Father guilty of murdering Melonie

Biddersingh convicted decades after daughter’s body discovered

Everton Biddersingh, accused of torturing his daughter Melonie for four years, then killing her by drowning or by starving until her17-year-old body weighed the same as an 8-year-old, was found guilty of first-degree murder Thursday after seven hours of jury deliberations.

The verdict came 21 years after Melonie Biddersingh’s unidentified body was found in a smouldering suitcase in an industrial parking lot on Sept. 1, 1994. An autopsy revealed 21 healing fractures, severe malnourishment, a contusion to the skull and evidence that she may have drowned in fresh water.

Everton, 60, had pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. As the verdict was read he looked towards the ground, betraying little emotion. The judge told him he will face the mandatory punishment of life in prison without parole eligibility for 25 years.

Satisfaction and comfort greeted the guilty verdict when news reached Kingston, Jamaica, late Thursday.

“We’re glad. We’re elated. He (Everton) deserve it. He deserves whatever comes his way,” said Racquel Ellis, Melonie’s sister who sat through most of the trial before returning to Kingston on Christmas Day. “Tell them, remember to throw away the key.”

“We can’t bring back Melonie, but justice has been served.”

Melonie’s mother, Opal Austin, said she is “pleased” with the verdict, but is still hurting and baffled by why Melonie’s dad subjected her to such horrors. “How do they do that — from 1991, ’92, ’93, ’94?” Austin asked. “My body still feel weak. I’m not lying, inside of me still a bleed.”

The lead detective in the case, Det. Sgt. Steve Ryan told reporters that he hopes Melonie “can rest more peaceful tonight.”

During the three-month trial, Melonie’s older half-brother Cleon Biddersingh testified to the jury in detail about the enslavement of his sister and the terrible treatment they endured at the hands of Everton and their stepmother, Elaine Biddersingh, after the children were brought to Canada from Jamaica in 1991.

Melonie, the jury heard, never left the family’s apartment or attended school.

She was locked in a closet or a barrel, denied food, beaten, chained to furniture and forced to sleep on the floor. She grew so weak she could barely crawl to the bathroom.

“It is better I dead,” Cleon said she told him — dead like her younger brother Dwayne who, in 1992 at age 14, plummeted from the balcony of their 22nd-floor apartment. The jury did not hear about suspicions that now swirl around his death.

Everton’s defence lawyer attempted to blame “evil Elaine” alone for the abuse and Melonie’s death.

However, the Crown argued Everton was Elaine’s “enforcer,” the one who delivered the beatings, and on some occasions beat Elaine herself. Cleon testified Everton hated his daughter, rationing her food, insulting and ridiculing her.

The jury heard that it was Elaine who caused Everton and herself to be charged (she faces trial this year).

Elaine testified against Everton, telling the jury that in 2011 she confessed to her pastor that the so-called “Suitcase Girl” abandoned in 1994 was Melonie; she claimed her long silence was due to fear of her “monster” husband. (The defence suggested she wanted to be rid of a husband she hated by getting him arrested.) Her pastor contacted police.

A key sticking point in the trial was how Melonie died. Neither Cleon or Elaine testified to seeing Everton kill her, though Elaine testified that she found Melonie’s corpse and she, Everton and Cleon disposed of it.

Though experts agreed that Melonie could have starved to death, the jury heard that “diatoms” in her body indicated it was more likely she drowned. “There are numerous ways (Everton) could have caused her death,” prosecutor Mary Humphrey told the jury.

Defence lawyer Jennifer Penman argued that if the jury could not find that Everton drowned Melonie, they would have to acquit him of murder. After the verdict, she told reporters that Everton was disappointed and that an appeal is being considered; he maintains his innocence, she said.