Rogue and Wicked

The Reena Virk Case: A Chilling Exploration of Teenage Betrayal

Tiffany and Wendy Season 1 Episode 30

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What would you do if your life was taken away by the very people you were trying to impress? That's exactly what happened to the young and innocent Reena Virk. In this heart-wrenching episode, we journey through Reena's life, her desperate longing for acceptance, and the influence of the gangster rap culture that played a vital role in her tragic story. We also touch upon the upcoming Hulu show that will bring her case to the screen.

As we delve deeper into the narrative, we explore the troubled life of Warren Glowatski - the Canadian youth who went astray and became a part of Reena's gruesome story. We navigate the lives of the other teenagers involved in the case, their backgrounds, and the horrifying series of events that led to the tragic night on the bridge where Rina's life was brutally taken. Grapple with us as we dissect the chilling details of the murder, the gruesome autopsy results, and the aftermath that shook everyone associated with the incident.

In a twist that is as shocking as the murder itself, we reveal the life of the convicted murderers post the incident. Discover how Kelly manipulated her motherhood status in a bid to gain parole, her life within the prison walls, and her desperate struggle with addiction. We also share the surprising stance of Rina's family during Warren's parole hearing. Join us in this emotional saga as we bring to light Reena's story and pay tribute to her short-lived life.

References: 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/reena-virk-mother-suman-virk-dead-1.4711593#:~:text=Facebook,Virk%20died%20Saturday%2C%2020%20years%20after%20her%20daughter%20was,and%20killed%20by%20her%20peers&text=The%20mother%20of%20a%20B.C.,She%20was%2058%20years%20old.

 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Reena_Virk

 https://www.investigationdiscovery.com/crimefeed/murder/a-canadian-woman-who-drowned-her-high-school-classmate-was-granted-day-parole-againReena: A father's story by manjit virk

 Under the bridge by Rebecca Godfrey 

 https://www.investigationdiscovery.com/crimefeed/murder/a-canadian-woman-who-drowned-her-high-school-classmate-was-granted-day-parole-again

 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/pathologist-describes-extent-of-injuries-to-reena-virk-1.466957

 https://www.msnbc.com/documentaries/watch/bloodlust-under-the-bridge-44970051985

 

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Script's, Editing, Social Media and the Creator of the show: Tiffany
Co-host and author of the book series "sage": Wendy
Music by Bo Todd

wendy:

If it had been in a city, I would have had a mass murder in 2015. I would have killed until they got me down. I would have been able to waste my way out of it. They are a product of the times and these are bloodthirsty times.

tiffany:

Welcome to Rogue and Wicked. I just did like an hour on the elliptical Right before I jumped on here. I literally came home from work in a full day at work, ran to the gym, hurried up and did the elliptical. I even had to cut my workout short so I could come run right here as soon as I got in the door. I didn't even get to shower, I just jumped on a computer and here we are.

wendy:

That's how much I love our listeners, oh man, I know I feel like, even when I've been running nonstop for the past few weeks, it's like one of those. Are we going to survive ourselves?

tiffany:

Yeah, I think I'm probably going to end up dead soon.

wendy:

Don't say that shit, bitch, I know. I'm going to run myself into the ground. So I went to work. I got home, I fed my animals, passed out I don't even know how that happened Woke up and had to start cooking dinner, and the reason I rushed to get dinner done was because I started a Tarantino movie last night that I wanted to finish before this podcast.

tiffany:

Oh really, which one Once Upon a Time in.

wendy:

Hollywood.

tiffany:

Oh, I love that one that's a little dancing one.

wendy:

Yes, yes, I expect it a little more, to be honest with you, but I love how he put a reverse twist in it, which I was not expecting at all.

tiffany:

Yeah, it's like if they never got to finish the job. But I don't want to give the spoiler alert away because I'd rather people watch it, because it is worth a good watch, because at least the first, like most of the movie is pretty accurate up until the ending.

wendy:

It's wild if you did such a good job giving me an accurate depiction of Manson that I was able to enjoy the innuendoes that they threw in there. And I love Tarantino and I'm not a movie buff, I'm more about books, you know that. But Tarantino is a never disappointed, not once.

tiffany:

No me either. He's a great great director and producer.

wendy:

Have you seen the movie Hateful Eight?

tiffany:

Yes, I actually have it on DVD.

wendy:

I do too. I do too, because the dialogue in that one is undefeatable.

tiffany:

It's so fucking good All his movies. The dialogue is wild.

wendy:

Yes, he hires a lot of great writers. Everything is so always well done. I did expect this movie to have a little bit more gore and more murder in it because of you know this idea of I don't want to give any spoilers away, but I just thought that'd be a little more death. There was only you know a handful, yeah, but I suggest you guys check it out, or any of their movies.

tiffany:

Yeah for sure. Any Quentin Tarantino film is amazing, fuck yeah. So today we're going to be talking about a Canadian murder case that shocked the nation of Canada and made its way into the United States in 1996. This is the case of Rina Burke. I've read an amazing book about this case, called Under the Bridge, in which a new show is about to drop on. Hulu made about this particular case. In the book Under the Bridge the names have been changed to protect the minors who were involved in the case, except for Warren Kelly, nicole, rina, sirita and Missy. Canada has a law in place to protect minor children, so it was really hard for me to get the real people's names that are now adults and like line them up and change them in the story, and I had to go over it like four times. So hopefully there's no like remnants of the fictional names in here, so I guess we'll just get into it.

tiffany:

Rina Burke was born on March 10th 1983, to her father, manjeet Burke, who emigrated from India, and her mother, suman, who was an Indo-Canadian. Suman was Hindu but ended up changing her religious practice to Jehovah's Witness. Once she arrived in Canada, the community was mainly Asian, which put Rina at odds with the community around her that was mainly Sikh. Sikh is a denomination of the Muslim religion. Being one with Jehovah made her family a minority within a minority. Rina, her parents and two siblings moved to the richer part of the neighborhood but didn't act like they were above anybody else. According to her parents, rina started showing her rebellious nature at age 11. She would often start fights with her mother about anything and everything to show that she was independent. Rina was also very jealous of her siblings for taking the attention off of herself. As she was the firstborn child in the family, rina was being racially targeted almost as soon as she started school. Her parents knew she was being bullied because she was different from the other kids we're talking about whitewashed Canadian schools here. So she was pulled out of that school and placed into a new school. But unfortunately the bullying didn't stop.

tiffany:

Rina attended Colquitt's Junior Secondary. In school, rina was restricted by her beliefs in Jehovah. She wasn't allowed to celebrate birthdays or holidays. She wasn't allowed to go out with the other kids. She was a different race than most of the school, and Jehovah's Witnesses don't associate with people who aren't of Jehovah. The kids made fun of her hair, broad shoulders, weight, the way she looked and they called her names. Some of those names included ugly, fat and bearded lady, because she had coarse hair on her face. Being ostracized by her classmates made her need to be liked even more prevalent In Rina's school. The cool thing was gangster rap and dressing like you were in a gang. You remember 1996, don't you, wendy?

wendy:

I was spending most of my life living in a gangster's paradise.

tiffany:

Yeah, that was a thing. It was Tupac and Biggie and Nas and all those groups, because she was born the same year I was.

wendy:

Well, she was born in the 80s and that's just how we vibed at that time Exactly. Us 80s babies had some really cool shit going on, but I will say that the rap at that time, in my opinion not to sound like a hag was a hell of a lot better than it is right now.

tiffany:

It was superior to the mumble rap shit they got now.

wendy:

Hell yeah, I was kind of gothic too, so I like to. I hate to say that fucking word. You know how I feel about people throwing that term around, and it works for me still, though, so I liked DF Mech's and some of the darker ones that.

tiffany:

Well, fat Joe made a song with Inkubes, really yeah.

wendy:

I should have. I should have had to pop it out, and it probably was fun, though no shit, wow, anyway. Yeah, this is going to be a nostalgia lane, isn't it?

tiffany:

Yeah, it definitely will be, but it's a sad story, so we won't be having too many good moments here.

tiffany:

Well, that was a bipolar time anyway, yeah it was With the kids, idolizing gang life and trying to emulate California as a standard for what was cool. At the time, rena wanted to be like the other kids and fit in. She wanted to be cool. She started idolizing the other kids who were want to be gangsters. She longed to fit in so badly that it was destroying her self-esteem. Her parents decided to buy her a little pet bird, you know, to try to raise her spirits a bit. But the bird wasn't enough. Her parents tried to instill in her that she was valued and loved. But hearing it from your parents, it just ain't enough. Not for her anyway. No, and I mean not for me either, even when I was bullied a lot in school and I'm not going to get into a whole spiel about it, but I was bullied in school and whenever my mom would, I would come home and cry and my mom would be like no, I don't know why, just don't pay attention to them, you're this, you're that. And she would say all the nice things about me and I used to be like yeah, well, you know, whatever. Like I want the other kids to think that about me. You know what I mean, so I get it. You know it must be hard being a parent and wanting to help your child but not being able to.

tiffany:

Rena did find a couple of friends in school that she started hanging out with and watching movies. She went to meet these friends in a local park but instead found a group of kids who are smoking cigarettes. They invited her to hang out with them until she ran past curfew. Rena felt accepted by this new group of kids, but her parents reminded her that they were nothing but trouble. Manjit and Suman tried to stop Rena from seeing her new friends, but Rena wouldn't listen. For the first time in Rena's life, she felt completely accepted. Whether these kids used her for amusement or they genuinely were intrigued by Rena is unclear. However, I get the impression that the people hanging around Rena weren't her friends and, ironically, not serious about her. Rena's parents were so strict in seeing that Rena didn't pick up with this new bad crowd that Rena thought running away would show them that she needed more freedom.

wendy:

Also, do you remember that song during the 90s Run away, oh yeah, and had everybody running away, now everybody was running away at that age.

tiffany:

I remember all the kids like I'm running away. My mom pissed me off, made me do chores, fuck her. I'm out of here.

wendy:

I know I did Shut up, yeah, no-transcript.

tiffany:

Reena soon discovered a group home where she met Nicole and Missy. The two girls ended up becoming friendly with Reena, but that's all it was. They thought she was kind of annoying, but Reena Hoho, reena absolutely adored them. She wanted to be like Nicole. Nicole was pretty, like, really pretty A knockout, according to the other kids in the area, and she dressed like a gangster. Reena spent days getting to know Nicole and Missy in the group home before she ended up asking to stay at her grandparents' home.

tiffany:

Reena's uncle Raj said that Reena wanted to be more like the other kids at school, that she wanted to just listen to music and have birthday parties like everybody else. She didn't want to be a Jehovah's Witness anymore, and Raj became worried about her when he caught a glimpse of the word Crips written in pen on her skin. It was obvious to her uncle Raj that Reena was keeping bad company. When Reena realized her grandparents were even more strict than her parents, she moved back in with Manjeet and Suman. Unfortunately for Reena, her parents put even more restrictions on her now. These new rules fueled her to rebel even more than she had before. Reena took her concerns back to her new friends, nicole and Missy, complaining about her parents, her religion and about her restrictions. They suggested that she accuse her father of molestation. That way she could be taken away from her family and put into a group home permanently.

tiffany:

That is so fucked up. Oh yeah, in 1996, reena moved in with her grandparents again, even though she knew that it was even more strict with them. She realized there was no escape from these restrictions. She attempted suicide and then filed a complaint with the police that her father was touching her.

wendy:

You have to have no remorse to do something like that and strip the validity of other people who actually have had that happen to them.

tiffany:

Yeah, Well, reena's father actually believed that the girls that she was hanging around with were the ones that talked her into that, because earlier, well earlier, they said that she should do that. She looked up to them so much and was so desperate and in need for attention that she did whatever it took to get out of her home and to be phrases she could be with these girls. We have to remember she's 14 too. I don't think she really realizes the ramifications of what she's doing.

tiffany:

While investigations into the claims of sexual abuse was going on, reena was placed in a foster home, which is not typical protocol. Normally the state would investigate before removing the child from the home, but in Reena's case the state removed her before they even investigated the case, which is wet Reena's grandparents. They believed her because in their minds, why would a child lie about sexual abuse? Reena's father, shocked at the allegations, was arrested and placed in jail. The police eventually realized that Reena's claims were bogus and that the court found her father not liable for the crime. He was then set free. Reena decided to lie again, but this time she told the police that she was uncomfortable at her grandparents' house and was placed into a group home.

wendy:

Obviously she's a fucking shitty liar, yeah, and she's playing the victim and a 14-year-old can't see it the way that an adult can. But these people. As soon as she cried wolf with her father, that was it.

tiffany:

Yeah, but I mean, again, I know that it's for attention and I think that she just needed help and unfortunately nobody could. Really they didn't know what to do with her. You know what I mean? She just kind of bounced around.

wendy:

She was so lucky to have parents that loved her and she betrayed them on a level that, even if she is 14 years old, I'm having a hard time empathizing, probably the way that I should.

tiffany:

