What Biddersingh jury didn’t hear
The man convicted of murdering his own daughter and setting her ablaze in a suitcase in 1994 may have had a more direct role in the death of another of his children two years earlier, according to testimony the jury wasn’t allowed to hear.
The Superior Court jury that decided the fate of Everton Biddersingh didn’t hear how his son, Dwayne, may have met his death on June 15, 1992.
Neither did they hear testimony from family members claiming that Toronto police were duped into believing the 14-year-old Dwayne viciously beat his older sister Melonie before committing suicide by jumping from the 22nd floor of a Parkdale apartment building. It was Everton Biddersingh who beat Melonie, then 15, family members now claim; and Biddersingh was with Dwayne just before the teenager went over the balcony the next day.
But Judge Alfred O’Marra ruled in a pretrial decision that such evidence given at the preliminary hearing is inadmissible.
O’Marra also barred evidence that showed police observed and recorded the numerous bruises, welts, scratches and cuts on Melonie’s body that June day in 1992.
Melonie was to suffer horrific abuse for two more years. She was killed, stuffed in a suitcase and her body set ablaze in 1994 — touching off a cold case mystery that the jury solved Thursday.
Biddersingh’s wife, Elaine, goes on trial in April on identical charges.
There is little dispute that Melonie died a horrible death — weighing about 50 to 55 pounds, akin to an 8-year-old. She was starved, beaten, dehumanized, a shell of the beautiful teenager who arrived from the slums of Kingston, Jamaica, to pursue a better life with her dad, stepmom and siblings.
Court heard that Everton and Elaine sponsored three of Everton’s children as landed immigrants from Jamaica on Jan. 25, 1991. They lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Parkdale — the three teenage immigrants from Jamaica and the couple’s three Canadian-born children.
None of the kids went to school. They lived an always secret and frequently brutish life. And within 17 months, police were called to 22 Close Ave., where Dwayne’s body lay crumpled on the lawn. He was the youngest of the immigrant kids. He had fallen or was pushed or jumped from the 22nd-floor apartment.
But all the jurors heard was that Dwayne died of an “accident.” Biddersingh’s lawyer argued that details surrounding Dwayne’s death would prejudice the murder trial jury. The Crown countered that to exclude the evidence was to “deprive the jury highly relevant evidence and provide them with a misleading picture of the family life in the Biddersingh household.”
In the procedural wrangling not heard by the jury, and which could not be made public until now, the judge agreed with the defence that the evidence could lead the jury to infer that Biddersingh was the type of person to commit violence against his children — and hence, was responsible for Melonie’s death.
As such, lawyers and witnesses were instructed to tiptoe around details surrounding Dwayne’s death.
Further evidence excluded from the trial raises the normal question about the balance between giving the accused a fair trial and the risk of presenting a sanitized picture of the accused when evidence of prior bad behaviour is excluded.
In a pretrial hearing, the judge barred testimony that claimed:
Biddersingh had a gun in the apartment and used it to threaten
Lawyers and witnesses were instructed to tiptoe around details surrounding Dwayne’s death
his son Cleon and keep him in line dealing drugs and remaining a virtual slave;
Biddersingh somehow confiscated the travel documents of his friend, Pedro, while they were visiting in Jamaica. The jurors only heard that Biddersingh and Pedro had a falling out. (Pedro was the lone non-family member to ever visit the Biddersingh home. He would later help Cleon to run away from the abusive home, court heard.)
In a voir dire ruling late in the trial, Judge O’Marra refused to let forensic pathologist Michael Pollanen testify that there may be significant scientific evidence to suggest Melonie may have starved to death.
Pollanen favours drowning as the likely cause.
He previously thought starvation unlikely. But after conducting further tests a week before he was called to the witness box in mid- December, he uncovered links that made an even stronger case for starvation as the cause of death. But the jury never heard it.
In essence, the defence successfully argued that to allow that evidence at the late stage in the trial — Pollanen was the last witness — would jeopardize their arguments which were based on the Crown’s initial claim that drowning was the likely cause of Melonie’s death.
Sure enough, in closing arguments, defence lawyer Jennifer Penman argued that the Crown did not offer sufficient evidence to support starvation as a cause of death. Since the trial started, columnist Royson James has hosted Opal Austin and Racquel Ellis, the mother and sister of Melonie Biddersingh. Austin was the first witness at the trial in the 1994 cold case slaying of her daughter. James first reported the story from Jamaica when police identified Melonie in 2012. He’s maintained contact with the family and assisted the women in navigating the city during the trial. They left for Kingston, Jamaica, on Christmas Day, having been away from family since Oct. 29.