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Speaker 5: Quiet Host Radio You are now listening to True Murder,
Speaker 5: The most Shocking Killers in True crime History and the
Speaker 5: authors that have written about him. Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The
Speaker 5: night Stalker VTK. Every week, another fascinating author talking about
Speaker 5: the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history.
Speaker 5: True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Speaker 6: This is your host, Dan Zupaski, for the program True Murder,
Speaker 6: The most shocking killers in true crime History and the
Speaker 6: authors that have written about them. On November thirtieth, nineteen
Speaker 6: eighty nine, in Florida, a man was shot four times
Speaker 6: by a naked, heartfaced blonde prostitute. He suffered a slow,
Speaker 6: agonizing death while the woman stripped him of his value.
Speaker 5: Quiet Host, you are now listening to True Murder, The
Speaker 5: most Shocking Killers in True crime History and the authors
Speaker 5: that have written Abultium Gasey, Bundy, Stammer, The Night Stalker DCK.
Speaker 5: Every week, another fascinating author talking about the most shocking
Speaker 5: and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with
Speaker 5: your host, journalist and author Dan Zufanskidising.
Speaker 6: This is your host Stan Supanski for the program True Murder,
Speaker 6: The Most Shocking Killers in true crime history and the
Speaker 6: authors that have written about them.
Speaker 7: Pardon Me.
Speaker 6: On a moonlight night in November nineteen ninety seven, fourteen
Speaker 6: year old Rina Urke went to a party with some
Speaker 6: of her friends near the idyllic waters of Victoria, British Columbia.
Speaker 6: She never returned home. A week later, her body was
Speaker 6: found by police divers and eight teenagers, seven of them
Speaker 6: girls were arrested. Two teens, Warren Galawowski and Kelly Ellard,
Speaker 6: were charged and eventually convicted for their role in a
Speaker 6: vicious and unexpected crime, and Under the Bridge author Rebecca
Speaker 6: Godfrey unravels the haunting, compelling tale behind this terrible murder
Speaker 6: and the long, often bizarre trials of the now notorious
Speaker 6: Kelly Ellard. Drawing on exclusive interviews in six years of research,
Speaker 6: Godfrey for reveals the complex story behind the headlines, offering
Speaker 6: readers a vivid portrait of suburban teenagers, persistent detectives, and
Speaker 6: stun parents caught up and transformed by a Canadian tragedy.
Speaker 6: Under the Bridge, the true story of the murder of
Speaker 6: rena Vert with my special guest journalist and author Rebecca Godfrey.
Speaker 6: Thank you very much for agreeing to this interview and
Speaker 6: welcome to the program. Rebecca Godfrey. Hi, sorry about that
Speaker 6: mistake at the beginning. I don't know how that file
Speaker 6: got under way, but I'm hoping we have no more
Speaker 6: glitches for the rest of the show, and I apologize now.
Speaker 6: First off, Rebecca, I want to know what made you
Speaker 6: decide to write about this particular murder case and what
Speaker 6: year did this murder take place?
Speaker 3: And the murder took twice in ninety seven, and it
Speaker 3: may not be so familiar to your American audience, but
Speaker 3: in Canada it became sort of our OJ Simpson and
Speaker 3: it was frontage news and a huge story, mainly because
Speaker 3: you know, usually, as your introduction mentioned, see the people
Speaker 3: associated with grizzly murders or men, and you know, the
Speaker 3: Bundee Dahmer type. And this was these very you know, attractive,
Speaker 3: fresh faced young girls charged in a very grizzly murder.
Speaker 3: So it became a huge story, and it happened. I
Speaker 3: was living in New York at the time and read
Speaker 3: about it in the New York Times, but it happened
Speaker 3: in my hometown Victoria, in Canada, where I'd grown up,
Speaker 3: and so I felt some connection or interest and it
Speaker 3: was also drawn in because there was so little coming
Speaker 3: from the teenagers. It was written about a lot, but
Speaker 3: the teenagers weren't talking to the media, and so I
Speaker 3: was really a mystery of a true murder, mystery of
Speaker 3: what had happened, and we had very vague media reports.
Speaker 3: So that was what got me interested.
Speaker 6: Okay, so you read in New York City at the time,
Speaker 6: but this is your hometown, so obviously it struck home.
Speaker 6: I mean, this is something you could relate to. Now
Speaker 6: is tell us about what is the city where this
Speaker 6: story centers around.
Speaker 7: We mentioned it.
Speaker 6: I know where it is, obviously, but for our American audience,
Speaker 6: what is the city where this story centers around and
Speaker 6: what kind of community was it?
Speaker 3: And it's on the Star the west coast of Canada,
Speaker 3: and it's Vancouver Island near Washington State, and it's a
Speaker 3: very extremely beautiful islands. It's you know, main source of
Speaker 3: income is from tourists who come to look at the gardens,
Speaker 3: and it's very There is a British heritage, so there's
Speaker 3: you know, tea rooms and double decker buses, so it's
Speaker 3: very charming on the surface. Having grown up there, I
Speaker 3: know there was also a kind of David Lynch like weird,
Speaker 3: weird side to it, and there's been some strange murders before.
Speaker 3: So it's a very you know, there's a rainy, kind
Speaker 3: of gloomy place, but also quite quite beautiful. The murder
Speaker 3: itself happened in a community. You know, it's an island,
Speaker 3: so it was a community near near the water and
Speaker 3: a pretty sort of middle to a working class neighborhood.
Speaker 3: But you know, this is the first murder a lot
Speaker 3: of the detectives had worked on. I think this was,
Speaker 3: you know, a teenage girl hadn't you know, been murdered
Speaker 3: in the town maybe in ten years, So it was
Speaker 3: it was unexpected and that's again why people were so
Speaker 3: shocked by it. It was in Toronto, you know, an
Speaker 3: urban city. It's a very low crime rate town.
Speaker 5: Sure.
Speaker 6: Now, the central figure in this tragic story, of course,
Speaker 6: is Rena Work. What was her family life like and
Speaker 6: from all your research and how old was she at
Speaker 6: this time?
