Home
Up

Rebecca, 17, from Belleville, Ontario, was found raped, tortured and stabbed to death on July 3, 1996, in Ferry Reach.  She and her friend Jasmine Meens had been staying in Bermuda on holiday with Jasmine's father, Rick, and had been to Harbour Nights in St. George's the night she was killed.

A few days after her death, two males were arrested and subsequently charged in connection with her death, despite detectives having no DNA test results.  Even initial tests carried out by the Government analyst turned out to be wrong just two days after the suspects had first appeared in court.

Justis Smith was accused of premeditated murder, and Mundy of the lesser charge after he admitted only having consensual sex, with a condom, with Rebecca. Instead, he pointed the finger at Smith.  He claimed that after sex he went to clean himself in the sea nearby and when he came back Rebecca was dead.

Acting Assistant Police Commissioner Victor Richmond, who had overall charge of the Middleton case at the time, admitted at the inquiry that the charges were brought largely on the strength of Mundy's statement alone.

However, some months after the murder, experts ruled that semen found in Rebecca's vagina belonged to Mundy and that it was most likely that two people had been responsible for the teenager's death, one to hold her down, while the other inflicted the torture wounds.

When detectives tried to change Mundy's charge, they were told they were unable to. He received a five-year sentence for his part in her death.

Smith was acquitted after Puisne Judge Vincent Meerabux deemed there to be insufficient evidence, a decision later described as "astonishing" by the Privy Council. As a result, nobody has ever been convicted of the murder of Rebecca.

Legally only the Attorney General or the prosecutors can decide what charges a defendant faces in serious indictable offences.

The teenager's family have repeatedly called for an inquiry into the botched investigation and the failed prosecution, demanding to know why no one has been brought to justice for the death of their daughter, and why Mundy was charged only with being an accessory, when detectives did not have all the facts.

The bungled investigation was the catalyst for The Commission of Inquiry into serious crime on the Island, but the commissioners have no mandate to study in depth any particular case.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx