WARNING: This story accommodates graphic particulars that could be disturbing to some readers. Discretion is suggested.
A brand new Hulu miniseries is ready to deliver mild to one of the vital surprising crimes in B.C.’s historical past.
Under the Bridge is a sequence primarily based on the homicide of Reena Virk and the guide of the identical title.
Virk was solely 14 years previous in 1997 when her stays had been discovered within the Gorge Waterway in Saanich.
Two youngsters, Kelly Ellard and Warren Glowatski, had been convicted of beating and drowning her.
Glowatski, convicted of second-degree homicide, was granted full parole in 2010.
Ellard, who now goes by Kerry Sim and was additionally convicted of second-degree homicide, was granted prolonged day parole in 2022, nonetheless, she stays behind bars.
Sim was 15 years previous when she and a bunch of youngsters swarmed and beat Virk, and her trial heard she and her co-accused later adopted the lady to proceed the beating and drown her within the Gorge waterway.
In 2018, Suman Virk, Reena’s mom, died in what her household described as a tragic accident.
Since Reena’s loss of life, the Virk household has labored tirelessly within the struggle towards bullying, talking at colleges and group occasions in an effort to stop others from being victims of bullying and violence.
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The upcoming miniseries will debut on April 17 and have eight episodes.
It stars Riley Keough as writer Rebecca Godfrey and Lily Gladstone as Cam Bentland, one of many solely ladies of color on the Saanich police power.
The surprising real-life crime grew to become a catalyst for change, sparking anti-bullying and youth violence prevention initiatives, the creation of a analysis centre on the University of Victoria and artwork created to contribute to Reena’s legacy.
Chris Horsley, a retired employees sergeant from the Saanich Police Department, was the media liaison officer when Virk was killed.
“At the time that Rena was murdered, APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) was taking place in Vancouver, so we had a lot of international media, which normally wouldn’t be in our area,” he informed Global News.
“So it was a huge story, and for the rest of my career was still the biggest story that I think the Saanich Police Department has ever really undertaken as far as the media strategy.”
Horsley mentioned he’s not stunned by the Hulu sequence as they’d by no means seen that “level of youth violence.”
But he cautioned in regards to the glorification of such a surprising crime.
“One, I don’t believe any of the investigators were ever contacted to find out sort of the true nature of the investigation,” he mentioned.
“And two, and probably more significantly, is I don’t want people to lose sight that a 14-year-old girl was murdered and lost her life. And now, almost 30 years later, we’re making it into entertainment.”
Horsley suggests watching the sequence with the information that it’s a TV present and there are numerous liberties taken with the story.
“One thing we do know, that in Canada, almost 30 years later, youth crime has fallen,” he added.
Dean Murdock, the present mayor of Saanich, was in highschool on the time of Virk’s loss of life.
“At the time, it rocked the community,” he mentioned.
“The idea that something so horrific could happen in our community, it was really upsetting and very unsettling. And I think the release of this series is probably going to surface a lot of those feelings for some folks in our community. And it may be a challenge or maybe challenging to watch some of that material or deal with those feelings.”
Murdock mentioned as a highschool scholar on the time, it had a profound impression.
“It was a very saddening, a very sad and unsettling thing for people to be dealing with,” he added.
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