Kelly Ellard denied day parole, 19 years after murder of Reena Virk
Posted May 3, 2016 7:25 am.
Last Updated May 3, 2016 2:22 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
ABBOTSFORD (NEWS 1130) – She has been in jail for the better part of two decades after the brutal murder of 14-year-old Reena Virk near Victoria in 1997. Today, Kelly Ellard’s request for day parole was denied.
The hearing today was at the Fraser Valley Institution for Women in Abbotsford after Ellard — who is now 33 — applied for her release several months ago.
Ellard was 15 when she drowned Virk after smashing her head into a tree in November, 1997. After three trials and years behind bars, has never publicly expressed remorse for the killing.
The key questions at today’s hearing were whether Ellard is at risk of re-offending and whether Ellard poses a threat to the community.
“She never admitted and she never said she’s sorry, so that’s whey she has spent all this time behind bars. It serves her right — it’s her own stupidity,” says Virk’s grandfather, Mukand Pallan.
Ellard has waived her right to a full parole hearing four times while serving her life sentence and Pallan hoped her application for day parole — which would require her to live under strict conditions at a halfway house — would be unsuccessful.
“She’s not going to learn anything or do any good — either behind bars or not — she is a slow, stupid girl,” Pallan tells NEWS 1130, adding that he doesn’t think Ellard will ever be able to redeem herself.
“I hope she’s never released. She doesn’t deserve it.”
Pallan says after 19 years, the murder of his granddaughter still hurts. “I will never forget it and I will never forgive her.”
This was Ellard’s first day-parole hearing, seven years after the Supreme Court of Canada rejected an appeal of her second-degree murder conviction and reinstated a life sentence.
