Stepmom guilty of second-degree murder in teen’s death
Posted June 20, 2016 12:54 pm.
Last Updated June 20, 2016 6:02 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A woman accused of killing her stepdaughter more than two decades ago has been found guilty of second-degree murder.
Elaine Biddersingh had pleaded not guilty in the death of 17-year-old Melonie Biddersingh. She was convicted Monday.
Melonie’s charred, malnourished body was found in a burning suitcase in an industrial parking lot north of Toronto in 1994 but the girl’s identity remained a mystery until 2011, when Biddersingh told an Ontario pastor the girl had “died like a dog.”
The trial heard how the pastor went to police, and DNA testing confirmed Melonie’s identity in 2012, prompting the arrest of Biddersingh and her husband.
Melonie came to Canada from Jamaica with two brothers in 1991 to live with her father and her stepmother in Toronto.
Instead of being sent to school, they were kept at home and treated like slaves.
The trial heard that Melonie’s younger brother died in an accident in 1992, and Melonie and her other brother’s treatment worsened significantly over time, with Melonie getting the worst of the abuse.
The trial heard she was kicked, slapped and thrown against walls by her father. Her stepmother once threw a mug at her head so hard it broke. She was deprived of food, made to sleep on the floor, confined to the apartment and eventually chained to the furniture.
The Crown argued that Biddersingh was the mastermind behind the abuse while her husband was the enforcer.
But the defence suggested Biddersingh spent most of her time holed up in her bedroom with a Bible — out of her menacing husband’s way — and wasn’t aware of the extent of Melonie’s abuse.
The trial heard that in the time before her death, an extremely thin Melonie had trouble standing, would sometimes have to crawl around and eventually grew incontinent.
It was Everton Biddersingh who killed his daughter, defence lawyer Jennifer Myers suggested, drowning her by flushing her head down a toilet — which the trial heard had been used as a mode of punishment.
Watch video from Everton Biddersingh’s trial below or click here to view it.
Medical evidence in the trial indicated Melonie was severely malnourished when she died, weighing only 50 pounds, and had 21 healing fractures in her ribs, spine, pelvis, right knee and left ankle, caused three weeks to six months before her death.
Melonie’s father, Everton Biddersingh, was found guilty in January of first-degree murder in his daughter’s death in a separate trial, but jurors at Elaine Biddersingh’s trial were instructed to disregard that conviction as “completely irrelevant” to their case.
In March, Everton Biddersingh announced his plans to appeal his conviction at Ontario’s highest court.
He argued there is still evidence in his case which has not been submitted to court and said the judge in his trial shouldn’t have allowed the jury to consider the idea that he starved his daughter.
Elaine Biddersingh’s trial began on May 5.
