Custodial dad, step charged in 1994 slaying of 17-year-old daughter (Toronto, Canada)

Yet another story of a custodial dad and step who starved and tortured dad's child. This time the dad is EVERTON BIDDERSINGH.

This case also fits another theme we have seen: the immigrant father who comes to the U.S. or Canada, and manages to convince the deeply impoverished mother that her child would be better off with him.

Here are some examples of kids who came to the U.S or Canada., only to be seriously abused/murdered by the custodial dad and/or the new step:

Charlenni Ferrera - Murdered in Philadelphia, PA by custodial dad and/or step.
Mom from Puerto Rico via the Dominican Republic:
http://dastardlydads.blogspot.com/2010/02/dhs-not-at-fault-for-abuse-death-of-10.html
http://dastardlydads.blogspot.com/2009/11/charlennis-tragic-journey-actually.html

Manuel Gonzalez - Miami, Florida father who had sexually abused his daughter, and then stabbed her and her infant son, killing the son.
What is often not reported in this case is that he was custodial--the girl's mother is from Guatamala:
http://dastardlydads.blogspot.com/2010/05/estranged-wife-of-stabbing-suspect.html

Naticia Laurent-Murdered by custodial dad and/or step in Beauford, South Carolina.
Mother in Haiti:
http://dastardlydads.blogspot.com/2010/05/stepmom-accused-of-homicide-wants-to.html

Unnamed girl sexually abused, neglected by custodial father in Miami, Florida.
Mother in Dominican Republic:
http://dastardlydads.blogspot.com/2010/04/custodial-dad-molests-teen-daughter-dcf.html

Randall Dooley, murdered by custodial dad/step in Toronto, Canada.
Mom in Jamaica:
http://dastardlydads.blogspot.com/2009/09/custodial-dad-stepmother-want-new-trial.html>

Melvin Ortiz in Ponciana, Florida. He and/or the step murdered his son while he was visiting from Puerto Rico.
Mom still had custody back in Puerto Rico at the time: http://dastardlydads.blogspot.com/2009/07/custodial-dad-charged-with-killing-5.html

http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/article/1149684--suitcase-murder-dad-stepmom-charged-in-1994-slaying-of-17-year-old-toronto-girl?bn=1

Suitcase murder: Dad, stepmom charged in 1994 slaying of 17-year-old Toronto girl
Published On Wed Mar 21 2012

Curtis Rush Stephanie Findlay and Liam Casey
Staff Reporters

She hadn’t seen her for years, yet Opal Austin believed her daughter was happy and working in America.

That’s what Austin, who was living in Jamaica, says she was told by her ex-husband, who was in Canada with their daughter, Melonie Biddersingh.

Now, Austin knows the horrifying truth.

In 1994, Melonie Biddersingh was found dead in a suitcase doused with gas and lit on fire.

Toronto police recently charged her father and stepmother with first-degree murder.

Everton Biddersingh, 56, and Elaine Biddersingh, 50, were arrested in Welland, Ont., on March 5 and appeared in court the next day. They are in custody until their next court appearance.

“I was asking where my daughter is,” Austin told a Jamaican news agency Wednesday. “He (Everton) said she’s in America.”

Raquel Ellis, Melonie’s sister, said she thought Toronto police were going to deliver good news when officers called. “We thought it was them finding Melonie,” she said.

A simple phone call to police last November was the key that unlocked a murder mystery going back almost two decades.

“It started with a phone call from a person with a conscience,” Toronto police Det. Sgt. Steve Ryan told a news conference Wednesday.

“It goes to show the power of a phone call. It’s a difficult case.”

The call, from a person Ryan would not name, helped police identify 17-year-old Melonie whose charred remains were found in a suitcase behind a Vaughan industrial plaza on Sept. 1, 1994.

On Wednesday, police released a 1990 photo of Biddersingh holding an unidentified child in Kingston, Jamaica, where she was born.

Ryan, who heads the cold-case squad, said police know the cause of death but are not releasing it.

A police source said the teen was beaten, starved and kept in a closet. At death, she may have weighed as little as 50 pounds.