Speaker 7: Tell us tell us about Rena Work.
Speaker 3: She was fourteen and having a bit of a rough time.
Speaker 3: She was in you know, a girl that didn't really
Speaker 3: seem like she had found her group. She wasn't getting
Speaker 3: along with her family. She had run away several times,
Speaker 3: which is why when the police heard about the case,
Speaker 3: they initially didn't investigate because they thought she was missing.
Speaker 3: You know, when her parents reported her missing, they just thought, oh,
Speaker 3: she'd run away, and they didn't didn't look into it.
Speaker 3: So she had I was having time. She was very sweet,
Speaker 3: not violent, just sort of lost and looking to find
Speaker 3: some group where she belonged, and she became sort of
Speaker 3: drawn and attracted to this tougher group of girls.
Speaker 6: Was she originally from the island or she had moved
Speaker 6: there or was there a change of schools or something.
Speaker 3: No, she had grown up there. Yeah, her her family
Speaker 3: had a background from India, but they her her mother
Speaker 3: was born in Canada, her dad had immigrated.
Speaker 6: So were they an old world type family though despite
Speaker 6: not being from you know, not necessarily obviously being Canadian?
Speaker 6: But was there explain explain the the was it just
Speaker 6: normal fourteen year old angst that she was dealing with
Speaker 6: her parents or what were the problems? So elaborate a
Speaker 6: little bit on why she had a little the problems
Speaker 6: with her her family and why did she not fit in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think her family was more traditional
Speaker 3: and you know, serious values that like her view and
Speaker 3: no smoking, and she was meeting kids whose parents were
Speaker 3: more relaxed, and so she there was conflict with her
Speaker 3: family there. She wanted to loser rules and her family
Speaker 3: were jahopa as witnesses. I don't know how you know
Speaker 3: how much that played into it too, a sort of
Speaker 3: culture class and rigid, rigid rules. So but she had
Speaker 3: very loving grandparents and aunts and uncles, the sort of
Speaker 3: extended family that she was close to. She lived for
Speaker 3: a while with her grandparents, but at a certain point
Speaker 3: she you know, just clashed with her parents and went
Speaker 3: into a group home with girls from taffer backgrounds.
Speaker 6: Okay, so she made it to a group home. Did
Speaker 6: she have any did you have any run ins with
Speaker 6: the law at all? And how did she have run
Speaker 6: ins at school? How was she as a student? Just
Speaker 6: as a student at school.
Speaker 3: I think she was probably a good student, but she
Speaker 3: she was overweight, and you know, I don't know if
Speaker 3: her race played into it, being East Indian, but she
Speaker 3: was sort of picked on and teased at school, so
Speaker 3: she stopped going to school. So she was, you know,
Speaker 3: a misfit and not the popular kid at all.
Speaker 6: Okay, And so at this fourteen years of age. When
Speaker 6: we're getting round to this story, we'll say go back
Speaker 6: to maybe just previous to that, maybe the year before
Speaker 6: or preceding this whole terrible event. What is happening in
Speaker 6: Rena Virk's life. You say she's a misfit. You've described
Speaker 6: her as that not really fitting in, overweight, maybe some
Speaker 6: self esteem problems, East Indian background, and that sometimes open
Speaker 6: to ridicule for some people. Traditional family, where she's at
Speaker 6: odds with her family because of their religious background and
Speaker 6: maybe even their cultural background. Tell us what happens in
Speaker 6: that the last six months or the preceding six months
Speaker 6: before that, what happens in Rena RK's life. You would
Speaker 6: mention that she's meeting a tougher crowd. Tell us a
Speaker 6: little bit more about some of the relationships that she's having.
Speaker 3: I think she was very desperate to have friends and
Speaker 3: with finding that difficult and she I mean, that's part
Speaker 3: of what made the whole story so heartbreaking. Is the
Speaker 3: final night of her life. These girls found in her
Speaker 3: to a party and she thought they were finally inviting
Speaker 3: her to a party, and actually they weren't. Had planned
Speaker 3: to beat her up, So you know that was her
Speaker 3: her search was to find a group of people that
Speaker 3: liked her, and she adored and started vitalized this group
Speaker 3: of girls. At that time, I don't know, you know,
Speaker 3: if you remember, but ninety seven in the pop culture,
Speaker 3: it was a lot of hip hop culture and kids
Speaker 3: is you know, all races kind of emulating American gang culture,
Speaker 3: and so these suburban girls were all sort of pretending
Speaker 3: they were gangsters and acting, you know, wearing the baggy pants.
Speaker 3: And so she was going doing that and and you know,
Speaker 3: painting her nails blue and talking to saster talk and yeah,
Speaker 3: and then she met these girls and really became fascinated
Speaker 3: with them and tried to be friends with them and
Speaker 3: ended up doing things that just infuriated them. She stole,
Speaker 3: i mean, very petty teenage girl things, stole a girl's
Speaker 3: address book and started calling people in that book and telling,
Speaker 3: you know, saying gossip. And so this set off this
Speaker 3: chain of events.
Speaker 6: Okay, let's go back a little bit, just give us
Speaker 6: a little bit more background for people that are following
Speaker 6: the story that don't know the story completely. Now you've
Speaker 6: mentioned that she's maybe you know, hanging with a tougher crowd.
Speaker 6: Let's introduce some of these characters, So you can describe
Speaker 6: some of these characters that are in this story. Here,
Speaker 6: let's start with Warren Gliwatski. What was what was the
Speaker 6: background and can you tell us what can you tell
Speaker 6: us about Warren Gatski?
Speaker 3: Well, Warren, actually, I mean we can get into it more.
Speaker 3: But the girls that Rina met initially didn't include Warren.
Speaker 3: Warren didn't even know Rena, but he was sort of
Speaker 3: in apparel, you know, sadly in a kind of parallel
Speaker 3: stage for her. At the same time, he was also
Speaker 3: kind of lost, and he had moved to Victoria recently.
