Jurors start deliberating in 1994 death of teen found in burning suitcase

By Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press

The fate of a man accused of starving or drowning his teenaged daughter two decades ago was handed to jurors Thursday after weeks of graphic and disturbing testimony about the horrific abuse she suffered before she died.

Superior Court Justice Al O’Marra concluded a charge he had started a day earlier by outlining prosecution and defence positions in the first-degree murder case against Everton Biddersingh.

The Crown maintains Biddersingh, 60, drowned or starved Melonie Biddersingh, 17, after a period of prolonged abuse, or that she died while her father unlawfully confined her in the small Toronto apartment they shared with her stepmother, Elaine Biddersingh.

“They treated Melonie like a slave,” O’Marra told jurors in summing up the prosecution’s case. “She was imprisoned emotionally and physically.”

The teen, whose charred remains were found stuffed in a suitcase in an isolated industrial area, had come to Canada from Jamaica for a better life. Instead, by the time of her death, she weighed a skeletal 50 pounds and had 21 broken bones in various stages of healing. A vegetable was found in her vagina.

At no time was she allowed to leave the apartment, spending countless hours chained to furniture, stuffed in a tiny closet, or locked out on a balcony. Her father, according to one witness, would kick her and force the helpless victim into a toilet and then flush.

According to the Crown, O’Marra said, Biddersingh knew the girl could die but never sought medical attention because her body was “riddled with signs of abuse.”

After she died, Biddersingh maintained his daughter had run away. He never filed a missing person’s report.

For its part, the defence argued that experts had concluded the teen drowned but no evidence shows it was her father who drowned her.

Instead, the defence said Elaine Biddersingh, 54, drowned her stepdaughter because she hated her, and believed she was possessed by the devil. While Biddersingh may have failed to care for his daughter, that does automatically lead to the conclusion that he drowned her, O’Marra said.

Given the circumstantial nature of the case, the prosecution relied heavily on the testimony of Biddersingh’s wife, an “angry, dishonest religious fanatic,” O’Marra said in citing the defence position.

Another key witness against the accused, his son Cleon Biddersingh, also lied to protect his own involvement in his sister’s abuse, the defence maintained.

Yet neither he nor his stepmother, who faces her own first-degree murder trial in April, said Biddersingh drowned his daughter.

During his charge, O’Marra told the seven women and five men on the panel they could find Biddersingh guilty of lesser offences such as 2nd-degree murder, attempted murder or manslaughter if they can’t agree on a first-degree murder conviction.

He urged them to weigh all the evidence cumulatively.

“Each of you has to decide the case for yourselves,” O’Marra told the panel. “You are all equal: one juror, one vote.”

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