City showed its tender side, at last, to Melonie’s kin
Toronto opened its arms and its heart to victim’s family as they faced horrific cruelties in court
I fell in love with Opal Austin’s family in 2012, standing outside her ghetto shack in Kingston, Jamaica, where she impossibly raised seven kids in a space the size of my master bathroom.
I could not get her story out of my skin and could not forget her children I’d never met: Dwayne, her bright, budding singer considered her ticket out of poverty; and Melonie, her quiet pride and joy intent on becoming a nurse.
I could not shake the fact they arrived in Toronto, like me, to a father and a stepmom. I landed in heaven; they lived and died in hell.
Last Thursday a jury found Melonie’s father Ever- ton Biddersingh guilty of first-degree murder in her death. Police say he and the kids’ stepmom starved, brutalized and killed Melonie, stuffed her body into a suitcase and set it ablaze. Melonie was never reported missing, and it would be 17 years before the case was solved.
Elaine Biddersingh faces the same charge in a murder trial next April.
For nearly 10 weeks, Opal and her daughter Racquel watched the slow, often gory journey towards the justice they had pleaded for on that first day the Star interviewed them.
Melonie’s sister, Racquel, sat front row, just to my left — under her breath threatening all manner of harm upon the stone-faced Everton in the prisoner’s box.
“Just let me go over there and crack his neck,” Racquel would plead, sometimes hissing her teeth and leaving the court in disgust.
Tia Adams or Dahlia Nicholson, Victim Services aides who have worked with the family for several years, would talk her down.
In cruel irony, Opal, the one most in need of closure, is testifying in both trials and was not allowed to hear the testimony of other witnesses — except the pathologists and scientists who dissected the macabre and heartbreaking images of Melonie’s charred, pencil-thin remains.
On those occasions, near the end of the trial, Opal sat, closed her eyes, didn’t look at the awful pictures and dozed off.
“I can’t take it,” she’d say, when I nudged her awake. “Can’t take it, Mr. James. It’s better I sleep.”
Back at the hotel, Racquel would immediately Skype or WhatsApp family members — not to talk about the trial (they were seeing it on Citytv or the Internet) but to solve all manner of domestic issues with her four children and other relatives.
In the end, as the trial dragged into the 2016, they flew back home. Their family needed them. They had heard enough. What’s more, they’d experienced affirmation and love — the very things denied Melonie and Dwayne by the evil among us.
It had started that first weekend in late October. My hostess-supreme wife, Audrey, had them comfortable within an hour of meeting them. Daughter Avalon had the shopping trip scoped out. What else to do?
On Saturday I took them to church. That’s where my family is. When my stepmom came to Toronto as a domestic worker in 1966, it was the same church family that provided settlement support. My father followed two years later. Then me.
So, I introduced Opal and Racquel to Toronto West SDA Church. “I have nowhere else to take them, but to you, my family, so you can show them some love,” I told the congregation, explaining their tragic circumstance, and choking up. The congregants didn’t fail me. They didn’t fail you, Toronto.
That first weekend in Toronto, Opal’s family experienced a different Toronto than her baby father had delivered.
Elder Everton Japp called for an impromptu offering, they collected $1,700 and that became seed money to help cover expenses.
Inside the small University Avenue Courtroom 4-4, heartbreak and unspeakable sadness often threatened to overwhelm the proceeding. Opal Austin’s kids were both dead less than four years after arriving, and all Opal got from the city of dreams was their cremated ashes in two urns.
But outside the courtroom, Toron- tonians rallied to lighten the load. They showed the Toronto that Opal and Racquel had imagined when they sent off Dwayne and Melonie to realize the immigrant dream.
Thelma showed up out of the blue at the courthouse the first week. She remembered buying candy and juice boxes and stuff from Opal at her vending spot back in the day, had followed the story in the media and had to show up to hold her hands. Other women would just pop in. On some days, there were more sitting with Opal outside the court than those inside listening to testimony.
And when Elaine Biddersingh gave what was often testy testimony for three days, there was heightened but controlled tension between her supporters and Opal’s.
Toronto Councillor Michael Thompson showed up on day one of the trial and brought money donat- ed by a sympathetic friend. The YWCA — Racquel’s employer in Kingston — sent a counsellor to be with Opal and supporters to sit with her on some days. Paulette Senior, CEO of the YWCA, took personal interest and collected donations for the family. The Jamaican Canadian Association held a fundraiser and forum. Individuals and churches donated — with minimal prompting.
After Christmas dinner, the women took a midnight flight to Kingston. Money collected to help with expenses financed the shipping of five large barrels of food, clothes, toiletries.
“Barrel come. The whole neighbourhood come out,” Racquel reported with glee last week from Kingston.
“Tell the people of Canada, thanks,” Opal said as she left Toronto. “Everybody is so nice.” Well, almost, considering. Opal returns in April for the trial of the stepmom Elaine Biddersingh. Fundraising efforts continue at GoFundMe.com/Rally4Opal. Cheques should be made payable to the Jamaican Consulate. Drop off or mail donations to 303 Eglinton Ave. E., M4P 1L3. or at the Jamaican Canadian Association, 995 Arrow Rd. M9M 2Z5. Since the trial started columnist Royson James hosted Opal Austin and Racquel Ellis, the mother and sister of Melonie Biddersingh. Austin was the first witness at the trial in the cold case slaying of her daughter in 1994. James first reported the story from Jamaica when police identified Melonie in 2012. He maintained contact with the family and assisted the women in navigating the city during the trial.