Speaker 3: His dad and mother had split up. His dad had
Speaker 3: taken him to Victoria, and his dad had met a
Speaker 3: woman from California and had decided he would go live
Speaker 3: with this woman and leave Warren in Victoria alone. So
Speaker 3: Warren was living with a friend, you know, sleeping on
Speaker 3: a friend's place, and his mother was an alcoholic, so
Speaker 3: he didn't have any contact with her. But he was
Speaker 3: much more than Rena, very popular, very charming, really had
Speaker 3: that sort of Justin Bieber. I mean, he really looked
Speaker 3: like Justin Bieber, kind of that androgynost cuteness, and he
Speaker 3: was extremely popular kid.
Speaker 7: What was his.
Speaker 6: He went by a moniker himself as sort of a
Speaker 6: hip hop moniker.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they all kind of be hip hop names. So
Speaker 3: he we went by Warren g in the California Rapper.
Speaker 6: Okay, now Warren Warren Glowski, Warren g He was a
Speaker 6: little bit older, right, yeah, yeah, okay, Okay, So now
Speaker 6: tell us the posse that Rena Vike was trying to
Speaker 6: hang with, and maybe you can introduce these characters.
Speaker 7: Obviously there's Kelly Ellard.
Speaker 6: But explain the girls that Rena Vike first met. I
Speaker 6: guess together, get the chronological order for audience, which girls
Speaker 6: that they meet, tell and then tell us about the
Speaker 6: character of that that one girl, and we'll proceed with
Speaker 6: the other characters they're in this tragic story.
Speaker 3: Okay, I mean, first of all, I just you know,
Speaker 3: in Canada there's a lot that you have to change
Speaker 3: the names of anybody who's charged as a minor, so
Speaker 3: these aren't their real names. That there was the main girl.
Speaker 3: There was a group home called seven Oak, which was
Speaker 3: for girls that you know, needed its temporary shelter, girls
Speaker 3: that have been kicked out of the house, sometimes waiting
Speaker 3: for a foster home. Most of those girls probably all
Speaker 3: of those girls had also been in and out of
Speaker 3: the juvenile detention home and had some kind of you know,
Speaker 3: criminal background. And the main girl there was who I
Speaker 3: call Josephine Bell, was a really interesting character. I don't
Speaker 3: think anybody, you know, your audience probably come across this
Speaker 3: type of character. But she is accepting, you know, maybe
Speaker 3: a noir book. But she was very beautiful, blonde, you know,
Speaker 3: ballerina kind of looks. But she had a really strong
Speaker 3: desire to be a gangster, to be tough, to be,
Speaker 3: to have you know, she literally had minions running around.
Speaker 3: She would order them to go shop with for her.
Speaker 3: She really loved this idea of her reputation.
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Speaker 3: Was considered you know somebody and people admired her and
Speaker 3: were frightened of her, and part of that was a
Speaker 3: bit fantasy, but part of it, you know, she she
Speaker 3: was She did have a lot of authority and kind
Speaker 3: of charisma, and she would steal cars and you know,
Speaker 3: she's just kind of quote badass, but at the same
Speaker 3: time very cheat and blonde and attractive, so she was
Speaker 3: sort of them one that Rena was drawn to. Then
Speaker 3: her sidekick was a girl I called Dusty, who was
Speaker 3: from a large family. I think there was seven or
Speaker 3: eight sisters, and she had been kicked out of the
Speaker 3: house and been living all over the place and left.
Speaker 3: She went to live with one of her sisters and
Speaker 3: stole cars and there was just too much trouble, so
Speaker 3: they sent her home and that's she ended up in
Speaker 3: this group home. So she was not quite as sort
Speaker 3: of crazy as a Josephine, but very legitimately tough, quite big,
Speaker 3: quite strong, constantly getting insights with people, and so those
Speaker 3: two were really, you know, the worst pair of that
Speaker 3: Arena could have met. She she while Dusty was living
Speaker 3: out of town. Dusty and her were friends. I think
Speaker 3: for a little bit while Dusty was away, she started
Speaker 3: took up with Dusty's boyfriend, which infuriated Dustine was wearing
Speaker 3: his coat. And then there was this incident where she
Speaker 3: stole Josephine's notebook. So, I mean, it's very petty, and
Speaker 3: I think that's part of why when the police first
Speaker 3: heard heard about this, they were couldn't believe it because
Speaker 3: the whole way these girls talked about their anger with
Speaker 3: each other, you know, so classically adolescent, they were really
Speaker 3: you know, genuinely immature. They were fourteen and fifteen and
Speaker 3: fighting over boys and clothes and so. But then there
Speaker 3: were this character Josephine had had quite a violent streak,
Speaker 3: so she.
Speaker 6: Became she was she a real leader though, sorry excuse me,
Speaker 6: but was she a real leader of these girls? I
Speaker 6: mean was she able? You said that she had she
Speaker 6: had people shoplifting for, but was she really what they
Speaker 6: were really they would look up to her and listen
Speaker 6: to her.
Speaker 3: I think within a small group. I think, you know,
Speaker 3: she's within the small group. I think that she could,
Speaker 3: she could orchestrat things. I mean, she was overheard before
Speaker 3: the murderer, planning ways to kill Rena and you know,
Speaker 3: discussing let's make a grace so she you know, she
Speaker 3: had a authority over a viewism.
Speaker 6: Okay, tell us the rest of the characters in this,
Speaker 6: in this little group of people that are involved. We've
Speaker 6: we've mentioned Dusty, and we haven't mentioned Kelly Ellard, and
Speaker 6: we haven't mentioned Srita, mentioned the other girls that are involved,
Speaker 6: directly involved, and then we'll proceed from there.
