Woman named guilty for killing Indo-Canadian teenager

A court found 22-year-old Kelly Ellard guilty in the killing of an Indo-Canadian teenager eight years ago.

A court here named a young woman guilty in the killing of an Indo-Canadian teenager eight years ago - a case that focused on teen violence and had then became a national issue.

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The court found 22-year-old Kelly Ellard, one of the main accused in the Nov 14, 1997, beating and drowning of Reena Virk, guilty of second-degree murder in her third trial in the case.

The court heard that Ellard, then 15, participated in the beating, punching and stomping of Virk under the Craigflower Bridge in suburban Victoria.

The court jury was in its fifth day of deliberations when it reached the verdict Tuesday. After hearing the verdict Ellard looked down at the floor but showed no visible reaction, according to the South Asian Observer.

Ellard was found guilty by a jury in her first trial in 2000 but the verdict was overturned and a new trial ordered because an appeal court found she had been improperly cross-examined.

In the second trial last summer, the jury was unable reach a verdict after five days of deliberations.

One teenage girl stubbed out a cigarette on Virk's forehead. Witnesses said Virk was left bloody, mangled and curled in a ball but that she managed to stagger slowly away and cross the bridge after the beating.

Some witnesses testified that Ellard and Warren Glowatski, who has already been convicted of killing Virk, followed the girl and inflicted a second beating before she was dragged into a saltwater inlet known as the Gorge waterway and drowned.

During the hearing Glowatski testified that Ellard had "a devilish smile and looked mischievous" when she asked him after the initial beating to follow Virk across the bridge to see if she was alright.

In the days that followed, witnesses said Ellard bragged at school about "finishing off" a girl so she wouldn't rat her out.

They said Ellard boasted that she put her foot on Virk's head, as she lay immersed in the water, and smoked a cigarette until the 14-year-old no longer moved.

Some witnesses testified that Ellard told them she broke Virk's arms, jumped on her neck from a picnic table and smashed her face against a tree.

One girl said Ellard gave her a tour of the area and showed her the tree. When the girl asked what happened to the blood, she told jurors that Ellard responded that the rain had washed it away.

A pathologist testified that while Virk suffered a swollen brain and at least 18 blows to her body that would have been extremely painful, she had no broken bones or other injuries consistent with some witnesses' testimony.

Meanwhile, Ellard's lawyer, Peter Wilson, said Glowatski was the one who killed Virk and then tried to pin the blame on his client so he could "save his own hide".

He called Glowatski a liar and referred to his testimony as "crap".

Wilson stressed in his final arguments that witnesses claimed to remember details of the beating and drowning death of Virk years after first telling police a different version of events or nothing much at all.

Wilson urged the jury to use its collective common sense and pay attention to reasonable doubt because much of the testimony against Ellard, including alleged confessions, was, he maintained, "not" the truth.

Crown prosecutor Catherine Murray told the jury that while Glowatski admitted to repeatedly lying about his role in Virk's beating, he seemed truthful when he said his only guilt was that he didn't stop Ellard from killing Virk.

Virk's mother, Suman Virk, testified that the two girls phoned her daughter that night and invited her out. Outside court she said her daughter was reluctant to go because Reena had heard she was going to be the target of a beating that night.

But the troubled teenager was trying hard to fit in with a group of girls and went out anyway. It would be her last outing.

Suman Virk said the last she heard from her daughter was around 10 p.m. that Friday night, when Reena also spoke to her younger brother Aman, then nine.

Since then, Virk's parents, grandparents, sister and brother have endured three trials, complete with all the grisly details of what happened to the awkward teenager.

Ellard did not testify in the third trial. But in the second trial, Ellard sobbed on the witness stand, insisting that she "never crossed the bridge".

In that memorable testimony, Ellard said Glowatski and two other girls crossed the bridge and killed Virk. She testified over three days, showing combative feistiness and angry frustration.

"I'm obviously going to be convicted," she said after Murray showed her a saltwater-stained jacket the Crown said she wore the night that Virk was beaten and drowned in the ocean inlet.

"My life is over," she said, crying. "You got what you wanted. I'm going to be convicted."

Reacting to the verdict Reena's mother Suman Virk said "There is no victory here today, there are no winners, we are all losers", her eyes brimming with tears, at the courthouse in Vancouver.

"I lost a child, my parents lost a grandchild, and the Ellards lost their daughter ... none of our lives will ever be the same again."

Virk said the two families sat alone in the court after the verdict but they didn't speak. Reena Virk's grandparents were also in court on Tuesday as the verdict was read, as were Ellard's mother and stepfather.