Iqbal Singh: Pennsylvania man sentenced to several years in prison for killing his wife and mother at their home
ROCKWOOD, PENNSYLVANIA: A 66-year-old Pennsylvania man is set to spend several years in prison after he admitted to murdering his wife and mother at their home three years ago.
According to Law and Crime, Iqbal Singh reportedly called his children and said, "I killed your mother and grandmother.”
Last week, Delaware County Common Pleas Court Judge George M Green ordered Iqbal to serve a sentence of 23 to 60 years in a state correctional facility for the slayings of his wife Jaspal Kaur and mother Nasib Kaur.
What charges does Iqbal Singh face?
The defendant reached a deal with the prosecutors in which he agreed to plead guilty to one count of third-degree murder and one count of aggravated assault causing significant bodily injury with extreme indifference.
He was sentenced to 20 to 40 years on the murder charge and three to 20 years on the assault charge.
However, prosecutors dropped charges of criminal homicide, first-degree murder, and possession of a weapon with criminal intent after Iqbal pleaded guilty.
According to a probable cause affidavit obtained by the Delaware County Times Daily, Newtown Township Police Department officers responded to an emergency call on August 23, 2020, at about 9.46 am at a residence located in the first block of Rockwood Road.
The caller, who was identified as Iqbal, allegedly confessed to the emergency dispatcher that he had just killed his wife and mother.
Iqbal was 'covered in blood' when he greeted the officers
The first responders knocked on the front door upon arriving at the scene.
Iqbal was “covered in blood” when he greeted the officers, saying that he committed the double murder.
“Police asked Singh if there was anyone inside the residence hurt,” the department wrote in a press release.
“Singh advised officers that he had killed his wife and mother and that they were inside the residence,” the release stated.
How were the victims killed?
Officers quickly discovered an elderly woman after entering the residence, who was identified as Nasib Kaur, in a first-floor bedroom, whom they described “obviously deceased” from what appeared to be multiple stab wounds.
On the second floor, Jaspal Kaur’s body was discovered in a bedroom who also suffered what appeared to be multiple stab wounds.
Besides, both the victims' throats had been slit, police said. Investigators also recovered a knife covered in blood from the kitchen.
What did Iqbal Singh tell his children?
Iqbal's son said he called his mother and father at about 9 am on the day of the killings and got no response.
However, Iqbal answered the phone when he dialed the home’s landline and admitted to the slayings.
“I killed both of them,” Singh told his son, as per Philadelphia CBS affiliate KYW-TV.
“I killed your mother and grandmother. Call the police to come get me,” Iqbal allegedly told his son.
Police said Singh told an identical story to his daughter. “He then talked to his daughter who was with her brother and told her the same story,” Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer reportedly said after the killings.
“That’s when law enforcement was contacted, they arrived and they found Mr Singh covered in blood, injured. But they also found the two deceased individuals in the home,” Stollsteimer said.
Why was Iqbal Singh not sentenced to life?
Iqbal reportedly told the investigators days later that he was suffering from depression and had bipolar disorder.
He said he “never” would have harmed his wife or mother if he was not ill.
First Assistant District Attorney Tanner Rouse said that his office only agreed to such a lenient sentence for the defendant because his children had already lost their mother and grandmother and pleaded with authorities on behalf of their father.
“The heinousness, the gravity of what Mr Singh has done, are such that I would not feel comfortable making an offer such as this but for the pleas of the Singh family,” Rouse reportedly said.
“The goal of this sentence is to offer them the glimmer of hope that they asked for, that one day, maybe, they will see their father outside of a jail cell. But if that is to occur, that it will occur that Mr Singh is in such a way that he will be unable to inflict anything approaching this level of harm ever again,” Rouse added.