Speaker 3: Well, Kelly Allard which is her real name, because she
Speaker 3: was tried as an adult, even though you know she
Speaker 3: was the same age. She was Josephine's best friend. They've
Speaker 3: been best friends for a long time and we're you know,
Speaker 3: they describe each other as sisters. And she of all
Speaker 3: of this group, including Rena, she came from the most
Speaker 3: stable home and sort of the most middle class home,
Speaker 3: and but that had always been I don't know always,
Speaker 3: but recently had been showing kind of behaving violently, getting
Speaker 3: in fights at school, getting kicked out of school. And
Speaker 3: so her and Josephine we were quite close, and I
Speaker 3: guess that she she had never met Rina, she didn't
Speaker 3: live in the group home, but when she heard about
Speaker 3: Rena doing this to her friend. You know, Rena was
Speaker 3: spreading rumors that Josephine had aids and h something about her,
Speaker 3: you know, her eyebrows or fake or so she was.
Speaker 6: Well, the age rumor would be quite serious. That's a
Speaker 6: that's a quite serious allegation.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So so that this was like, you know,
Speaker 3: a bad mix of people that Rena got involved with,
Speaker 3: and they all sort of set off each other and
Speaker 3: and the three girls and then there was a force.
Speaker 3: Basically they you know, they set up a plan to
Speaker 3: ben Aprina and lured her out, and then they invited
Speaker 3: a couple of other girls that were known for for fighting,
Speaker 3: one girl with a kickbox champion and well and uh
Speaker 3: so they they called around a lot of these girls
Speaker 3: didn't didn't take up the offer, you know, but they
Speaker 3: it was a very organized payback that they were planning.
Speaker 6: Now what happens in your book? There is an interesting
Speaker 6: development that happens, Elaine Bell. You call it the conversation
Speaker 6: her mother and if the mother heard there was some
Speaker 6: talk about killing someone or killing Rena. Right, tell us
Speaker 6: about when that conversation happened, and what happened in that
Speaker 6: conversation and what did Elaine bell Do as a result
Speaker 6: of that conversation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a pretty stunning thing that there was
Speaker 3: a day that you know, Justine was came home from
Speaker 3: the group home and went home to her mom and said,
Speaker 3: I feel sick, and you know, she was not going
Speaker 3: to school and was lying on the sofa and her
Speaker 3: mother overheard her calling Kelly and talking about ways to
Speaker 3: kill somebody. Let's dig a grave.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think her mother, you know, was just hearing the
Speaker 3: one side of the conversation and her daughter was laughing
Speaker 3: and let's dig a grave. Oh I couldn't do that.
Speaker 3: And there was a lot of talk about burying her
Speaker 3: and covering her with leaves and giggling, and so you
Speaker 3: would think that most mothers would you know, be stunned
Speaker 3: and asked their daughter and give them a talking to.
Speaker 3: And she just kind of took her daughter shopping after
Speaker 3: that for some clothes.
Speaker 6: As well as therapy. I mean, how did she ignore it?
Speaker 6: How did she ignore it? She just thought, well, maybe
Speaker 6: a good a good shopping spree will help that kind of.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think a recurrent thing with all these
Speaker 3: parents that I witnessed and spoke to is just you
Speaker 3: don't know, if it's indifference or denial, but they just
Speaker 3: did not deal with their kids really violence.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, now you you mentioned you touched on
Speaker 8: the aids, So was that that was the that was
Speaker 8: the turning point was apparently that Rena had called and
Speaker 8: said that Josephine had aids.
Speaker 7: Right, That's that's what happened.
Speaker 3: I think that was one of them. I think, you know,
Speaker 3: and she had the jacket of Dusky's boyfriend. And then
Speaker 3: there was a boy, an older boy in town that
Speaker 3: these girls liked, and she had started calling him and
Speaker 3: asking him out on dates, and and she.
Speaker 7: Had called Warren G.
Speaker 6: She had called Warren G as well, hadn't she And
Speaker 6: he didn't know who it was.
Speaker 3: No, that was she called a different boy named Colin, Yeah, Colin,
Speaker 3: and he didn't know. And so he realized, you know,
Speaker 3: she got number from Nicole, I mean sorry, from Josephine.
Speaker 3: So he was a he was angry. So it was
Speaker 3: just you know, a general Yeah, they were just angry
Speaker 3: about all these things. Yeah, it was an escalating anger.
Speaker 6: No, I know, you'll probably never know and no one
Speaker 6: will know. But what wasn't Rina Urk's mind? I mean,
Speaker 6: she wants to fit in.
Speaker 5: Is she.
Speaker 6: She's not this clue, she's not this naive to realize
Speaker 6: that this is not going to work. So do you
Speaker 6: have any indication of what was going on in her mind?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I say, all
Speaker 3: I can think, you know, she's not she's sort of
Speaker 3: the missing person we can't hear from or nobody knows
Speaker 3: what her experience was. And but I I think that
Speaker 3: maybe she thought, you know, these girls weren't that friendly
Speaker 3: to her. She tried to be friends with them, and
Speaker 3: maybe she just thought, I'll show them, you know, I
Speaker 3: can be as tough and mean as they can. You know,
Speaker 3: that would be my guess.
Speaker 6: But then why would she go to the party so unsuspecting?
Speaker 6: I mean, these girls are trying to be gangsters. So again,
Speaker 6: and then nothing in the book indicates that they were
Speaker 6: really too clever, you know, I mean really, you know,
Speaker 6: I mean, they're young, and they're they're not experienced, thank god.
Speaker 7: I mean, But so the thing.
Speaker 6: Is, is is there any indication that she had any
Speaker 6: doubt at all, any trepidation whatsoever about all of a
Speaker 6: sudden being included in a party. Is there any trepidation
Speaker 6: at any point?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think there was. I mean I think she had.
Speaker 3: She said on the phone, you know, I heard you
Speaker 3: wanted to kick my ass and they said no, no,
Speaker 3: but we're not mad anymore and we forgive you. And
Speaker 3: I think she just had such a longing for that
Speaker 3: to be true and just thought that you knew, and
Speaker 3: when you're a teenage girl, you know that desire. I
Speaker 3: just remember, there's a party and you just have such
Speaker 3: a pull to be there and to be part of something.
