Reena Virk

Warren Glowatski, born April 26, 1981, in Medicine Hat, Alberta, was 16 years old when Virk was murdered.

He was convicted of Virk's murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Glowatski and his parents moved around frequently; he lived in Estevan, Saskatchewan, Regina, Saskatchewan, and Castlegar, British Columbia.

Reena Virk (ਰੀਨਾ ਵਿਰਕ; March 10, 1983 – November 14, 1997) was a 14-year-old Canadian girl who was beaten and killed by a group of teenagers in Saanich, British Columbia, Canada.

Her status as a victim of bullying prior to her murder attracted substantial media scrutiny in Canada.

Six teenagers were tried and convicted for their participation in her death.

The Globe and Mail commented at the time that her case was "elevated into a national tragedy."

A pair of Canadian sociologists have described the case as a watershed moment for a "moral panic" over girl violence by the Canadian public in the late 1990s.

Virk's father was an immigrant from India, while her mother came from an Indo-Canadian family who had converted from Hinduism to the Jehovah's Witness religion after arriving in Canada.

Her immediate family was "a minority within a minority," as they were Jehovah's Witnesses in the local South Asian community of 3,000 which was predominantly Sikh.

Virk was described as desperate for acceptance amongst her peers but was taunted and ostracized by girls whose subculture was influenced by Los Angeles street gangs.

She had begun to rebel due to such peer influence, smoking marijuana and cigarettes.

Bullied for her weight and insecurity, she was said to feel restricted by the rules of her family's faith.

In 1996, she falsely reported her father for sexual molestation in hopes of being moved to a foster home and having more freedom.

As a result, she was moved from her family's home into the state's care for several months in 1996.

She later dropped the charges and returned home.

In 1996, when his parents separated, Glowatski and his father moved to Nanaimo, British Columbia, on Vancouver Island.

On the evening of Friday November 14, 1997, Reena Virk, then aged 14, was invited to a party by her friend near the Craigflower Bridge, in the city of Saanich, British Columbia.

While at the bridge, it is claimed that teens drank alcohol and smoked marijuana as Virk stood among them.

Virk was swarmed by a group later called the Shoreline Six.

Witnesses said that one of the girls, Cook, stubbed out a cigarette on Virk's forehead, and that while seven or eight others stood by and watched, Virk was repeatedly hit, punched, and kicked.

She had several cigarette burns on her skin, and apparently attempts were made to set her hair on fire.

This first beating ended when one of the girls told the others to stop.

Virk managed to walk away, but was followed by two members of the original group, Ellard and Glowatski.

The pair dragged Virk to the other side of the bridge, made her remove her shoes and jacket, and beat her a second time.

Despite an alleged pact amongst the people involved to not "rat each other out“, by the following Monday rumours of the alleged murder spread throughout Shoreline Junior High School. Reena Virk was a student at nearby Colquitz Junior High School. Several uninvolved students and teachers heard the rumours, but no one came forward to report it to the police. The rumours were confirmed eight days later, on November 22, 1997, when the police used a helicopter to find Virk's partially clothed body washed ashore at the Gorge Inlet, a major waterway on Vancouver Island.

The coroner ruled the death was by drowning.

An autopsy later revealed that Virk had sustained significant injury, and that the head injuries were severe enough to have killed her if she had not been drowned.

The six female perpetrators are referred to in court documents as N.C. (Nicole Cook), N.P. (Nicole Patterson), M.G.P. (Missy Grace Pleich), C.A.K. (Courtney Keith), G.O. (Gail Ooms), and K.M.E. (Kelly Marie Ellard).

All admitted involvement.

In 1997, they settled in a trailer home near the southern tip of the Island in Saanich.

The following year Glowatski's father married a woman he met in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Glowatski decided to remain in Saanich, living alone in the trailer and supported by money sent by his father.

On the night of Virk's murder, for unknown reasons, Glowatski involved himself in the fight and twice kicked the victim in the head.

When the beating ended, Glowatski and Kelly Ellard followed Virk.

According to Glowatski, Ellard smashed Virk's face into a tree knocking her out.

With Glowatski's help Ellard dragged Virk into the water where Ellard drowned her.

In June 1999, Glowatski was convicted of second-degree murder and given a life sentence.

Because he was 16 at the time of the murder, he was eligible for parole after serving seven years.

Ellard allegedly denied holding Virk's head under water, but admitted (at her day parole hearing on November 30, 2017) to rolling her beaten, unconscious body into the water.