Rajwinder Singh's defence begins closing arguments in trial over 2018 murder of Toyah Cordingley

Lawyers for the man accused of the murder of Cairns woman Toyah Cordingley have told a jury the case against the 41-year-old relies on "too much stuff that makes no sense".

Rajwinder Singh has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Ms Cordingley on a Far North Queensland beach in October 2018.

His barrister, Greg McGuire KC, is delivering his closing address to the jury in a Supreme Court trial which has heard evidence from more than 80 witnesses over three weeks in Cairns.

Prosecutors have pointed to a combination of 10 pieces of evidence they rely on to establish Mr Singh's guilt. 

That includes the high likelihood Mr Singh's DNA was on a stick at Ms Cordingley's makeshift burial site and a log the killer must have touched at its base.

The Crown also relies on the movements of Ms Cordingley's phone away from the beach as being consistent with those of Mr Singh's car, the fact he had the opportunity to dispose of items linked to the murder, and the way he suddenly left the country the next day to spend four years in hiding without contacting his family.

But in his final address to the jury, Mr McGuire said prosecutors had been "laser focused on incriminating evidence even when it's wrong", and that a lone attacker could not have been responsible.

"Haven't we heard a lot of that in recent years?"

Indie a 'silent witness'

Ms Cordingley had gone to Wangetti Beach, north of Cairns, to walk her dog Indie on the afternoon of October 21, 2018, when she was killed.

Indie, a large Husky-Tibetan mastiff cross, was found tied tightly to a tree in the scrub, about 30 metres from where Ms Cordingley's body was buried in sand.

Mr McGuire, who began his address with an anecdote from an 1892 Arthur Conan Doyle mystery tale called The Adventures of Silver Blaze, described Indie as "very much a silent witness".

"You might've noticed [Crown prosecutor Nathan] Crane made little attempt to describe to you a logical scenario that has Rajwinder Singh — a stranger to both Toyah and Indie — as a lone assailant," Mr McGuire told the jury.

"You might think he has not attempted to do that for one very good reason — there is none."

Mr McGuire pointed to the absence of Mr Singh's DNA on Indie's lead and collar, or on the tree to which she was tied.

He said Ms Cordingley could have "easily outrun the portly man you see sitting in the dock".

Teetotaller in 'unhappy marriage'

Mr McGuire told the jury Mr Singh was "clearly filling in time" as he was captured on security footage wandering around Cairns Central Shopping Centre earlier in the afternoon of Ms Cordingley's death.

"At one point, you can see him standing at the railing, looking down at the people for seven to eight minutes," he said.

Mr Singh then drove to the beaches north of Cairns.

"This is the insane part and this has not attempted to be dealt with, because it can't be," Mr McGuire said.

"At some point, before he gets to Wangetti Beach, he acquires a knife."

Mr McGuire said the killing of Ms Cordingley was "up close and personal, frenzied and horrifically violent".

He said Mr Singh was "a vegetarian, a teetotaller, a quiet composed man … who was never known to raise his voice or lose his temper".

In addressing the way Mr Singh left his family behind, Mr McGuire said his client's first-born daughter had gone to live in India with her grandmother for the first two-and-a-half years of her life.

"He was in an unhappy marriage — it had been an arranged marriage," Mr McGuire said.

"He wanted a divorce."

Doubt over lake search

In a secretly recorded conversation with an undercover police officer in a watch house cell, Mr Singh said he ran in fear after seeing killers with covered faces.

"Fortunately for Rajwinder Singh, Indie either proves that whatever he said in the confessional of the watch house cell is true or, to put it more accurately so far as your decision-making is concerned, raises serious doubt as to his guilt," Mr McGuire told the jury.

Mr McGuire told the jury they had been presented with false information about the lack of a water search at Lake Placid, where police suspected Ms Cordingley's killer had dumped her phone.

Divers were briefed to search the water but did not do so because of crocodiles, Senior Constable Carl Bishop said in evidence.

But Mr McGuire said police diver Mathew Guitman had, under cross-examination at a later point in the trial, told the court he did search the water there, finding no items of interest.

"Two pieces of evidence favourable to Rajwinder Singh almost didn't come out," Mr McGuire said.

Singh told officer he thought police 'would have caught' killers

Mr McGuire told the jury they could not use Mr Singh's decision not to give evidence at trial against him.

He read from a transcript of Mr Singh's conversation with the undercover officer, in which the accused expressed fear of "people in the community who think I'm the killer".

"If I was a local person in here, it would be a different story. But sometimes we get discrimination because of a different background, because of a different colour," Mr Singh said.

Mr Singh told the officer he thought police "would have caught them in a few days and then I could come back", but instead learnt he was wanted for murder because his car had been at the beach.

"What if you were in India as a white person and something like that happened and you fled back to Australia?" Mr McGuire put to the jury.

Singh told 'lies', court told

Earlier on Tuesday, Crown prosecutor Nathan Crane concluded his closing address, telling the jury Mr Singh was a "deceiving man" who "had four years to think about things that he might say if he was ever found".

"The things he tells you [in the watch house recording] is the extent to which he understands the case against him," Mr Crane said.

Mr Singh told his wife he was leaving for a couple of days after booking a one-way ticket to India, told his friend he was flying to Sydney to visit his sister, and told a travel agent he needed to fly urgently as his grandfather was sick.

"He just lies to achieve his needs," Mr Crane said.

Mr Crane described Mr Singh's version of events as "illogical", pointing out he did not call police, or warn his wife or parents about two people being after him.

The one call he did make after reaching India was to arrange for his severance pay from Innisfail Hospital, the court heard.

"He's prepared to make a phone call but it's for an advantage to him," Mr Crane said.

"It's money because he's now in hiding."

At the conclusion of the defence arguments, Justice Lincoln Crowley will sum up the case to the jury before it can begin its deliberations.