Her charred body was found when York police came across a mysterious fire. Gasoline or some other fuel had apparently been poured over the suitcase and set ablaze only minutes before an officer on patrol spotted the flames and thick, black smoke shortly after 3 a.m.

Vaughan firefighters quickly extinguished the blazing heap.

Biddersingh’s body, curled in the fetal position, was found in the once forest-green suitcase. Her fingerprints, handprints and footprints were burned off. Little was left of what investigators surmised was once curly black hair.

A forensic anthropologist detailed numerous injuries believed to be the result of a fall from a height or a car accident.

The teen had suffered fractures in the lower back, including a number of vertebrae and ribs, the pelvic area, the left knee and right ankle.

She would have been immobile and likely in constant pain, the forensics exam found.

The young woman was not treated for her injuries, York police concluded. Her fractures were believed to have taken place three weeks to six months before her death.

Melonie had never been reported missing in the years since she had been killed.

Ryan said a phone call in November prompted police to contact the Jamaica Constabulary Force and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police liaison office in Kingston.

With their help, police identified the victim’s biological mother as Opal Austin, who lives in Kingston. Toronto police flew there to interview her and obtain a DNA sample. A match was made last month, identifying her daughter as the homicide victim.

“She was of the belief that her daughter was a young adult, a productive member of society” Ryan said. “She thought she was alive.”

Melonie Biddersingh was born in Jamaica in 1977 and came to Toronto with brothers Dwayne and Cleon to live in Parkdale with her biological father and stepmother.

Dwayne was 15 when he died in 1992 in a fall from their 22nd-floor balcony. His death was ruled a suicide but police are taking another look at the case.

Officers were executing a search warrant and conducting forensic testing Wednesday on Close Ave., where the couple lived at the time of Melonie’s death. “My information was that her life in Toronto wasn’t pleasant,” Ryan said.

She was kept in seclusion in the apartment shared by the couple and six children, Ryan said.

None of the children went to school here. The youngest was an infant at the time. They are now “productive” adults, Ryan said.

O’Neil Biddersingh, who identified himself as the oldest son of Everton and Elaine Biddersingh, said he vaguely remembers life in Parkdale. Asked what his parents told him about Melonie, he said: “Um, they actually said she ran away or something like that.”

O’Neil and his sister are distraught. “We just don’t want to talk about this, it’s our right,” she said, declining to give her name.

“It’s just a horrible time right now. One minute my parents are here, then they’re in jail for murder.”

The parents lived in Parkdale until about 1996 and returned briefly to Jamaica. They then came back to Canada.

Police did not release details of the lifestyles or livelihoods of the accused couple in Welland.

David Houser, who lives in the other half of the duplex the Biddersinghs rented on Ontario Rd. in Welland, said he watched undercover officers police lead the couple away in handcuffs.

He said the Biddersinghs moved into the place last fall and lived with their two sons.

“I was probably one of Everton’s only friends,” Houser said. “He was friendly and they were very religious. This is pretty nuts. I can’t really believe what the police are saying about them.”

He said Elaine often sang choir music with girlfriends at their home. Everton spoke a lot of Jesus, his bike and his native Jamaica.

“He would tell me about the simple life in Jamaica, but he really loved the cold in Canada — I mean, who loves the cold? He always seemed so happy about everything, even bad weather,” Houser said.

Everton would cycle everywhere in Welland and would call on Houser, a cyclist himself, to help him with bike repairs. The Biddersinghs lived simply and would use the nearby Hope Centre for food from time to time, he added.

Ryan credited many other agencies for the arrests: Jamaican authorities, Niagara Regional Police, the RCMP, York Regional Police, the coroner’s office and the Centre for Forensic Sciences.

This was the second major cold case leading to arrests by Toronto police in the past few months.

In December, a man serving time for a 1994 murder was arrested in custody and charged in the 1981 rape and murder of a woman in Mississauga.

Ryan said the phone call that cracked the Biddersingh case should provide hope for others connected to unsolved cold cases.

“I am hopeful for all those other families who have lost loved ones to murder,” the cold-case detective said. “For them I say, ‘Just don’t give up, remain hopeful, because we have not forgotten about you or your loved ones.’ ”