Charges laid after almost two decades

Parents accused in murder of Toronto teen

Two people have been charged in the murder of a 17-year-old girl whose badly burned body was discovered in a suitcase in a warehouse outside Toronto almost 20 years ago.

The girl, identified as Melonie Biddersingh, had moved to Toronto four years earlier from Kingston, Jamaica, to live with her biological father and stepmother in order to “have a better life.”

On March 5, her father, Everton Biddersingh, 56 and his wife, Elaine Biddersingh, 50, were arrested at their home, in Welland, Ont., and charged with first-degree murder.

After receiving a call from “a person with a conscience,” investigators reopened the case and were able to put the story together, thanks to a joint effort from Canadian police, coroners and Jamaican authorities, Det.-sgt. Steve Ryan said.

He said the teen had moved from Jamaica with her two brothers, Leon and Dwayne, to live with their father, his new wife and their three children in an apartment in Parkdale, a region of Toronto.

None of the children went to school, said Ryan.

He said evidence indicates the teen’s “life in Toronto was not a happy one.”

When 15-year-old Dwayne fell from the balcony of their 22nd-floor apartment, police thought it was a suicide, but Ryan said police, as part of the investigation into his sister’s death, will take another look at that case.

The teen’s biological mother, who still lives in Jamaica, had made several unsuccessful attempts to contact her daughter, and didn’t know the girl had died until police told her during the investigation.

Media reports from September 1994 said firefighters, responding to a warehouse fire, discovered human remains stuffed inside a suitcase that was wedged between two burning rubber tires in a garbage bin outside an industrial complex in Vaughan, Ont.

Forensic testing indicated the victim – thought to be between 11 and 18 years old – likely was from India or Africa.