from checking his truck, walks into
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: his apartment, and supposedly interrupts professional hitmen sent by this
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: international mafia to execute his family over the land dispute.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: And they back this up with a genuine legal document, too.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: The power of attorney. Yes.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Parmjit, the mother-in-law, had previously signed a notarized affidavit actively
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: canceling Gurpreet's power of attorney over that specific Indian land.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: And her brother testified that they were receiving legitimate threats
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: from headmen in India.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: Warning that if they didn't back out of the land deal,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: they would be, quote, eliminated.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: The brother claimed Gurpreet was terrified by these threats, which
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: is supposedly why he begged to have his power of
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: attorney revoked.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: So we have sworn proof. of an external violent threat. Exactly.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: So why couldn't a hired gun have waited for Gurpreet
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: to leave, executed the family to send a message, and
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: then fled just as he was pulling into the parking lot?
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Well, this raises an important question about the practical logistics
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: of organized crime.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, break that down for us.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: The prosecution dismantled this theory by looking at the actual
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: mechanics of the murder. First, they revealed that the people
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: in India purchasing Hakikat's land were not an anonymous crime syndicate.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: Who were they?
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: They were Gurpreet's own relatives. If this was a grand
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: conspiracy to secure the land, Gurpreet was tied by blood
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: to the conspirators.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: That definitely complicates the innocent bystander angle.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, professional hitmen operate on efficiency and anonymity. An international
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: hit squad sent to Ohio is not going to use
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: a relatively cheap, common Ruger SR-9.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: They aren't going to clumsily scrape the serial number off
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: like a street-level gang member.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: And they certainly aren't going to toss the murder weapon
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: into a shallow duck pond 50 yards behind the crime scene.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Right. Professional killers make their weapons vanish.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: And they ensure the victims have no time to react.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: The chaotic order of the kills and the bloody boot
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: prints matching Gurpreet's own shoes point entirely to domestic panic,
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: not a clinical assassination.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: But still, the jury was presented with these two competing realities.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: The mundane, tragic reality of an ego-driven family annihilator versus
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: the cinematic international mafia hit.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: And in October 2022, three and a half years after
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: the murders, Gurpreet faces his first trial.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: The jury deliberation for this trial was a complete nightmare.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: It was incredibly fraught.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: They debated for 14 agonizing hours. People in the courthouse
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: hallways could literally hear jurors screaming at each other inside
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: the deliberation room.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: The emotional toll of analyzing autopsy photos and blood spatter
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: for weeks had clearly fractured the jury.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Ultimately, the judge was forced to declare a mistrial. It
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: was a hung jury.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: Which is shocking to a lot of people.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: How does a jury look at backspatter, GPS data, and
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: a mistress and fail to convict?
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: It only takes one holdout.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Jurors who later spoke to the media revealed that a
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: single juror refused to convict, announcing on the very first
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: day of deliberation that they were, quote, not budging.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: One frustrated juror actually told reporters he was covered in blood.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: It's a bloodbath. Whose other blood could it be?
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: The psychology of a holdout juror is really complex. Sometimes
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: the sheer visceral horror of a crime causes a juror
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: to cling to any shred of reasonable doubt, like the
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: mafia theory, because accepting that a father could do this
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: to his own children's mother is simply too psychologically devastating.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: The devastation for the victim's family was just immeasurable.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: I can't even imagine.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Akikat and Parmigit's son had flown all the way from Melbourne, Australia.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: He sat through weeks of agonizing testimony about his family's
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: final moments, only to watch the justice system completely stall.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: He vowed to remain in the U.S. until a verdict
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: was reached.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Gurpreet sat in jail waiting for a retrial, and
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: his financial facade completely evaporated.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: He blew through nearly $ 300, 000 in legal fees. Wow. He
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: was forced to liquidate all his assets. including that Indianapolis Dreamhouse,
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: which ended up selling at a significant loss.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: So he was entirely bankrupt.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, forced to rely on court-appointed public defenders for his
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: second trial.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: And in May 2024, the second trial commences. Gerpreet's new
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: legal team makes a massive, high-stakes tactical pivot.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: A very risky one.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Gerpreet formally waives his right to a jury trial, opting
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: instead for a bench trial where his fate will be
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: decided by a panel of three judges.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Is it disparate legal calculus? The defense likely believed that
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: a jury of everyday citizens would be too emotionally overwhelmed
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: by the gory reality of the crime scene.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: So they banked on the hope that a panel of
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: judges would be purely clinical. Right.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: Perhaps more willing to entertain the abstract, reasonable doubt woven
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: into that complex land mafia conspiracy.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Well, it was a catastrophic miscalculation for the defense.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Really was.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: The three judges didn't spend 14 hours screaming at each other.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: They listened to the forensic evidence, retired to their chambers,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: and returned in exactly two hours.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: Two hours to decide the fate of a quadruple homicide
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: case is incredibly swift.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: It indicates that the judges found the state's physical and
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence to be absolutely overwhelming.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: The panel was unanimous, guilty on all four counts of
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: aggravated murder.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: The judges stated that the aggravating circumstances of the crime
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: far outweighed any mitigating factors presented by the defense.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: They sentenced Griprit Singh to death.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: And he showed zero emotion as the sentence was read. Today,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: he is an inmate on Ohio's death row.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: Though given that Ohio has suspended executions due to lethal
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: injection sourcing issues, it is entirely unknown if that sentence
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: will ever be carried out.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: The judicial process provided an ending, I guess, but it
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: really cannot repair the blast radius of this crime. The
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: collateral damage is profound, and it's generational.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: We have to acknowledge the three children in all this.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Gerpreet and Shalinderjit's kids lost their mother, their grandparents,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: their great-aunt, and their father, all in the span of
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: one evening.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: They are currently living with extended family in California.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: When we started this deep dive, we talked about the
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: terrifying gap between a public facade and private reality.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: And in apartment 154, the pressure of the American dream,
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: fueled by debt and ego... mutated into an absolute nightmare.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: A man chose to annihilate his family rather than endure
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: the humiliation of his own failures.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: It is a dark case study in the extremes of
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: human pride and the devastating consequences of living a lie.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean for the ones left behind?
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: I want to leave you with a detail from the
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: source material that has really stayed with me.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: It's a heartbreaking detail.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: It is. In the immediate aftermath of the murders, the
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: extended family faced the impossible task of explaining this to
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: three young children.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: How do you even begin to tell a child their
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: father murdered their mother?
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: You can't. So they told the kids a softer lie.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: They told them that their mom had simply gone back
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: to India.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: It was a desperate attempt to protect their innocence and
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: delay the trauma.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: But we live in a digital world. According to their uncle,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: those three children eventually learned the horrific reality of their
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: mother's murder, not from a gentle conversation with a therapist,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: but by reading about it on the internet.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: That is just tragic.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: It leaves us with an incredibly dark reality to ponder.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: We really no longer have the power to protect children
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: from their own family traumas.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: The truth doesn't just stay buried in a dusty police
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: file anymore.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: No, the internet serves as a permanent, infinitely searchable graveyard
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: of our darkest secrets. And for three kids in California,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: the blood-soaked reality of apartment 154 will always be just
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: one click away.