A man charged with murder in the death of his brother-in-law testified that he had been stabbed first, that the fatal wound occurred as they struggled over the knife and that he unfairly went “from victim to villain” shortly after he summoned Yonkers police to the scene.
Jurors in Westchester County Court will begin deliberating Friday, June 5, on the charges of second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter that John Singh faces in the Nov. 16, 2024, killing of 78-year-old Bernard Barua in Barua’s apartment at 760 Bronx River Road.
In closing arguments Thursday afternoon, defense lawyer Daniel Harnick said there was ample reasonable doubt stemming from the forensic evidence and his client’s account that should convince jurors to acquit Singh.
But Assistant District Attorney Lana Hochheiser insisted that the crime scene evidence disproves Singh’s claim of self defense and that he thought he could get away with the killing after stabbing himself to make it appear like he was the victim.
The case will almost certainly come down to who jurors believe was stabbed first.
DNA testing showed both men’s blood on the knife. The prosecution maintains that only Barua’s blood was on his shirt at the spot where the knife entered and exited but that at the similar spot on Singh’s shirt there was a mixture of both men’s blood.
The defense contends that trace fibers from Singh’s shirt got onto Barua’s shirt because they were transfered by the knife after Singh was stabbed.
Singh testified defiantly Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, insisting police should have treated him like the victim he was instead of making him sit shirtless and handcuffed in the hallway as they tried to save Barua’s life.
A Guyana native and divorced father of three adult children, Singh had moved into the cluttered one-bedroom apartment earlier in 2024 after being kicked out of his mother’s home. He said it was just temporary while he waited to move into a Florida home from where he intended to run an import-export business.
His sister and Barua made room for Singh in the living room, setting up a bed and a small table.
Singh said his sister had been pressuring Barua to take a job, maybe in food delivery for a company like Instacart.
He claimed he was sitting at the table, listening to the Gospel on his phone when an agitated Barua rushed out of his bedroom and said he needed to talk with him. Singh said he stood and listened and Barua was essentially complaining about the job, which Singh had argued he shouldn’t take because he was too old. He said Barua also said something about some potatoes he was supposed to buy.
Singh said he took his eyes off Barua for a moment and suddenly felt a “hard impact into my chest.” He then put his hands over Barua’s and they struggled over the knife.
“I’m fighting for my life,” he said on questioning by his lawyer Richard Ferrante, calling it a “life and death” struggle and how he knew he had to do something “or I’m not going to see my kids.”
He said as they each pushed and pulled to get control of the knife he suddenly felt Barua release his grip and run back into the bedroom. The 4-inch knife was in his hand. It belonged to Singh but he claimed Barua had been in possession of it for some weeks before the stabbing.
Singh said he felt dizzy and out of breath and in pain at “15 out of (a scale of 1 to)10”. He badly felt the need to urinate so went to the bathroom then washed his hands before calling 911 moments later, he said.
When police responded, he met them at the door and directed them inside. They found Barua unconscious in his blood-soaked bed. Life saving efforts failed and Barua was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time later. An autopsy revealed a 4-inch stab wound that pierced his aorta.
Police body-worn camera footage showed an officer asking Singh how long Barua had been in that condition and he answered 45 minutes.
Singh testified that he had no idea how long it actually was, that he had made a “guesstimate” at a time of confusion.
“He was in shock, a man he considered a brother had just plunged a knife into his chest,” Harnick told the jury. “He was dizzy, he was in pain, He was scared.”
Singh had told the dispatcher that Barua was unconscious but in her summation Assistant District Attorney Lana Hochheiser argued that Singh knew his brother-in-law was dead.
“He knows because he put the knife in his chest,” she told the jury.
She said Singh then delayed calling 911 so “he had time to think, had time to plot, had time to clean up had time to plan a ruse” – stabbing himself to appear the victim.
Harnick argued that if Singh had stabbed himself, it would have been somewhere like the shoulder or the fleshy part of his thigh, not in a place that doctors later determined was one centimeter away from a cut to an artery that would have been fatal.
The prosecution maintains that Barua was stabbed in bed.
Hochheiser highlighted how the space in the living room where Singh said the stabbing occurred showed no signs of a violent struggle and no blood was found there. She said medical testimony was that the wound Barua suffered would have been instantly disabling, preventing him from getting into the bedroom, and it would have been impossible with the amount he bled for none of it to have gotten on the living room floor.
Harnick cited testimony of a blood-spatter consultant that the stabbing more likely occurred as Barua was standing and that the pattern of blood in the bedroom suggested it got there as Barua was moving.
On cross examination Thursday morning, Assistant District Attorney Brianna Ciuffi confronted Singh about a recording in which he told his brother that the ’45 minutes’ remark all but guaranteed his conviction.
“I may have said it,” he told her. “We were discussing what’s in (evidence). Doesn’t mean it’s true.”
And to paint Singh as confrontational and contradict his account of a loving extended family, Ciuffi asked him about a 2017 Facebook post in which he listed 31 people, mostly relatives, whose lives he was making it his mission to destroy.
He responded that he had just come out of a divorce and was drinking heavily at the time.
“Here we are years later, everyone’s still here,” he said.
The jury will get the case late morning or early afternoon Friday after hearing legal instructions from Westchester Judge Maurice Dean Williams.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Defendant in murder trial denies intentionally stabbing brother-in-law
Reporting by Jonathan Bandler, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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By Jonathan Bandler, Rockland/Westchester Journal News | USA TODAY Network
