ONTARIO, Canada — The Court of Appeal for Ontario in Canada has upheld a Toronto woman’s murder conviction in the death of her 17-year-old Jamaican stepdaughter who was starved and abused before her emaciated remains were found in a burning suitcase in 1994.

Elaine Biddersingh was convicted in 2016 of second-degree murder in relation to the death of Melonie Biddersingh and sentenced to life imprisonment. She was ordered to serve 16 years in jail before being eligible for parole. 

According to a report by Canada’s Global News, Biddersingh filed an appeal, arguing, among other things, that she should have been granted a judge-alone trial instead of a jury trial, as “her rights to a fair trial would otherwise be compromised given the media coverage of her husband’s trial”.

But Ontario’s Court of Appeal, in a decision handed down this week, found, among other things, that “the trial judge properly considered the evidence and the general protections in place to ensure fair jury trials and reached a decision that was free from error.”

Citing an example, the Appeal Court said the trial judge had shown a survey that 46 per cent of respondents had heard nothing about Melonie’s death, while 76 per cent had not known her stepmother.

For those reasons and others, Biddersingh’s appeal was dismissed. 

Her husband, Everton Biddersingh, was found guilty in early 2016 of his daughter’s murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole after serving 25 years in jail.

His wife, however, was tried separately, and the case was extensively covered by the media, with the public being outraged by the circumstances leading to the Jamaican girl’s death. 

Though Melonie’s body was discovered in a burning suitcase in a parking lot north of Toronto in 1994, the body remained unidentified until 2011 when Elaine confessed to her pastor that the girl had died “after being confined and deprived of food and medication”.

But the Biddersingh’s had told the girl’s family in Jamaica that she had run away to New York, United States and could not be located for two decades.

It was reported by the Canadian media that Everton immigrated to Toronto from Jamaica in 1979. In 1991 he sent for his three children: Cleon, 16; Melonie, 13; and Dwayne, 12.

But Melonie’s dreams of a better life in Canada never materialised, as she was subject to abuse by her father, who, prosecutors said, physically abused her and confined her in a small apartment, which she was never allowed to leave. 

Prosecutors alleged that Everton either drowned or starved Melonie, who weighed between 50 to 55 pounds and had 21 broken bones at various stages of healing when she died in 1994.

After DNA evidence confirmed that the emaciated remains were that of the Jamaican girl, the Biddersinghs were arrested and charged in 2012.