Speaker 6: It's so yeah. Now, tell us about that faithful night
Speaker 6: of November seventeenth, and if you could go back, maybe
Speaker 6: tell us about the day of November seventeenth, the last
Speaker 6: day of Riena Burke's young life. What did she do
Speaker 6: that day? You know, she was going to that party,
Speaker 6: and she knew that obviously she knew how this party
Speaker 6: just before the day before.
Speaker 7: I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: Now, I think she went back home, actually to see
Speaker 3: her parents. She was living somewhere else, but she she
Speaker 3: came back home. I think she was going to spend
Speaker 3: the night with her parents. So she had a knapsack
Speaker 3: with her diary and her pajamas, and then her plan
Speaker 3: was to you the next day. She was very close
Speaker 3: to her uncle and he was going to pick her
Speaker 3: up and they were going to go shopping for a
Speaker 3: teddy bear for I think it was, you know, something
Speaker 3: in her family had recently had a baby, and so
Speaker 3: she even she just had a typical day and then
Speaker 3: she came home with her family. She was having soup
Speaker 3: at dinner time. I think she told her family she
Speaker 3: was dieting, and her brother was there. She had a
Speaker 3: younger brother that she was close to, and they were
Speaker 3: going to just play games that evening. So it was
Speaker 3: you know, a tyfficulty and kind of hopeful in the
Speaker 3: sense that she was with her parents and having time
Speaker 3: with her family and had to play on the next
Speaker 3: day to go shopping with her uncle. So she you know,
Speaker 3: there was nothing really unusual for her that day.
Speaker 6: Now, what happened that night? Where did her faithful night start?
Speaker 6: What time was it earlier in the evening?
Speaker 7: What happened?
Speaker 6: Let us take our audience through this event, all.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, at the school, and this was pretty typical
Speaker 3: when I grew up in that community, to you that
Speaker 3: there were parties, kids would party. I mean I didn't
Speaker 3: quite do it that young, but these kids were fourteen
Speaker 3: and thirteen and fifteen, but there were parties on the field.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you guys do that. So that's
Speaker 3: a large space. Yeah, So the kids get there and
Speaker 3: pour their alcohol into their lemonade, you know, models or whatever.
Speaker 3: So that was what they did every Friday night at
Speaker 3: the school Shoreline. Shoreline was the school that none of
Speaker 3: these Brena Kelly went to, but Reena didn't go to.
Speaker 3: Uh I say, Josephina been kicked out of don't think
Speaker 3: Dusty was in school either. So Kelly was in the
Speaker 3: process of being kicked out and they had actually brought
Speaker 3: her in for anchor management classes and you know, she
Speaker 3: was about to be kicked out, and Warren went there
Speaker 3: and then in Warren's group with a whole completely different
Speaker 3: group of girls who are much more you know, not
Speaker 3: I would say, the kind of cheerleader group, though they
Speaker 3: didn't have cheerleaders off the school, but they were the
Speaker 3: more pretty fun loving, you know girls. They weren't criminal
Speaker 3: and they weren't in this gangster a thing. So it
Speaker 3: it was just this huge group of students, you know,
Speaker 3: fifty to sixty students and that was where so they
Speaker 3: were there partying. What happened was that group somebody at
Speaker 3: the school at the party threw a rock through the
Speaker 3: window and of the school janitor called the police. So
Speaker 3: the kids all took off and as they did that,
Speaker 3: they joined forces with this other group of kids, which
Speaker 3: included Arena and Josephine and Kelly, and so all this
Speaker 3: whole large group kind of got thrown into this plot
Speaker 3: that they had nothing new, didn't have any idea about.
Speaker 3: So all the kids made their way away from the
Speaker 3: school where they thought the police were coming, and there
Speaker 3: was an area under a bridge, so some of the
Speaker 3: kids went under there and as planned, and you know,
Speaker 3: once they were under there, then that's when Josephine and
Speaker 3: Kelly started and Dusty started beating up Rina and it
Speaker 3: was pretty pretty vicious. And then these other kids from
Speaker 3: Shoreline who were there, some of them jumped in, including
Speaker 3: Warren who really didn't know any of these girls and
Speaker 3: didn't know anything about the fight to other girls that
Speaker 3: you know, it was just this moment of kind of
Speaker 3: I describe it like these matches and someone little Matt
Speaker 3: and the fire went off and this rage of these
Speaker 3: kids came out, and then Rena was there. A lot
Speaker 3: of the other girls especially were kind of horrified and
Speaker 3: ran away and including a lot of Warren's friends. And
Speaker 3: so that was how it started. That was a very
Speaker 3: unlikely incident in that, you know, this sort of criminal
Speaker 3: plot brought in and gathered in all these.
Speaker 6: Other kids who hit her first?
Speaker 7: Was it was it Joseph and then.
Speaker 3: Well Josephine put a cigarette out on her face, okay,
Speaker 3: and then and then what happened to and then Kelly
Speaker 3: started to push She tried to get away, and Kelly
Speaker 3: punched her, and then another girl tripped her and she fell,
Speaker 3: and she kept trying to get away, and they just
Speaker 3: kept pushing her and punching her, and then Warren kicked her.
Speaker 6: Were they stopping stomping her and kicking her as well?
Speaker 7: In the end?
Speaker 3: I don't think they were stomping her now, but they were,
Speaker 3: you know, one girl would kick her and punch her
Speaker 3: in the back of the head, and Warren would kick her,
Speaker 3: and she would try to leave and she you know,
Speaker 3: and then one the kickboxer girl actually said she's had
Speaker 3: enough stop it, and everybody stopped and they left her
Speaker 3: kind of down there in the mud.
Speaker 6: Okay, how many people were around at that time? You
Speaker 6: say there was the kickboxer, which is Warren's friend and
Speaker 6: another girl. And so there's Dusty, Kelly, Josephine, Rena Warren
Speaker 6: my correct.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's another girl called Eve and another girl called
Speaker 3: Maya who and another one other girl. So there were
Speaker 3: eight eight kids in the in the fight, you know,
Speaker 3: in the sort of immediate circle fight, and then you know,
Speaker 3: ten to fifteen kids witnessing it and watching it.
