BC Supreme Court Justice rejects media application to release ‘smile of a murderer’ video evidence
Decision to deny video release is patronizing to the public and gives too much weight to a murderer’s potential reputational damage
Warning: This story explains details described in court of vicious murders that could be disturbing to some readers – PJH
July 13, 2026
When a BC Supreme Court Justice recently decided the general public shouldn’t be allowed to view a piece of evidence shown in open court in a public trial, maybe it wasn’t really a big deal.
But if democracy is to succumb to death by a thousand cuts, this was a little slice en route to a creeping normalization of opacity in our criminal justice system.
Kushveer Singh Toor, Abhijeet Singh and Gurkuran Singh tortured and killed Arnold and Joanne De Jong during a planned home invasion in Abbotsford in 2022. They bound both the elderly couple's feet and hands with rope, used duct tape on their heads. Joanne was beaten and slashed in the neck, Arnold's entire head was wrapped in duct-tape and left to die.
The three Indian international students in their early 20s were convicted of the first-degree murder of the septuagenarians on May 8, 2026 in B.C. Supreme Court.
Among the pieces of evidence in the case was a baseball bat they had purchased at Canadian Tire. One of the men who violently murdered the elderly couple later posed in a video with that baseball bat while smiling, a video that he shared on social media. The video was included as part of evidence at trial. In closing arguments, Crown counsel rightly pointed that the video showed “the smile of a murderer.”
This may seem like a small detail in the context of what these three men did during their violent home invasion on Arcadian Way in rural Abbotsford. But at least in part because of the “smile of a murderer” comment seized on by the broadcast media, the media outlets wanted this piece of evidence released to be shared on the news.
CTV’s parent company Bell Media applied to the court to have this exhibit released so that it could be shared on TV and online. Global News was on board and, when asked if I would support this application by a reporter who seemed frustrated about the situation during the trial, I said I would. Incidentally, other videos that were in evidence have been released to the media to broadcast.
On July 8, Justice Brenda Brown heard this application by Bell Media, which the Crown took no position. The lawyer for one of the accused, Donna Turko, strongly objected to the application and made her own application to remove the video exhibit entirely from the court record.
In a decision that I personally believe is patronizing, anti-democratic, and a vain if ludicrous attempt to unring a bell, Justice Brown decided, no, the public can’t see it.
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What's the definition of 'public interest'?
Guess who else wanted the video exhibit released to the public? The family of the elderly couple brutally murdered in their own home by young men, one of whom then seem to mock the situation on social media.
“They recorded themselves and posted this video on social media, holding a weapon that was used in the home invasion and murders of my parents,” Heather De Jong-Hoogland told me after the decision on July 8.
“It was not done merely days afterwards, but three months afterwards showing Gurkaran Singh holding the bat, while driving in the car with loud music and smiling in a boastful way. The other videos that have been released clearly show Khushveer Toor taking this same bat and then hiding it underneath the lining of the trunk of the car.”
Yet somehow, when Crown counsel pointed out simply and accurately that this video showed “the smile of a murderer,” a line repeated in several news stories, this was a deemed inflammatory by Justice Brown, which is baffling to me since it was simply accurate. Singh is a murderer. He’s in the video. He's smiling.
Justice Brown concluded that allowing the video to be released to be broadcast risked making the court complicit in an inflammatory, non-judicial characterization. There was a two-fold concern: firstly, the court’s independence and objectivity; and secondly, the permanent reputational harm to the murderer, who she referred to as the “accused.”
I counted multiple references to the “accused” in my imperfect transcript of a recording of the proceedings, which is odd. Kushveer Singh Toor, Abhijeet Singh and Gurkuran Singh are no longer “accused” of anything.
They did it. They are offenders. They are murderers. Based on this logic, if we refer to killers as “accused” until they have exhausted all possible appeals then federal prisons across Canada are jam-packed not with people who murdered other people but people “accused” of murder, since most don’t appeal their convictions.
In what I say is an ironic the-lady-doth-protest-too-much moment, the most shocking theoretical representation of how this otherwise innocuous video might be misused in the future came from defence counsel herself. Turko said in open court: “It would be really a shame to see the swinging bat put to Britney Speers song 'Hit Me Baby One More Time.' That’s the kind of thing that happens on the internet.”
No mainstream media outlet or responsible member of the independent media would ever present this video in any way other than to suggest this was the video referenced by Crown counsel as a piece of evidence, post-offence conduct, and an example of something the public is interested in and might find shocking.
It is something in the public interest to see how this horrific crime and those who perpetuated it acted months later.
What is public interest if not what the public is interested in? It is more complicated than that. Even the legally legendary 20th century English jurist Lord Denning, who was known as a judge who championed the public’s right to be informed in cases involving press and public disclosure felt there was a difference.
“There is a distinction between what is interesting to the public and what is in the public interest,” he said.
The Supreme Court of Canada emphasizes that the open court principle exists because it promotes accountability, transparency, confidence in the administration of justice, and allows for an informed public discussion. That doesn’t mean the public should see every scrap of evidence. Courts are left to balance openness with trial fairness, privacy, dignity, and other public interests.
Bell Media's lawyer argued in court that there was no risk to the administration of justice to share this piece of evidence with the public because the trial is over, the verdict rendered, and the Crown’s comments have already been reported.
She argued there shouldn’t be a tiered approach such that evidence a judge deems to be “sensational” or “non-educational” is protected from openness. She gave a precedent case where a video of an accused purchasing matches later used in an arson was ordered to be released, which isn't much different than a video of a person holding a bat used in a murder.
Defence essentially argued, and Justice Brown agreed, that the video shouldn’t be released because it risked permanent reputational harm to the accused since his appeal rights were not exhausted. Having heard all of the other details of this case, what these three men did to this poor elderly couple, tying them up, taping their mouths shut, killing them slowly and almost certainly painfully, deciding a video of one of them holding a bat risks harm to their reputation is absurd.
A reframing of what Justice Brown had to consider could be put this way: Would public access to this video of a murderer holding what was likely a murder weapon improve public understanding of the administration of justice enough to outweigh the possible harms, which would be sensationalization of a terrible crime, loss of dignity to an offender, and possible retraumatizing of victims?
To those three possible harms, I would say: one, judges should not get to decided what emotional impact the public is allowed to experience and the media should be deciding what is newsworthy not the court; two, the murderer already has no dignity ever to be redeemed; and three, the family themselves want it released.
A better question Justice Brown should have considered in my opinion is this: Does withholding the video actually protect any recognized public interest, or does it merely shield the public from seeing disturbing evidence that the justice system itself relied upon?
If she thought of it that way, I would love to know how she would answer.
But here we are. Justice Brown ruled it is not in the public interest. She ruled that the media can view and report on the video but no copying, reproduction, or broadcast is allowed. Because of that decision, it rendered defence’s application to have the evidence struck from the record as moot (irrelevant).
In the end, Justice Brown decided she knows what you should read and watch and hear.
Was the Crown’s inference that the video showed “the smile of a murderer” inflammatory? I don’t know because I haven’t seen the video. I suppose I could access it to see it myself but the general public will never see it.
There’s a word for people in positions of power refusing to let what is otherwise open and free information be released to the public. But I won’t tell you that word. I’ve decided you couldn’t handle it. You would over-react. Just sit back, relax, the media will share with you what you are ready to hear when we are told it’s OK by the judiciary and government officials.
Nothing to see here.
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Paul J. Henderson
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