‘I have nothing to hide,’ stepmother tells court
For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light. Luke 8:17 Verily, Elaine Biddersingh is a righteous God-fearing woman. Just ask her. No need to ask, really. She will go there of her own initiative, this pious lady who retreated from cruelties by burying her nose in a Bible, as Biddersingh has told a Toronto jury. Immersed herself in the Good Book while — at minimum — unspeakable cruelties were inflicted upon a teenage girl. A girl not born of her own womb, of course; not blood of her blood.
Melonie Biddersingh was Elaine’s stepdaughter, one of three offspring spawned by a husband who were brought from Jamaica to live with the couple and their two youngsters — shortly afterwards, three — in a Parkdale apartment.
The teen’s charred remains were discovered on Sept. 1, 1994, inside a suitcase that had been set aflame behind a Vaughan building. For nearly two decades the body remained unidentified.
But Elaine Biddersingh knew full well who it was. She was there on the previous evening when Melonie’s lifeless body was stuffed into that luggage. She was there when the gruesome cargo was dumped behind that building, placed atop a tire and ignited.
These admissions have been made in court over the past two days, with Elaine on the stand — increasingly insolent, glaring at her interlocutor — as a witness for the prosecution in the trial of her husband, Everton Biddersingh, who has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.
Elaine too has been charged with the same offence but her trial won’t be held until next year. At this trial, the witness has shifted all blame for Melonie’s mistreatment — the girl had 21 “healing fractures” at autopsy, weighed a mere 50 pounds in her carbonized state, and had suffered from long-standing malnourishment whilst alive — onto her estranged spouse, a man she accuses of chronic violence and miserly food rationing towards her “until the day I got rid of him.” That day took a long time coming. Seventeen years passed before Elaine Biddersingh unburdened her soul, confessing the secret of Melonie’s grotesque fate to her pastor — Rev. Eduardo Cruz.
“Years ago we had two children that passed on,” Elaine said Tuesday, recounting what she revealed to Cruz. Passed on. These children were Dwayne and Melonie Biddersingh, 13 and 12 when they arrived from Jamaica, along with older half-brother Cleon. Only Cleon is still alive. Dwayne died within 18 months; an “accident” is all that the jury has been told. Melonie ended up in a suitcase.
“I told (Cruz) about Melonie, that she died in the apartment, that her body was burned and she was on the news.” The Suitcase Girl: A mystery that would occasionally be brought back to public attention as investigators doggedly continued their attempts to identify the body.
What Elaine expected her pastor would do with that information is unclear. “He said, ‘Sister, I’ve got to go to the police.’ I said, ‘Pastor, do what you’ve got to do.’ It was fine if he went to the police. I have nothing to hide.”
She also shared the story with the youngest of her offspring, the baby Melonie was tasked with caring for, even when she became too feeble and emaciated to carry the child. Elaine’s daughter had begun to ask questions about the half-sister who suddenly disappeared in 1994 — the Biddersinghs telling everybody that the teenager had run away to New York.
“I told (my daughter) that she died. And that she was a nice person and that we get along before Everton separated us.
“Everything I talk is true. I don’t tell lies.”
Yet she’d been part of a whopper for going on two decades. Until, apparently, conscience finally caught up with her.
Court has heard there were other disputed allegations that originated with Elaine.
Throughout her testimony, Elaine Biddersingh has insisted she was a horribly abused wife, a victim, beaten and endlessly disparaged by her husband. Repeatedly over 20 years —“almost every day,” Elaine said — she called 911 to report Everton’s tyranny.
Defence lawyer Genevieve McInnes, reminding the witness that the Crown had provided all case documents under rules of disclosure, noted the paper trail showed only three instances where police had responded to a complaint from Elaine about Everton.
And never, during the three years Melonie lived under her roof, did Elaine inform police about the girl’s miserable treatment — food withheld, stuffed into a narrow closet, exiled for hours to the balcony and made to stand in a barrel.
“I realized that you cannot rely on police,” Elaine professed.
McInnes: “My suggestion is that you fabricated this whole story to get sympathy, correct?”
Elaine: “Police cannot give me sympathy. Jesus Christ give me sympathy and I don’t fabricate these things, correct?”
She was the one, after all, who spoke the truth to her pastor, was she not?
“Remember, if I didn’t open my mouth, you wouldn’t be standing here and you wouldn’t have a job. So that’s not correct.”
The trial continues. Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.