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Speaker 3: Who were doing nothing?
Speaker 5: Okay?
Speaker 6: And so when they left her in the mud, how
Speaker 6: many people left?
Speaker 7: Because this doesn't end, so.
Speaker 6: How many people?
Speaker 3: Ostensibly they all left and then that's kind of where
Speaker 3: the mystery begins, because they all left a lot of
Speaker 3: them had curfews, their parents were coming to pick them up.
Speaker 3: And you know, everybody witnessed this leaving a lot of parents,
Speaker 3: saw the kids getting into cars, and a lot of
Speaker 3: kids will last they saw Arena she was down there.
Speaker 3: And then a few kids finally admitted they saw Rina
Speaker 3: get up and by herself, which must have been horrifying
Speaker 3: for her. She was bleeding and sort of stumbling, and
Speaker 3: she started to walk across this bridge to go back home.
Speaker 3: And then there were two two figures seen following her
Speaker 3: and that would you know, turn out to be or
Speaker 3: you know, the police theory was that those figures are
Speaker 3: warning Kelly and that and then she was also so
Speaker 3: they were seen following her across the bridge and then
Speaker 3: later that night they were seen coming back across the
Speaker 3: bridge by themselves without rerena.
Speaker 7: How did she ultimately die?
Speaker 3: And she was found drowned in a body of water
Speaker 3: called the Gorge, and she had sustained huge injuries. They
Speaker 3: the corner described it to, you know, injuries that you
Speaker 3: see in some run over by a car, and her
Speaker 3: organs were crushed. And but but she the official cause
Speaker 3: of death was drowning.
Speaker 6: She was so obviously there was far more damage than
Speaker 6: was initially inflicted. And also wasn't wasn't she was half naked,
Speaker 6: that was she was described as being found half naked
Speaker 6: as well.
Speaker 3: So yeah, she I think what happened was, you know,
Speaker 3: when nobody knows, but when they dragged her into the water,
Speaker 3: her pants fell off, and I think her sure, you know,
Speaker 3: probably just floated off in the water.
Speaker 7: I see, I got it. Okay.
Speaker 6: So there was never any there was never any talk
Speaker 6: of sexual abuse or anything, a sexual assault or anything
Speaker 6: like that. Okay, Okay, so well thank god for that anyway. Okay, Now,
Speaker 6: so so now obviously we have you've alluded that obviously
Speaker 6: no one really knows, and so we're we're obviously going
Speaker 6: to get to eventually to a trial. But after this
Speaker 6: has happened, all the people have left. Give us what
Speaker 6: has happened in what happens after? Obviously Rina's parents have
Speaker 6: called police, and initially they just think, well maybe because
Speaker 6: she's a runaway, Well, well what happens? Give us some
Speaker 6: events after that, because it's very interesting what happens after
Speaker 6: all those witnesses? Does anybody call police?
Speaker 7: What happens?
Speaker 3: And that's where the story gets really, you know, fascinating,
Speaker 3: is that here are all these kids, I mean, fifteen
Speaker 3: to twenty kids had witnessed the fight, which you think
Speaker 3: alone would have been would have been brutal enough. But
Speaker 3: then the kids were all hearing rumors that the you know,
Speaker 3: the fight to turn into a murder and that somebody
Speaker 3: had got had got killed. But nobody talked to the police.
Speaker 3: Nobody even talked to their parents about the fight. Well,
Speaker 3: nobody talked to a teacher, and Rena's parents called the
Speaker 3: police several times and reported thing. You know, this was
Speaker 3: before the era of cell phones and and all of that,
Speaker 3: so you have to keep in mind that there it
Speaker 3: was sort of easier to to disappear as a girl,
Speaker 3: and so it was the police just thought, well, this
Speaker 3: girls just probably ran away. They didn't investigate, And meanwhile,
Speaker 3: these rumors were getting more and more rampant, more and
Speaker 3: more exaggerated. You know, there was rumored that she'd been
Speaker 3: you know, her arm had been pulled off, and these
Speaker 3: kids were just all whispering about it, and yet nobody,
Speaker 3: nobody came forward, and it was it took the police.
Speaker 3: Wasn't till a week later that arrests were made. So
Speaker 3: for seven.
Speaker 7: Days, how did they come about to make arrest? How
Speaker 7: did that? How did that come about?
Speaker 3: And that was really you know, that was one thing
Speaker 3: that I really explore and under the bridge because it
Speaker 3: was never it's never public. But there were two sisters
Speaker 3: who were living in this group home with Josephine and
Speaker 3: had both were both more or less a band, you know, orphaned,
Speaker 3: had no family and we're we're there, well, I guess
Speaker 3: one sister was there, and Josephine started bragging about this,
Speaker 3: so we killed this girl at you know, very proud,
Speaker 3: and they were sort of horrified. I think the younger
Speaker 3: sister had met had met Rena, and so even though
Speaker 3: they were not like goody goody girls, and they found
Speaker 3: against their coat to go to the police. They did
Speaker 3: go to the police. They I guess they called Rena's mom,
Speaker 3: and Rina's mom told them that Rina was missing, and
Speaker 3: she was frightened and in their words, you know, the
Speaker 3: monther sounded so upset, and so they went to the police,
Speaker 3: and the police kind of didn't last them out of there,
Speaker 3: but just for like what, you know, these two girls
Speaker 3: come in at fourteen and sixteen and tell you a
Speaker 3: bunch of girls killed another girl. So they didn't they
Speaker 3: thought it was quote far fetched and just ignored it.
