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Virk murder trial nears end

A P Kamath

As the testimony in the final phase of the Reena Virk murder case continued in British Columbia, Fred Thomas, a 16-year-old student testified that Kelly Ellard confessed in a drunken state that she thought she had killed Virk.

Virk's murder two-and-a-half years ago caught international attention because the eight attackers of the 14-year-old girl were her teenage schoolmates. Except for one, all were girls. The verdict is expected within the next few days.

Thomas testified in a Vancouver court that he saw Ellard and Warren Glowatski, who has been convicted in the murder, at a bus stop in mid-November in 1997.

''She was wet, like, half way up her thighs,'' Thomas said. ''She said, 'Oh my God, oh my God, we killed her, I think we killed her.' ''

''She was, like, all staggering on the road, barely standing up,'' he said.

According to the prosecutors and several witnesses, Ellard and Glowatski gave Reena Virk a second round of beating. The other schoolmates had left the scene after humiliating and beating Virk because she had allegedly "stolen" a boyfriend of one of the girls.

Ellard reportedly pushed a battered Virk's head into the river water and held it there for five minutes. She drowned and her body was recovered after a week.

Glowatski, who is appealing his conviction, has implicated Ellard in the final assault, suggesting that she was ultimately responsible for Virk's death.

While six girls, 14 to 16 years old, who played a minor role in the tragedy were sentenced from 60-day probation to a year in the jail, Ellard, 17, is being tried as an adult.

The defence team has tried to discredit the testimony of Glowatski and the others. The team has said teens who testified they heard Ellard brag about killing Virk are either covering up their own role in her death or are basing their testimony on rumors and faulty memories.

The defence also argues Glowatski was offering $ 3,000 to anyone whose testimony would nail Ellard.

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