Canadian Teacher Convicted of Killing Pregnant Wife Out of Jealousy: "Crazy Monster"

A Canadian teacher told family and friends she was overjoyed to be expecting her second child with her husband. But Manjit and Mukhtiar Panghali’s marriage wasn’t as perfect as it seemed — and within months of her disappearance, on her baby’s due date, Mukhtiar Panghali (known to his friends as “MP”), was arrested for her gruesome murder.

“What kind of crazy monster would do something like that?” Jasmine Bhambra, Manjit’s sister, said on Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins, airing Saturdays at 8/7c on Oxygen. “We were all in a state of such trauma and disbelief. And so many questions.”

On October 18, 2006, MP told police that Manjit went to a prenatal yoga class around 6:30 p.m. and never came back. He added that he put his three-year-old daughter to bed at 9 p.m. and went to bed around midnight. The next morning, he asked his father-in-law to take his daughter to school while he went to work.

“When [he] arrived, [his father-in-law] was concerned, like, ‘Okay, aren’t you worried?’” said Harj Sidhu, a sergeant with the Delta police department in British Columbia, on Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins. “And MP said, ‘No, she’ll show up, she’s gone away before and come back.’”

After his work at a local school ended, MP then went to a pub with fellow teachers. But his father-in-law called to tell him that his wife still hadn’t returned. At midnight, 26 hours after Manjit, who was four months pregnant, went missing, her husband filed a report with police.

Read on to find out how police investigators connected Manjit’s seemingly devoted husband to her death.

Mukhtiar Singh Panghali. Photo: Oxygen

Relatives of the couple noticed that they were having marital struggles in the year leading up to Manjit's disappearance. MP’s brother moved into their home for a time, causing stress, and Manjit told friends she was unhappy with her husband’s drinking. The couple sought counseling together.

MP surprised police when he claimed his wife was having an affair.

“He says, ‘I think she’s actually cheating on me with a high school friend of hers, Tony Phunal.’ Almost suggesting, ‘Yeah, she’s probably with Tony for all I know,’” Sidhu said.

Phunal and Manjit had known each other for years, and though each were married, they'd recently reconnected on social media and developed a friendship. MP told police the two had gone out to dinners together, and suggested his wife was cheating on him.

“MP ended up telling me that it took them over a year to get pregnant with this new baby,” said Lyndsay O’Ruairc, a constable with Surrey, on Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins. “He said at one point Manjit yelled at him and said, ‘You know, I have other people that can get me pregnant.’”

Although Tony Phunal denied having an affair with Manjit, police realized even the perception of an affair could be enough of a motive for MP to want his wife dead.

“A lot of it is public perception. What would the community think?” Sidhu said. “And if people saw Tony and Manjit at a restaurant, you know, that shame would be very hard for someone like MP to take.”

On October 23, 2006, five days after she was reported missing, the body of Manjit Panghali was discovered about 20 miles from her home. Her cause of death was strangulation, and her body had been badly burned after her death. The same day, her vehicle was discovered about six miles from her home. Her purse and phone were missing from the car.

Police performed a paternity test on the baby, and determined MP was the father.

Police determined that Manjit Panghali had shown up for her yoga class at 6:30 p.m. the night she went missing, and left the class at 8:30 p.m. Investigators surveyed the hundreds of hours of road surveillance video that was available to look for clues as to what happened to her after she left.

A video from a Chevron gas station just blocks from the Panghali home proved crucial to the investigation. It showed MP enter the gas station about 12:15 a.m. the night his wife went missing and showed him purchasing a newspaper and lighter.

“This was huge,” said Guy Leeson, a sergeant with Delta PD, on Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins. “This was a definite game changer. He needed those items to start the fire.”

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Manjit Panghali’s cell phone records also proved to be crucial evidence to the case. They showed that she called the landline to her home several times after 6:30 p.m., despite her husband’s claims that they never spoke after she left the house. And experts discovered important information about the whereabouts of Manjit’s phone.

“We determined the SIM card that was attached to MP’s phone number gets inserted into the phone hardware of Manji’s on October 19, the day after Manjit is missing,” Sidhu said.

Leeson added, “MP was actually using her phone. Even during the [missing persons] press conference, he had that phone in his pocket.”

On March 12, 2007, his unborn child’s due date, MP was arrested for his wife’s murder.

“It was an ‘A-ha!’ moment, because there’s no other explanation for that phone to be in his possession,” Sidhu said. “He had to have gotten it from Manjit. Manjit came home that night, and he was the only one who had the opportunity to kill her. That was the missing piece that we were looking for.”

Mukhtiar Panghali Involves Police 26 Hours After His Pregnant Wife’s Disappearance

Watch all-new episodes of Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins on Saturdays at 8/7c on Oxygen and the next day on Peacock.