Speaker 3: And then these two sisters, you know, they became kind
Speaker 3: of like detectives. They went back and they asked Josephine, like,
Speaker 3: show me where you did it. They went to the
Speaker 3: scene of the crime and she actually obviously didn't know
Speaker 3: what happened to Kelly had told her, so she tried
Speaker 3: to reenact it, but she herself didn't know much. So
Speaker 3: the sisters, you know, they got names of people. They
Speaker 3: went back to the police and sort of screamed at
Speaker 3: the police, you know, do something almost you know, I
Speaker 3: think it was really brave of them in a sense,
Speaker 3: and they gave the police the names they had. So
Speaker 3: the police did another investigation and one of the police
Speaker 3: recognized one of the names of the girls involved and
Speaker 3: had a kind of relationship with her, of friendship with her,
Speaker 3: and went and talked to her and she spilled the duanes.
Speaker 3: So then they started rounding up the kids and they
Speaker 3: had a kind of crazy night where they brought in
Speaker 3: I think like thirty to forty teenagers, and the teenagers
Speaker 3: were screaming and crying, and they started arresting people and
Speaker 3: it was like detectives had never seen anything like this.
Speaker 3: They had the cell full of these girls screaming and crying,
Speaker 3: very young and scared and so and then even then
Speaker 3: they really didn't know what had happened. It was very
Speaker 3: difficult because there were so many rumors and it was
Speaker 3: just you know, usually you find the body and then
Speaker 3: you start the investigation, and in this case, they just
Speaker 3: had this rumor from these girls that some girl name
Speaker 3: you know, have themed ton't even know her name, some
Speaker 3: girl they had her name wrong, Lisa had been killed
Speaker 3: and they had no body. So it was very they
Speaker 3: called it a very unusual investigation. Finally they went to
Speaker 3: the gorge and had divers go in and found the body.
Speaker 3: But even then, you know, they had no evidence, you know,
Speaker 3: no gun or our fingerprints. They just they had this
Speaker 3: body and all these stories of girls, and the girls
Speaker 3: were we were very loyal to each other, and none
Speaker 3: of them would talk, and if they did talk, they
Speaker 3: they told stories that didn't make sense or contradicted each other.
Speaker 6: So, right, so it was a big mess. Yeah, big
Speaker 6: mess for Sergeant Bob Wall and some of the other detectives. Now,
Speaker 6: avenge is how long did it take them to sort
Speaker 6: the whole thing out and lay the definitive chargers and
Speaker 6: identify who is going to be there, say star witness
Speaker 6: or witness for the prosecution. How long did it take
Speaker 6: them to sort of sort this out and make their
Speaker 6: to sort of for them to sort out who they
Speaker 6: thought were the principal players in this.
Speaker 3: I think once they had you know, after the eight days,
Speaker 3: once they had all the kids in custody, and they
Speaker 3: really did an incredible amount of of you know, a
Speaker 3: huge investigation. They brought in three different teams of the
Speaker 3: police and they they were interrogating kids constantly and through
Speaker 3: all hours of the night. And once once that started,
Speaker 3: I guess, you know, the first the first witness that
Speaker 3: they found to help them with Serita, who is Warren's
Speaker 3: girlfriend because he had confessed to her and she told
Speaker 3: the police about this concession and she.
Speaker 6: Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead, no say in his shirt.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which had blood on them. So that was site
Speaker 3: of their first you know, clue that's his involvement.
Speaker 6: And why I know that you talk about a trial
Speaker 6: that there's quite a bit of talk about her, I
Speaker 6: guess conflict. You know, she did like Warren, but however
Speaker 6: she didn't, you know, she had a moral code, and
Speaker 6: she did testify there was a little bit of blood
Speaker 6: on the clothes, and she did wash the clothes and
Speaker 6: everything that he did say. But you do talk about
Speaker 6: that from your research, and I guess from your interviews
Speaker 6: she really was conflicted by what she had to do.
Speaker 5: Guess yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean I saw her during the trial, his trial.
Speaker 3: She was the start minus against him, and she was
Speaker 3: very reluctant, very you know, hostile, not I would say hostile,
Speaker 3: but she did not want to be there. And they
Speaker 3: played in court her initial testimony, which was really heartbreaking
Speaker 3: because it was almost like as she told the detective
Speaker 3: what he had told her, she started to realize it
Speaker 3: was true and that her boyfriend had killed somebody, and
Speaker 3: she started crying. And she was, but she had not.
Speaker 3: He had told her that the blood was there because
Speaker 3: he got in a fight, and she just couldn't believe
Speaker 3: he was, you know, this sweet little boy that he
Speaker 3: could do that, so or she had convinced herself that
Speaker 3: it was just a bad story, in her words. So
Speaker 3: it wasn't until he was arrested and the body was
Speaker 3: found that she faced this, and then she really suffered
Speaker 3: because of that. And then the police kind of honed
Speaker 3: in on her as she was really the only one
Speaker 3: that came forward, so they wanted to build the whole
Speaker 3: case around her because I meanwhile, Kelly was clamming up
Speaker 3: with expensive lawyers and not talking. They had nothing on
Speaker 3: Kelly and Josephine, who really was the sort of perpetrator
Speaker 3: you know, wasn't there The instigator was not refused to
Speaker 3: give a statement, so they could eat more easily build
Speaker 3: a case on Warren, and so they really went after her.
Speaker 7: Okay.
Speaker 6: Now, so even though they didn't have either Kelly's or
Speaker 6: Warren's actual testimony, were they able to make a conviction
Speaker 6: at draw? Were they to looted?
Speaker 3: Well, they did get Warren did confess. They really went
Speaker 3: after him. I mean I think initially everyone believed. What
Speaker 3: was so sort of surprising even to me when I
Speaker 3: started researching, was I thought, Warren, you just hear, okay,
Speaker 3: eight girls have been arrested. You see them, I mean
Speaker 3: I saw them all. They're very just ordinary looking girls
Speaker 3: like you'd see in them all, and you there's this
Speaker 3: one boy, and you think like that it's just human
Speaker 3: nature for what we know, you know, boys and girls
Speaker 3: that you think it's the boy. So the whole sort
Speaker 3: of prosecution theory and police interrogation was really to focus
Speaker 3: on Warren and that he must have he must have
Speaker 3: done it all, and he must have been really the
Speaker 3: true killer. And then these other girls were just kind
Speaker 3: of there and you know, but they didn't actually do it.
