A jury found a Merrillville man guilty of killing a Winfield nurse after a few hours of deliberation on Friday afternoon.
Raju Rawal, 67, of Merrillville, is charged with murder in her Feb. 23, 2023 murder. He has pleaded not guilty. Rawal’s defense attorney Kevin Milner confirmed the guilty verdict around 6 p.m. Friday.
Deputy Prosecutor Arturo Balcazar said in closing arguments that Rawal was the only one who could have done it.
Losinski’s head was beaten in “all directions”, causing significant brain trauma. An autopsy found her blood alcohol level was so high, she couldn’t really fight back, he said.
In his two police interviews, Rawal said she fell at some point and gave details — such as a forehead mark and hurt back — that were not public.
Earlier, prosecutors showed Rawal’s first police interview where he denied he was involved with Losinski; first said he was last at her house on Tuesday, then Wednesday, until he was confronted with surveillance footage on Thursday, Feb. 23.
He was not a frail or chivalrous man. On the contrary, Rawal was feeding a woman’s deep struggle with alcoholism, while having sex with her, Balcazar told jurors.
Things changed for Rawal when he came back to the U.S. from India in December 2022 and Losinski told him she was also involved with Harminder Singh-Heera, his gas station co-worker.
Prior to the case going to the jury, Singh-Heera, 24, took the stand and answered several brief questions. He was investigated and cleared as a potential suspect.
As Judge Natalie Bokota asked where he was from Feb. 22-28, 2023, he whispered briefly to his lawyer Mark Gruenhagen, before Singh-Heera pleaded the Fifth.
Did you murder Losinski, Bokota asked.
“No,” he responded.
After some further questions, he was told to wait outside while lawyers had a lengthy back-and-forth, including after lunch, on whether he would formally testify before jurors. He ultimately did not return.
Rawal started mining a regular customer for what he knew about the Losinski and Singh-Heera’s relationship, Balcazar said. That customer, Olayinka Olojo, testified early this week it was notable when Rawal stopped bringing her up in conversation — around the time she died, court records show.
Court records show Olojo previously saw Singh-Heera and Losinski in the back of the gas station, out of camera view.
Rawal was the one who influenced Losinski to text Singh-Heera in January that she would call the cops if he came over, Balcazar said. The pair had hundreds of calls and texts. Once Losinski was dead, Rawal never reached out again, the prosecutor said.
Investigators missed a rubber mallet on their first search. The next day, after another search warrant, they went again and found it beneath a pillow under her bed.
Balcazar said it wasn’t the murder weapon. There was no blood on it.
They had “no obligation to prove what the murder weapon was,” he told jurors.
Rawal lied to the cops in his two police interviews about whether they were involved and when he had visited Losinski. He was confronted with videos he pulled up Thursday around 3:30 a.m., before his gas station shift. This time, Losinski didn’t call or text him over. He shut his headlights off as if sneaking up to the home.
All other entries were locked. Besides her ex-husband and parents with a key, he was the only one with access to the house via a garage door opener, the prosecutor said.
His DNA was found on her belly button ring. Cell phone towers pinged him in the area, which also included where he worked. Balcazar said Rawal couldn’t say why he was in the area so early.
Milner said texts between Rawal and Losinski that year showed they were on good terms, but the tone of Singh-Heera’s texts were different.
To say the mallet didn’t kill her was “ridiculous,” Milner told jurors. Prosecutors said it wasn’t, because Rawal’s DNA was “not on it.”
“What is it doing there,” he said. “Why have it under the bed?”
The blows caused internal damage, explaining why pools of blood weren’t there aside from blood spots on the bedding, he said.
“I don’t know who killed her,” Milner said. “I only know who didn’t.”
Rawal cooperated with the cops, giving DNA, allowing them to search his car and apartment, Milner said. The clothes he wore that night weren’t recovered. When Rawal went straight to work that morning, walking up to the gas station, he didn’t appear disheveled, his lawyer argued.
Balcazar later retorted that a killer didn’t have to have a “trench coat” or “twirling mustache.”
No one else was there, he said. Singh-Heera’s DNA wasn’t found. His cell phone wasn’t in the area, even as he had “hundreds” of tower hits elsewhere.
An older woman, another nurse, testified Thursday that she and Rawal had a casual romantic relationship that started in 2015. They met at the Marathon gas station.
She didn’t know Losinski, but others at work took note after her death hit the news. Around that time, Rawal grew “more distant,” she said. Losinski was in his phone contacts, and cops were asking him about her, Rawal told the woman. He denied they were involved, saying they were friends.
What kind of “friend” is she, the woman asked him.
He told her he couldn’t talk on the phone, “they were listening to me.” Later, when the woman was questioned at the police station, Rawal called her, asking what she was doing.
“Running some errands,” the woman lied.
By March 9, 2023, things were over. Rawal eventually admitted he had a relationship with Losinski.
“I didn’t want to share” him with another woman, the girlfriend said. She said they were done and clearly didn’t have anything more to say.
“I’m not done with you, yet,” he responded.
Losinski’s parents were kept under subpoena, if they needed to be called back to testify, until closing arguments, meaning they couldn’t watch the bulk of the trial.
Losinski’s brother is named in a civil suit against Rawal that is still pending.