Well you may. Later Reena was in this new group home that she wanted to be in with her new friends, nicole and Missy, and Reena was in state care for several months before admitting that she lied about the abuse and was asked to be placed back in her home. Reena gave a half-ass apology to her father so that she could come home. But almost as soon as Reena was home she realized she didn't like it because she had to do chores and still had a curfew to abide by. Regardless, she did try to clear her father's name by writing a letter to the Constable admitting in detail that she had lied to be removed from the home on purpose. Her father forgave his daughter because he loves her and because he knew that these girls put Reena up to it. Everything came to a head when Reena invited her new friends from the group home to come over her parents' house to like chill. When they left to go home, reena's mother noticed about $500 that was missing and some of her expensive gold jewelry. Summon called authorities to report the theft, but I have no idea whatever came of it. Reena again was feeling trapped by her parents' strict rules and religious views. So Reena started lying about her father again. She said that Manjit had cut her wrists and was generally hard to deal with, but again he was cleared by the police and she was placed back into foster care.

tiffany:

Reena was bounced from foster care home to foster care home until eventually landing at one of the youth group homes permanently. On the weekends she would come home to visit her parents like clockwork sleepover and leave the next day. About five nights out of the week she was at the youth home and two at her parents. Nicole and Missy asked Reena to meet them at a local Walmart parking lot and afterwards went to a party behind Sandwich School. These kids were getting lit, smoking, weed, drinking, getting into trouble. One of the partygoers threw a rock through a window at the school. The janitor happened to still be there and reported them. The police showed up and the kids scattered like roaches. Reena fled to the convenience store where she called her parents around 10.40 pm. She told them she was on her way home and that she'd be home in 20 minutes. But Reena had never shown up. There's a lot of key players in this story and it's about to unfold right now, so I'm going to touch briefly on the kids that were surrounding Reena the night that she went missing.

tiffany:

Warren Glowatsky was born April 26, 1981 in a town called Medicine Hat. He came from a troubled home. His parents stayed together but weren't married and they always fought. Warren was considered a surprise, so his parents really didn't expect Warren to even be born. They tried to stay together for him but eventually split and Warren's mother was a raging alcoholic so he spent most of his time with his father. Before Warren's parents called it quits.

tiffany:

His father relocated the family to Vancouver Island in 1996 and then again to view royal. This all happened before his dad split to be with a woman he was having an affair with, or his father wanted Warren to come with him, but he was so in love with this girl named Cyreta that he decided to stay. Cyreta and her mother became Warren's caretakers after his parents split because he was on his own a lot after his father left Cyreta and her mother did his laundry, cooked him his meals, and Cyreta comes to fall in love with Warren, probably because he's troubled and like a little bird with a broken wing. Warren grew up in a trailer and was into the hip hop scene, so much that he called himself Warren G and he hung out with the bad kids.

wendy:

Regular.

tiffany:

Yep, he called himself Warren G and, you know, said to himself that he was too young to be going to the parties that he was going to, I mean, and he was hanging out with some bad dudes. Eventually he was jumped into the gang, the Crips, and claims that he wanted to be jumped out because once he was in he wasn't all into that and into that. I'm having a hard time talking today. Now, this isn't the official Crips gang.

wendy:

I was just gonna say don't work that way.

tiffany:

No, this this is a high school, or like middle school version of the Crips gang.

wendy:

Right, and we're talking about suburbia out there too. Yeah, okay, all right. You know I used to annoy the fuck out of me when I was. I didn't spend a lot of time in suburbia, but that shit, the fake gangs in suburbia, annoyed me to no end after dealing with real ones in the city.

tiffany:

Oh, I know, and I could totally see them all like hanging out like little Crip colors, like hanging little flags, hanging out their pocket like shut up.

wendy:

Yes, exactly that's what it would be shut up, get the fuck out of here, yeah.

tiffany:

I found no real evidence that he was in the actual Crips and, as they were, centralized in California, not British Columbia. But you know, nicole Cook was the first to show Warren the ropes around school when he first moved to view royal. She was involved with a group of girls that were like wannabe gang members. Nicole aspired to be part of the mafia and also was a fan girl of the Crips. Nicole was even quoted as saying that she wanted to be the girlfriend of a Crip gang member. Nicole grew up in the foster care system and hopped from group home to group home. She was described as cruel and reckless. Nicole hung out with a group of girls in school who were like-minded. One we will call Nevada, which is not her real name, and the other was Kelly Ellard. Nicole was a bombshell. She had blue eyes, high cheekbones and was easy on the eyes. She was very popular and Rena adored that about her but was also envious of her looks. Kelly Ellard was described as considerably ordinary and not much like the other two. She was picked on by her older brother, whom she looked up to and wanted to impress, and her mother, which made her insecure. People close to her said that she seemed lost most of the time. Kelly was also a very attractive girl, which helped her fit in well with Nicole Cook and her group of friends.

tiffany:

And last but not least, we're going to talk about Missy Pleach. Missy Pleach was the youngest of five siblings and considered to be totally out of control. Her mother threw her out of the house when she started acting up and she bounced from family member to family member but was always getting kicked out. Missy was described as pretty violent, according to her sisters, who tried to help her out, but ultimately there wasn't much that they could do for her. She met Rena in sixth grade at the group home. In a documentary called Blood Lost Under the Bridge from MSNBC, missy said that Rena was extremely shy and being picked on at the group home. The kids called her fat and ugly, but Rena took the bullying and never complained. Rena wanted to be like the other kids and impress them by faking being tough. This facade ended up causing the events that ultimately ended her life. So let's talk about the murder.

tiffany:

Rena's parents were starting to worry that she hadn't shown up at 11 pm, so Su-Min and Manjeet made a phone call to the group home to see if she had shown up there. She hadn't, so the group home made a phone call to the sheriff's office to report her missing. Pleach didn't take the call seriously because she was considered a troubled kid. They figured she would return in the morning after a long night of partying. It was normal for the kids in group homes to go out drinking all night and just pop in in the morning. The police told Manjeet and Su-Min not to worry about their daughter because she'd eventually show up.

tiffany:

The night came and went, as did the full moon that lit up the sky with a strange blood red color. That wasn't something that happens often in British Columbia. It was morning now and Rena still didn't walk through that front door. Manjeet and Su-Min were in full blown panic mode. Stay with us for more information about the ArabAPPLAUSE. They called the sheriff's office to officially report Rena missing, but you know how that goes. Oh, they have to be missing like 48 hours or we don't follow the report. Rena's parents decided to take the matters into their own hands and investigate themselves. They called all of Rena's friends and anyone else they could think of.

wendy:

You know she hasn't cried wolf enough times for her to disappear and them not take it seriously. And the fact that she did do what she did, in spite of the fact that pisses me off to no end, doesn't mean that they can avert the fact she is a troubled teen who does make shitty decisions and her disappearance should be taken seriously Period. Yeah, because even when you're troubled, especially when you're fucking troubled. Yeah, your anything could have happened.

tiffany:

You're a loose.

wendy:

Yeah, exactly, it makes the. The potentiality is so much higher than, yeah, it's sloppy on that part.

tiffany:

Yeah, police should be taking these things seriously. But they did say that they get like 30 calls a night from the group home because even if they're like a half hour late they have to report it. So I could see why they don't take these calls seriously when it's a group home calling. But like, maybe if Sue Mann and Manjeet which I'm sure they did report it if they would have said maybe that she lived with them, they might have taken the call a little more seriously, I think. So. Nicole told Rena's parents that she was supposed to show up at the Walmart parking lot but never did, and another friend of Rena said that they seen her hanging out at the Craigflower bridge, but that's all she knew. No one was really helpful and Sue Mann and Manjeet felt defeated.

tiffany:

Before police even did any real actual investigating, the rumor mill at school was on fire. The kids were whispering in the halls about a beating that had taken place under the Craigflower bridge that Friday night. And guess whose name came up? Rena's. Everyone was talking about it and everyone knew about it, but no one reported it. Some of the teachers even knew but didn't say anything because they thought it was all gossip, which is wild, because if someone in school told me that another kid was beaten to death, you bet your fucking ass. I'm telling somebody. And also, if I'm a teacher, it's my fucking duty to report a potential crime to the police.

wendy:

Right, I'm not sure. I know that guidance counselors and such are, but aren't teachers mandated reporters too? Yes, they are Right, that's what I thought. So they're obligated to have to report suicides, potential murders, anything of that nature.

tiffany:

Exactly 100%. So the fact that they just didn't report it like when they heard about it is fucked.

wendy:

Yeah, it's against protocol.

tiffany:

Yeah, earlier that week, missy heard rumors that Rena was talking shit about her and that Rena was dating Jack. Okay, this is where the T is going to spill. This is where the T comes from. This is where this whole thing stems from here. Jack was Missy's ex-boyfriend and Rena was seen wearing his jacket. Missy was mad as hell when she found out that her shy friend was screwing around with her ex-boyfriend and she wanted revenge. She felt slighted and didn't know why Rena would do that to her.

tiffany:

Nicole started getting phone calls about Rena also. A boy told Nicole that Rena said that she had AIDS and that her blue eyes were really contacts and that her tits were fake and stupid shit like that. Kids were just firing off, telling everyone that Rena was spreading rumors about them. The consensus was that Rena wanted to fit in with her tough friends and maybe this was a ploy to impress them and that maybe this was her way of appearing cool to the cool kids. And, according to Nicole, rena was just plain jealous of her and wanted to slander her reputation. That's what she said.

tiffany:

When Nicole found out that Rena was calling all of her friends, it dawned on her that she left her address book at Rena's house. When she realized that Rena had stolen her book, nicole told some of the other kids that she was going to kick her face in. When she saw her the next day, nicole had called out of school telling her mother that she wasn't feeling well. That same morning she called Kelly Ellard. Nicole's mother overheard her daughter saying that she was going to kill that person and then heard the name Rhea. And at one point she heard her daughter say that they were going to dig a hole in the forest and push her into it and cover it up so that Rhea would unknowingly fall into the hole and bury herself alive. And her mother didn't report any of this to the police because she said her daughter's tone wasn't serious. I don't know. I mean, that sounds pretty serious.

wendy:

Especially in the 90s, we were all horror fiction culture. So I mean, when you think about people joking, I was one of those people Like I would joke about shit like that. So if I said that, my mom wouldn't take me seriously.

tiffany:

Really See, I don't know, man, I feel like if I was like, yeah, why don't we take Rhea and we'll just throw her into a hole and lead her into the forest and we'll dig the hole so that the hole is there, but then we'll cover it up with leaves and then we'll just like walk her in there, step out of the way so she falls in this fucking hole, and then we just cover up with dirt and she dies.

wendy:

Well, if they were laughing I could still see it being a hypothetical and a joke, a dark humor joke. Again, that's up to the parent to discern. We can speculate from here, but we don't know the child and how the mom perceives the child either.

tiffany:

Yeah, I don't know, but I feel like I would have at least like confronted her about it.

wendy:

Right, you know I'm a writer too, so I would come up with these hypotheticals in all like various ways, and nobody ever takes me seriously, because people know I ain't going to do that shit, you know.

tiffany:

Yeah, I mean I might not tell the police, but like I would, I probably would bring it up to her and be like yo, what the fuck yeah yeah, totally, absolutely.

wendy:

I would do that, but I don't know if I would tell the police about something that you know my creative kids were joking about either.

tiffany:

But it also depends on how my kid is on a day to day basis.

wendy:

It's damn right Exactly, and the parent would know better than we would.

tiffany:

So yeah, but I still think that she should have taken it serious at least a little bit. But anyhow, nicole goes to school and she brags that she's going to beat this girl up and tells the kids when it's going to happen. Rena is unaware because Nicole goes to a different school than Rena. On November 14th in 1997, nicole invites Rena to a party and Rena's kind of confused because she knows Nicole's mad at her. She knew that Nicole had found out that Rena was allegedly saying stuff behind her back but decided to go anyway because deep down she still wanted to fit in with the group and be with the popular girls. Rena's weary about Nicole's invitation. She asked Nicole if she's going to get beat up at the party because she heard a rumor that someone was going to beat her ass. Nicole reassures her and says we're not mad at you anymore. Sadly, rena doesn't listen to her gut instinct and instead grabs her bag to go leave for the party at Shoreline High School Field.

tiffany:

A girl we will call Layla shows up to the Shoreline field and just like walks into the middle of the party. Layla was a martial arts chick who was in a kickboxing. She announced that she was there to beat up a girl with the name R or S. Rena was within earshot of Layla and started to run from the field as fast as she could. But seconds after Rena started running, someone threw a rock through the school window, which is when everyone scattered Back at the convenience store. Kelly, nicole, missy and Layla surround Rena. They tell her we're not going to beat you up, we promise. And Layla says I was talking about somebody else, not you. Rena doesn't believe them in protests going to the bridge. She literally begs them to let her go home. But these three girls are so insistent. Rena calls her mother to tell him she's going to be late, hangs up the phone and the girls take Rena's bus pass and rip it up. Then they link arms with her and, without causing a scene, lead her away into the night. Rena was terrified. She knew a fight was coming, but at that point she couldn't get away. Meanwhile Warren offers to walk Cyreta home. She declines and tells Warren that he can stay but that she was tired. He gives her some money for the bus. That way she doesn't have to walk home alone. Cyreta walks to the bus stop and waits for her ride, and she later ends up with extreme survivor's guilt because she blames herself for her boyfriend's arrest, saying that if she had just let Warren walk her home that he wouldn't have been there that night. Side note Cyreta witnesses.

tiffany:

