Reena Virk’s killer Glowatski granted full parole

MISSION, B.C. – The man who helped kill Saanich teeanger Reena Virk in 1997 was granted full parole Wednesday during a hearing in Mission, B.C.

Now 29, Warren Glowatski was 16 when he and Kelly Ellard punched and kicked 14-year-old Reena until she was unconscious following a group beating by six other girls on Nov. 14, 1997. The two dragged her to the Gorge Waterway under the Craigflower bridge and Glowatski watched as Ellard held Reena’s head under the shallow water.

This morning at the Ferndale Institution, two members of the National Parole Board listened to Glowatski detail his involvement in the brutal murder, his efforts to change through counselling and restorative justice and his plans for the future.

“I have more of a life sentence inside me than I ever will outside,” Glowatski said, sitting in a circle during the hearing led by a First Nations elder, a more informal and spiritual process than most parole hearing, which he had requested. “I gave myself that sentence by doing what I did.”

Glowatski was found guilty of second-degree murder in 1999 and sentenced to the maximum penalty under the former Young Offenders Act – life in prison without chance of parole for seven years.

He has been on day parole since June 2007.

Parole board spokesman Patrick Storey said Glowatski has been eligible for full parole since 2005 but took a very cautious approach to his release.

Glowatski will have to keep in constant contact with his parole officer, abstain from alcohol and avoid contact with people he knows or suspects are involved in criminal activities or drugs.

He said he plans on leaving his Vancouver halfway house and moving into an apartment with a roommate.

He currently holds a full-time job in the restaurant industry and is taking photography classes at Langara College.

As for Ellard, she was found guilty of the killing in 2000 but the conviction was overturned. A second trial in 2004 yielded a hung jury. She was convicted of second-degree murder on her third trial in 2005, and received a life sentence with no chance of parole for seven years, but later won an appeal. That appeal was overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada last June. She is currently still in prison, and while she is eligible for parole, she has not sought it.