Sunday, January 2, 2011

Rancho Cordova, CA: Popular Rancho Cordova Woman Murdered

John Lobertini
FOX40 News
January 1, 2011

RANCHO CORDOVA — It's one of those neighborhoods where everyone knows everyone else; and the death of Rajeet Singh seemed especially humbling in Rancho Cordova. "It's just heartbreaking to see something like that," Tiffany Lopez saw the body before investigators put up crime scene tape around the Mills Park Neighborhood sign on Folsom Boulevard. Lopez and Singh were friends, "She was just a really happy person. Always said hi to everybody walked around happy New Year. She was like at the bar where a lot of us hang out."

When a neighbor spotted Singh's body just before 11 Saturday morning she was partially clothe; naked from the waist down. Michele Gaylord may have been one of the last people to see her alive, "We were at the bar. Eating, drinking, dancing and having fun." Gaylord and Singh spent New Year's Eve at the Rancho Club Casino and later celebrated the stroke of midnight at the Sand Trap bar. From there they went to Gaylord's nearby apartment where Singh stayed until 3 or 4 a.m. But Gaylord says her petite friend insisted on walking the short distance home alone, "I had a bad feeling. It was late and there was a lot of people out on the street and I just thought she would be safer if one of my friends walked her home, " she says.

Investigators say there are no visible signs of death, very few leads and no suspects. Sgt. Tim Curran of the Sacramento County Sherrif's Department says, "It's being called at this time a suspicious death. Homicide detectives are on scene and they'll treat it as a suspicious death until the coroner rules to the manner of death." But It didn't take that long; a few hours later investigators determined this is probably murder.

"We come around the corner and her boyfriend's beating up on her," this man says Singh had an estranged, abusive, ex-boyfriend; he saw it himself once. But this man asked FOX40 not to reveal his identity because he fears retaliation. "She told one of my friends she wouldn't be surprised if he killed her." Dan Robinson had that same conversation, over drinks at the Sand Trap, more than once. "Like every other day I would see her up here she was telling me her boyfriend had been causing her trouble, stalking her. She had a restraining order on him," he says.

Investigators won't comment on the existence of a restraining order; and they don't know or wont' tell us how Singh was killed. Those same investigators say they have few leads and no suspects.

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