The three girls surround Rena before they leave for the bridge and she becomes a key witness for the prosecution. When the four of the girls get there, three go under the bridge and Rena sits down on a log. There's five other teens surrounding her and more kids in the background just hanging out. Nicole asks Rena, why are you trying to ruin my life? Rena tried to say something like I wasn't or no, and then the girls start screaming at her. Nicole takes her lit cigarette and extinguishes it on Rena's forehead. She cries out in pain before defending herself by pushing Nicole back. The girls form a semi-circle. They throw her down onto a railing and start viciously attacking her.

tiffany:

Altogether there were seven girls and one boy who punched, kicked, stomped and God knows what else to this poor girl for three minutes straight. She slid off the stairs and was beaten into the mud. Rena kept saying please, stop, please, and then muttered I'm sorry. While they beating continued, layla, who was taking part in the beating, all of a sudden realized I had gone too far and screamed that's enough. And then says something like if you want to keep going, you're gonna have to go through me. And everyone stopped because Layla was pretty tough and nobody wanted to mess with her.

tiffany:

Rena lain there, beaten, crying, shaking, with her hands over her face in a defensive pose as the kids were leaving the bridge. Rena said I'm sorry, I have to go home now. And she stumbled to her feet, made her way up to the bridge, passing the kids who are watching above. She didn't say anything to them. She was ashamed and scared. Someone had taken Rena's pouch and was ripping pages out of her diary and throwing them into the water. Maya took Rena's pajamas and thrown them into the gorge.

tiffany:

Nicole and Missy left the bridge and were clocked in at the group home around 11.03 pm. Everyone else was home around the same approximate time, except for Warren and Kelly. Warren and Kelly saw Rena and they followed her, heckling her, trying to convince her not to tell anyone what had happened and asking her if she learned her lesson. They were relentless and kept talking shit. Rena kept retorting fuck off and leave me alone.

tiffany:

As she was stumbling, walking, crawling and being dragged across the bridge, the three finally got to the other side and Kelly tells Rena to take off her shoes and her jacket. Rena's terrified, so she complies, and then the two start brutally attacking her again. They stomped, punched and kicked her in the chest, abdomen and head. Then they smash her head into a tree until she was completely unconscious. Warren and Kelly each grab one of her arms and drag her from the spot. They attacked her to the edge of the water, which is how she ends up losing her pants. Kelly then drags Rena into the water by herself and stands on Rena's back, pushing her face into the water. Kelly also tried to manually hold her down under the water with her hands. She then claims to light up a cigarette and smoke it while standing on the back of Rena's head. She kept her foot on Rena's head or back until Rena drowned, which was approximately three to five minutes. During this time, warren claims that he told Kelly to stop, but didn't try to intervene. The two even talked about breaking Rena's arms in case she decided to swim away. They even went as far as viciously jamming her in the face with a stick. Kelly and Warren parted ways and that was it.

tiffany:

During Kelly's walk back to the group home, she spotted a boy named Allen and asked him for a cigarette. Allen noticed that the girl was soaking wet and nervous and he thought that Kelly was cute and wanted to hit on her Until she opened her fucking mouth. She was all nervous and talking real fast, saying that ba-da-da-da, we beat up a girl and we beat her up again and then she was dead. In response, allen said I don't think you could have killed her. Kelly told him that she was sure she was dead because she was holding her down until all this red stuff kept floating up to the surface. Red stuff, yeah, red stuff is what she was quoted as saying. She said while I was holding her down, all this red stuff kept floating to the surface.

wendy:

Yeah.

tiffany:

The next day, two of the girls go back down to the bridge to collect anything left behind from the fight. They didn't want their parents finding out about it, and they found everything except for the jacket that Rena had left behind. This is a strange piece of the puzzle that I found in my research. The jacket went missing because a lady named Irma got to it first. She claimed to have seen a girl jogging by her car with the jacket and took it from her. Irma thought that the girl had stolen the jacket from her grandson. Apparently, her grandson had the same exact jacket. She took it home, noticed it had blood on it in multiple places and still washed it, destroying any evidence on the jacket. Oh shit, isn't that like a weird streak of of unlock?

wendy:

That's a strange thing in chance.

tiffany:

Yeah, it really is. Back at school, nicole and Kelly asked the school principal if they had a newspaper. When they asked why, they said a friend of theirs went missing and wanted to see if there's anything in the paper about it. When the principal asked where they thought their friend had gone, kelly said maybe she got picked up by a bunch of guys. I seen her walking alone down the highway. And Nicole said maybe she killed herself. I think she jumped off the gorge into the water, she said all excited. The principal later told the police that the girls didn't show any emotion while talking about their friend, and it was clear that the girls were lying. Later on, kelly ended up telling the principal that people were blaming her for the death of Rena before anyone even knew that she was dead or not. Kelly was running her mouth all over town, which tells me her paranoia was eating her alive.

tiffany:

Police interviewed the students, but they were tight lipped and didn't want to rat each other out. Other students were relaying recycled rumors that were misleading or weren't all that accurate. The police were at wit's end because they were out of leads and no closer to solving the crime until they had gotten a big break four days later. So now we're like six days after Rena went missing and this is when they get the break in the case this girl named Naja. She moved into the group home. She told police that Nicole confessed to her about the attack and murder. She told police that it wasn't random, that it was planned. Nicole confessed to Naja that Rena was jealous of her and that they beat her up, and that the next day her friend Kelly called to tell her that she had killed Rena. Police, armed with this new information, went to question Nicole and Missy about Rena. The girls were terrified when the detectives started asking questions about the last time they had seen Rena. Nicole lied to the officer saying that after they met at the Walmart that Rena took off with two strange guys and that they never seen her again. The officer left and that was it. They couldn't corroborate the story or negate it, so they put a pin in it for now.

tiffany:

The police still didn't search the gorge, so Naja asked Nicole if she would show her where they had killed Rena. Nicole happily took Naja and her sister to the scene of the crime and showed them around, reliving the events of the fight that took place before the second fight. Of course she wasn't there for the final act of the murder, but she knew where it had taken place because Kelly told her. So she walked the two girls over to the area of the murder and pointed at you know a couple different places that the events took place at. The girls didn't see the body, but they could smell it. Naja said that the smell was awful, but she played along acting like it was cool that Nicole had killed a girl. The girls, armed with this new information, reported it right to the police. The detectives headed out to question two of the other girls rumored to be involved in the shoreline killing, maya and Eve. They were brought down to the station and questioned. Maya gave up information and bits and pieces to investigators about the fight. She admitted to hitting Rena and leaving Her mother. Belle scolded Maya about telling the police everything she knew because someone's child was missing. Maya then added that she even seen two people following Rena, and those two people were Kelly Ellard and Warren Jay.

tiffany:

That Friday there was a party happening at the school back on the fields. The police were already there staking it out and when the kids arrived, the constables rounded up the students with clipboards in hands and started questioning everyone that they could about Rena Burke. Syreta had shown up looking for Warren and the police started questioning her. Warren heard that you know Syreta was over at the fields and he already knew that the police were there. But trying to protect his girlfriend, he walked right into a trap. The police recognized him right away and arrested him for the murder of Rena Burke.

tiffany:

Back at the station it was complete fucking chaos. Mothers were crying, teenagers were talking to one another when they weren't supposed to be. The cops had to keep everyone separate. The kids were separated in the different interrogation rooms and Kelly Ellard is arrested. Police end up arresting what the media starts calling the shoreline six plus Warren and Kelly. Police don't have Rena's body, but they have enough information to know where to look. Kelly doesn't admit to anything. She starts lying about her whereabouts that night, but with the number of witnesses that were there at the gorge, she's pretty much fucked. She was seen even sleeping in the interrogation room, which to me was weird. Kelly keeps repeating why is this happening to me? I didn't do anything. I'm going to beat up everyone who said this about me. I'm going to kill them. I hate the cops, I hate the system. Then she asks her mom to take her home and keeps asking the officer when she could leave because she's not involved. Then she starts pointing the finger at Nicole, saying that it was her that did it, taking zero responsibility.

wendy:

We knew with teenagers that this was how it was going to go down.

tiffany:

Oh yeah, I mean they're like 14, 15, and like 16.

wendy:

That's like the age bracket here. And there's no loyalty amid them either.

tiffany:

No, no loyalty amongst thieves.

wendy:

They're, exactly they're mean girls. They are, yeah, mean girls don't have that same stream of loyalty to them. The bullied ones sometimes do, but not the mean bitches. They never do no.

tiffany:

But weirdly enough, Nicole really like, respected Kelly and they made a promise not to rat on each other. So Kelly sitting here throwing her under the bus she don't want to go to prison.

wendy:

And.

tiffany:

Nicole doesn't say anything about Kelly. She keeps her secret so that she had a loyalty, but Kelly didn't, and they all kind of tried to stick by each other's sides, which is really weird. They did have a loyalty, which is why I find it really odd.

wendy:

Yeah, I think that it had less to do with loyalty with the exception of her but I think has more to do with them not wanting to get caught.

tiffany:

Yeah, fear Right, but they made a pact before the fear started happening to not say why does this remind me of? I know what you did last summer. I know it's weird, but yeah, they did. They made a pact like that, like we're not going to say anything, and for the longest time they kept it a secret. I mean, we had like eight days that went by, that like nobody said anything.

wendy:

And then on like that's not a very long time, but still I think that it was fear that prevented them. Well, if she tells them, I mean like they didn't want to snitch on each other because that would in turn throw themselves under the bus but eight days is not very long. Eight months maybe, but eight days is not no it's not too long, but it was eight days.

tiffany:

When they got to. They finally got, like, arrested. It was six days before somebody actually said something and the only person that said anything was that nausea, and she wasn't even affiliated with that group of people. She was just like a stranger who Nicole was bragging to. I think that that was well played on her part too. Yeah, and she even like tricked her in a show on her like where the oh, that's great, Like she played it poised.

tiffany:

Oh yeah, so I read it. Tells police that Warren confessed the entire thing to her in her bedroom one night. She gives police the details of the conversation, which helps police piece together the rest of the events that night and where it had happened. Mainly because back at the station Warren and Kelly weren't admitting nothing, Missy told investigators that Nicole and Kelly were the ones who planned the murder. Missy admitted to beating Rena but then when the police asked her why she didn't call an ambulance, she said I thought she was fine, she was walking. Nicole was arrested at the group's home and taken into custody.

tiffany:

Police descend onto the gorge. They send a dive team and a helicopter to locate Rena. They dragged the water but they can't find anything. They searched the site of the fight and again came up short. But a few miles away from the gorge they find her body tangled in the reeds, Half in the water and half out. She had bruises on her face and the skin on her hands was starting to slip from decomp and being submerged in water. She had blood in her nostrils and bruises on her thighs and back.

tiffany:

The autopsy was was brutal. Rina suffered bruising and swelling under both eyes. She had a large laceration on her lip, bruises on her cheeks, her nose had a bloody discharge coming out of it, and she had large circular bruise on her shoulders and a thermal burn on her eyebrow from the cigarette, A bruise consistent with the texture from a sneaker on the back of her head and another footprint on her lower back and a large bruise on her voice box that is consistent with a karate chop type blow. Rina had no sign of broken bones, but she did have extensive trauma to her internal organs, so much so that the pathologist said that those types of injuries were usually seen in car crash victims. Her liver and pancreas were damaged. Her fatty tissue was actually separated from her muscle tissue. The most severe damage was in the abdominal cavity and in the chest cavity. Rina sustained internal bleeding that was consistent with stomping and kicking. Her brain was swollen and the back of her brain had an imprint of a sneaker on it.

wendy:

Her fucking brain, this was one hell of a beat on. This poor girl went under and it's horrible that so many lives are negatively impacted by something that seems so trivial.

tiffany:

Yeah, the pathologist determined that Rina's cause of death was drowning, and inside of her lungs they found eight pebbles, which means she was still alive when she went into the water. This is so tragic, I know.

wendy:

I might not have agreed with much that she did, and that's the case for all. I don't even agree with a lot of what I did at that age, so we don't even know what type of woman she would have blossomed into, because she could have become something amazing and it's tragic that she never got that chance. And these young kids who decided to make such a rash adult I wouldn't say adult decision, but a sick adult decision they have to live with that for the rest of their lives now and it's just sad all the way around.

tiffany:

That's true.

wendy:

Yeah, you know some of the stupid shit that we did, like 16, 17, 18 still have a bearing on our lives in the future? It does, and we don't think that because it seems like time is so vast. You're so young, you've only had a little flak of it, you haven't really had a lot of experience and you haven't become an adult yet, so you're not even thinking about how these things are going to impact you as an adult. Oh yeah, so they're just slap on the wrist and they're not thinking well, shit, they're going to be consequences. And so what are these consequences?

tiffany:

All right, so we'll get into that. When Warren was questioned again, he denied everything and asked for his lawyer. The police kept on him for a while until he admitted that he was there with Kelly when she murdered Rena. He told investigators that after Kelly had beaten Rena a second time, he had kicked Rena in the head and ribs, that Rena was puking up and choking on her own blood. So she was literally puking blood after he kicked her in the ribs Like that's how bad her internal bleeding was and probably punctured along after he kicked her in the ribs. I didn't say that in all the tops you report, but I'm sure if she was throwing up and choking on blood, that something was going on there.

tiffany:

Their lawyers were concerned, considering the vicious nature of the crime, that they would be charged as adults, especially with the media coverage of the case. The New York Times wrote a story on it and their reporters from around the world waiting outside for statements and interviews. Allen was the prosecutor's star witness. He was the boy who saw Kelly Ellard leaving the scene of the crime. The most damaging piece of evidence at Kelly's trial was a Calvin Klein jacket that was found in her closet. It had sand pieces of seashells and white stains that proved that it had been submerged in salt water. In Kelly's locker police found a drawing she made of disembodied heads laying in puddles of blood and a gangster with a gun pointed at a police officer with the caption Wink, wink, squeal, squeal. Also on a piece of paper was written BK for life, west Side Wigg, which is stupid, and CMC crew Crip. Rest in Peace. And what's Up Now, bitch? That was all written on paper in her locker. I could totally see Kelly Ellard with that in her locker because she's a tool bag. Anyway, while awaiting trial, a girl we will call Lily came forward to police to tell them that Kelly wasn't getting along with any of the other kids in juvie. She showed zero remorse for what she had done. She openly talked about it with other inmates and in doing so, was then bullied by said inmates. And, on the flip side, warren was particularly well behaved and liked within the prison system. While they were still awaiting trial, the bridge was covered in flowers. What was once a dinky old bridge had become alive, with the support of the community for arena In the high school gym, the students and faculty held a memorial for Rena. There was an altar set up that said Rena's life and her loving family, and underneath were childhood pictures of Rena smiling and happy. Her family made statements to the press that they held no animosity towards the accused, and the students' shoreline gave roses to Rena's mother At the funeral. Rena's mother lost her composure and threw herself onto the casket as it was going into the flames, and she exclaimed my baby, my baby, don't do this to my baby.

tiffany:

Back in court, the crown decided to change the charges for the three girls from aggravated assault to assault resulting in bodily harm after they reviewed the evidence. Nicole, missy and Layla all pleaded guilty. Maya, willow and Eve all pleaded not guilty. The girls were protected under the young offenders act in Canada, so their faces, names and voices were all kept out of the public eye, hence why their names aren't completely accurate in our story. Maya, willow and Eve's trial lasted three days. All three were found guilty. Nicole received a year.

tiffany:

In juvie, maya was told to serve out the rest of her sentence that she was already in for, and during Warren's trial in June of 1999, syreda was the star witness. He was heartbroken that Syreda testified against him. Other witnesses that were there at the fight testified against Warren, which placed him with Kelly. As everyone was leaving, warren took the stand in his own defense, which is usually a bad move, but he was already fucked. He told the jury how Kelly Ellard was the one who committed the murder and how he told her to stop, but she didn't. Warren was charged with second-degree murder and was sentenced to seven years.

tiffany:

Police were able to convince Nicole to flip on Kelly by showing her tapes of Kelly pinning the whole murder on Nicole Hurt. Nicole tells police that Kelly started implying that she murdered Rina. Kelly said maybe something will be floating down on the stream pretty soon. Then she made jokes to Nicole about the murder and said she's floating around somewhere. Nicole said that eventually Kelly did admit the murders to her, but they made a promise not to ever make statements against each other to the police. That is until Kelly broke that promise. First, in March of 2000, at Kelly's trial, she admitted absolutely no guilt. She even put in a plea of innocence. According to her, she never touched Rina and was framed for her murder, which I found extremely laughable. Warren's testimony was important in Kelly's trial because he was the only witness to the murder, but he didn't want to testify because he thought doing so would put his life in danger.

wendy:

This is how I pictured the disloyalty unfolding. Yeah, Precisely the way it is right now. I mean, of course, the key players and things like that. Those things can't be foreshadowed whatsoever, but the way that it's playing out is exactly the type of disloyalty that I expected.

tiffany:

And as far as witnesses go, 30 of them testified against Kelly. So we got 30 people that were there that night. So I'm guessing the whole town was trying to frame her. Oh holy shit. Yeah, that's what she said.

wendy:

They were all trying to frame her, and then she didn't make a lot of friends in town, huh.

tiffany:

No, no, not really Not after that.

wendy:

That's what she gets for being a bitch.

tiffany:

Yeah. Kelly took the stand in her own defense and she claimed that Rina fell into her and she pushed her back into the circle of kids that were pounding on her and after the fight she left to go to the comfort Inn and that Warren, missy and Nicole beat up and killed Rina. So she said it was Warren, missy and Nicole, right, yeah? And then claimed that at the school she became the patsy Okay, yeah. And that the rumors flooded the school and that it was her who had done this.

tiffany:

She couldn't believe it. So it took two days for the jury to deliberate and Kelly was found guilty. Her mother was sobbing in the court. Rina's grandmother saw her and walked over to hold her hand and console the murderer's mother. That's how nice Rina's family is Like. Could you if my kid was murdered? I don't think I could walk over to the murderer's mom and grab her hand.

wendy:

Yeah, I mean the mother was not at fault. So it takes a big and empathetic and evolved human being to realize that, no matter what your child or friend or family member does, you are actually a victim of loving somebody who did something monstrous. You are not guilty of perpetuating the monstrous acts. So that was very big of her to do. But also it makes a lot of sense if you look at it for how it really is.

tiffany:

Yeah, but I don't know if I could get paid like is it so fresh? I don't think I could have got past that that quickly to console her Well they both lost their daughters essentially.

wendy:

Well, technically, yeah, so I see it. I mean, I could see myself doing something like that to another mother.

tiffany:

Well, it only took two days for the jury to deliberate. Kelly was found guilty. Kelly was only given five years for the crime of premeditated murder A baby sentence, if you ask me, but five was house arrest. After only serving 18 months of her sentence because the judge thought she posed no threat to society, even though she beat a woman up in a park and murdered a young girl In 2003, she was ordered to have a new trial because it was deemed that some of the questions in her previous trial were unjust, like, for instance, she was asked why people would want to frame her. You can't ask somebody what other people are thinking, because you can't give an honest answer.

tiffany:

So three judges asked to rule and they overturned her conviction. While awaiting second trial remember, she's out Her mother gave her a new cell phone and she ran into a girl that she knew named Danica. She invited this Danica to the park to drink beers with her. Kelly realizes that her phone is gone and she blames the other woman who she thought had taken it. Suddenly, kelly starts punching this woman in the face and the police come Again. Kelly takes zero responsibility and says that she didn't punch the woman in the face, but it was clear that the woman had been beaten up. Her lip was bleeding and she had bruises all over her face.

wendy:

I was punching myself in the face.

tiffany:

Yeah, right. Oh yeah, she was hitting herself. Yeah, okay, because of the assault, kelly's bail was revoked and she was back in the clinker, and in June of 2004, she was given a new trial, but this time Warren G decided to testify against her.

wendy:

Oh shit.

tiffany:

Yeah, because the last time he was too afraid to because the other prisoners said they would murder somebody who's a rat. But this time he was like nah, fuck it, fuck her Because she got off and he was pissed. So he cried during his account of the night in question. It was very open and honest. At the end of his statement he said I stopped when I saw a military car drive by. Kelly took her into the gorge waterway. She became a semi-conscious. She started mumbling words. She started struggling. Kelly was holding her head down. Kelly held her head underwater. She struggled a bit. Kelly gave her a karate chop to the throat. Kelly stuck her head underwater until red stuff started floating to the top. Kelly started walking out of the water. Manjeet felt sorry for Warren when he was recounting the events. He said that he thought it was gentlemanly, that he was honest and truthful for taking accountability and showing genuine remorse. Warren testified because he felt like he owed it to the Verc family to give them justice. It's intense.

wendy:

And it also coincides with the evidence that they found with her body, because the way that she was bragging about it, the way that they mentioned how it seemed like she had a karate chop and everything, everything really does add up to this story that he tells it does.

tiffany:

Kelly took the stand again, but this time she was rude, had to temper tantrum on the stand and was even crying alligator tears at one point. Showed her true colors. Then, oh yeah, she was agitated and angry Again, took no accountability, except for a single punch that she claimed to have thrown During questioning. The prosecutor said so, parties are a loose term to you. It doesn't mean a happy gathering. Kelly snapped back. Not all parties are happy. Bad things happen sometimes. Kids are cruel. The prosecutor says you, kelly, ellard can be cruel. Then, without hesitation, she barks back. I used to be boom like drop, because she just showed her characters on the stand.

wendy:

Yes, yes, she did. Yep, it doesn't look good on her that she beat up a woman at a park in the interim either, though no.

tiffany:

And Kelly's attorney went for a mistrial because of the headline that was to appear in the paper in the next few days, saying that it was irresponsible, but the judge promptly denied his request. It took the jury five days to deliberate. The jury came back with a hung jury. One person wouldn't convict Kelly Ellard, so they had to announce a mistrial because they were at an impasse which means they would have to have another fucking trial.

tiffany:

The same witnesses testified third time's charm. Kelly was convicted of second degree murder of Rina Burke in 2005 and she received a life sentence and was up for parole in 2017. She claimed to have been redeemed because she's now a mother. Yes, that's right. During Kelly's incarceration, she was allowed conjugal visits with another inmate that she was in a relationship with.

wendy:

Get the fuck out of here.

tiffany:

Oh yes. She claimed that her child had calmed her down and that she had changed since becoming a mom. Again, she took zero accountability. She told the parole board that she had brought Rina into the water to splash some water on her face to wake her up, not to kill her. The two women on the board came to a split decision and she was denied parole. The prison received backlash once the media got in a hold of the fact that Kelly was allowed to develop a relationship and have conjugal visits, even though they were reserved for inmates who only had pre-existing relationships. So they broke the rules just for her. Her full parole has yet to be granted because she failed to report domestic violence to her parole officer and she had been deemed unworthy to move beyond day parole as of May of 2022.

tiffany:

Manjeet and Suman met with Warren so that he could tell them face to face what happened the night their daughter was murdered. The Verks told Warren about their many trips with Rina to Singapore and how Manjeet was happy that he stayed home with Rina to spend time with her, even though people said that that was a woman's job. The three of them were able to come to an understanding and maybe even forgiveness on Manjeet's part. At Warren's parole hearing, the Verks spoke on his behalf, saying that they didn't want to stand in his way and that they believed that he was on a good path. Suman said it's not possible that there's a happy ending. Warren took our child's life. That's who he is, what he is and what he will always be. We will wait and see if it's a true repentance.

tiffany:

In 2017, kelly was up for parole again, so she stuck to the whole motherhood, changed me into a good person now thing, but she had infractions against her for assault in the prison, disrespecting guards and mouthing off. She became addicted to crystal meth while she was in prison, which, again, is wild to me.

wendy:

Right, she's having this entire life in here. Yeah, like nobody's watching her. I mean, she's having sex with men, she's doing meth, she's getting in fights, she's showing on the inside her potential on the outside, and there's no fucking way that I would want to leave her around a child. No, that's gotta be in the front of their mind somewhere, like oh yeah, okay, sure you care about being a mother. This bitch is gonna get out and try to take the kid.

tiffany:

Yeah, she attended a rehabilitation program in jail and for the first time, she admitted her role in the murder of Rene Verk and said I'm very sorry. She did not deserve it. They granted her day release, which is when a prisoner is released during certain hours from the prison but has to report back to the prison after curfew to sleep in the prison. In 2018, she wanted to extend her parole and was granted the opportunity to stay in a halfway house. She changed her name to Carrie Marie Sim and is living her life, while Rene Verk will never see her family again. So there's that, and before we end this, I have one little piece of information that's very unfortunate.

tiffany:

In 2018, after years of activism against bullying and speaking out publicly to try to make a difference in the world, suman Verk tragically died at a cafe at 58 years old. She died of asphyxiation due to choking, which blocked her airway and left her brain dead. She spoke for years at schools all over the country about bullying and wanted to educate children on the dangers of bullying. She and Manjeet organized programs to help kids who were bullied and channeled the grief of their daughter's death into something that helped make a positive change. Women will be missed by Manjeet. The family has been through enough and I do hope that Suman gets to see her daughter again in another realm.

wendy:

Yeah, that is heart wrenching because out of all of this, it was she who I feel like was the true heroine this entire time.

wendy:

Like you know, even when her daughter was at her lowest, she breathed, tried to breathe faith into her by giving her a bird, and then later on forgave her for the false allegations against her husband, took her back in, let her spend weekends with her when she was going through her phases and things like that, and loved her daughter throughout. She's amazing and I hope that the lives that she touched will immortalize the parts of her that you have very eloquently displayed in this podcast. She really, truly died too young, yeah.

tiffany:

If you'd like to check us out on Facebook, instagram, twitter, youtube or TikTok, then you can find us under Rogue and Wicked podcast. If you'd like to join our Patreon and become a subscriber, then you can find us at wwwpatreoncom. Slash rogue and wicked. Our tier one listeners get pictures, polls and exclusive content. Our tier two listeners get all that plus a bonus episode monthly. Our tier three listeners get two bonus episodes monthly and all tiers get a shout out on the pod. You can have a copy of Wendy's book Sage. It's available at roguepoetnet. Any cool stories, questions or case suggestions should be sent to our email at rogueandwicked at yahoocom. And don't forget to give us a five star review on Spotify, apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. The more reviews that we get, the more pod episodes that we can bring to you. Thanks for listening and until next time.

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