Speaker 3: So that was that was everybody's everybody's theory. And then
Speaker 3: when you started, you know, talking to more people, you
Speaker 3: get a completely different picture of what happened. And so
Speaker 3: even Warren was pretty quick to open up and confess,
Speaker 3: and he said that his story was that he had
Speaker 3: followed her with Kelly beating her up some more, and
Speaker 3: then Kelly started dragging her into the water and he
Speaker 3: said stop, and Kelly kept doing it, and then Kelly
Speaker 3: held her head underwater until she died and that was history.
Speaker 3: And you know, people didn't believe it, but as as
Speaker 3: more evidence came forward and it was it was more
Speaker 3: or less true.
Speaker 6: So she didn't take the stand. But he he did
Speaker 6: take the stand.
Speaker 3: Well, they were tried separately. He was tried first, and
Speaker 3: it was really interesting, you know, in terms of class
Speaker 3: and you know, sex like who you know, he was
Speaker 3: tried first as the boy. He he didn't get out
Speaker 3: on bail. She got out on bail. She came from
Speaker 3: a more I don't know if her family had money
Speaker 3: or she got a high profile lawyer. His lawyer had
Speaker 3: never done a murder case. His lawyer told him to
Speaker 3: have a trial with judge only, so he didn't have
Speaker 3: a jerry trial. He was tried very quickly, and you
Speaker 3: know and somewhat to the sort of rage of the
Speaker 3: city was on him. People really wanted him not to
Speaker 3: take the fall because he was involved, but you know,
Speaker 3: so he was. He did take the stand, He did
Speaker 3: tell the story, but it was sort of you know,
Speaker 3: laughed at and mocked and and then he was sent
Speaker 3: to maximum security prison. When he was you know, it
Speaker 3: was five ft two, sixteen year old boy I Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: she Telly was out on bail. Her lawyers kept citing,
Speaker 3: you know, trying to appeal things. She didn't go to
Speaker 3: trial for almost a year, and then she took the
Speaker 3: sand and she looked very school girl and spoke in
Speaker 3: a sweet, you know, high voice, and said that she
Speaker 3: hadn't been there, She hadn't done anything. These were just
Speaker 3: rumors that people spread about her. And you know, they
Speaker 3: had one teeth and evidence on her which was quite strong,
Speaker 3: which was her coat had salt stains on it that
Speaker 3: matched the assault in the in the gorge where Arena's
Speaker 3: body was found. That wasn't admitted in her first trial,
Speaker 3: her statement, her interview, even though she didn't say anything,
Speaker 3: you sort of watching it can see that she's guilty
Speaker 3: just by the way she's fudging and the police leave
Speaker 3: the room and she starts screaming and swearing and saying,
Speaker 3: I'm going to kill whoever told on me. And so
Speaker 3: you know there was that also wasn't admitted. So in
Speaker 3: her first trial she was still stung guilty, but then
Speaker 3: it was overturned and she was also on house arrest
Speaker 3: all year her trial. So then you knows, as the
Speaker 3: book explorers then she had a second and third trial,
Speaker 3: which is pretty unprecedented.
Speaker 6: Yes, yes, so what was what was the reason for
Speaker 6: the first and second and third? What was why were
Speaker 6: they why was she needing another trial?
Speaker 7: What was the issue?
Speaker 3: And the first trial they appealed her lawyers and said
Speaker 3: she was questioned improperly on the stand. I guess the
Speaker 3: prosecution asked her. You know, her story was, I didn't
Speaker 3: I didn't do this, and all these girls I just
Speaker 3: heard about this. All these girls started saying this about me,
Speaker 3: and you know, the prosecution, I mean, the defense can say, well,
Speaker 3: you know how girls are, and they pick on one
Speaker 3: girl and start these rumors. So so that was her defense.
Speaker 3: And then the prosecution asked her what reason would why
Speaker 3: would they do this? Why would all these people, you know,
Speaker 3: all these witnesses that have come forward, who apparently you confess,
Speaker 3: do because she did brag to a lot of people
Speaker 3: that she killed Rena. Why would they all make this up?
Speaker 3: And she said I don't know, And I guess that
Speaker 3: was considered. You can't ask, you can't.
Speaker 6: Yeah, what somebody else said, say, okay, you can only
Speaker 6: ask it defended what they had to say. Now what
Speaker 6: someone else I Hear'Say, is that what I'm getting.
Speaker 7: Out of it?
Speaker 3: Or try to explain their motive. It's like an untair
Speaker 3: burden on them.
Speaker 8: To try to say, you know, okay, so so what happened?
Speaker 5: Trial?
Speaker 7: So what happened?
Speaker 6: And then they had to have a third trial.
Speaker 3: So there was a second trial where she really kind
Speaker 3: of showed her true colors for the first time. She
Speaker 3: had a very good female prosecutor kind of went after
Speaker 3: her because her story really didn't make any sense. You know,
Speaker 3: she she it just she said she walked around and
Speaker 3: there was no witnesses, and she was seen on the
Speaker 3: you know, she was seen coming back across the bridge
Speaker 3: and confessed even that night to someone who fum into her.
Speaker 3: I just killed somebody. What should I do? So her
Speaker 3: story of where she'd been and what she'd done, she
Speaker 3: had no alibi or it just didn't make any sense.
Speaker 3: So as they pushed her, she started screaming at the prosecutor,
Speaker 3: you know, shut up, leave me alone. And we also
Speaker 3: saw this violent girl, and you saw somebody that that
Speaker 3: had this explosive rage. So it seemed pretty certain that
Speaker 3: as well as you know, they had quite a good
Speaker 3: case against her, that she would be convicted that it
Speaker 3: was a hung jury, So that mistrial.
Speaker 6: Interesting, So what did she finally get in the third trial?
Speaker 7: What was she convicted of?
Speaker 3: Finally she's convicted of secondary murder and have a life sentence.
Speaker 3: She's elgible for parole. But she only began. They appealed
Speaker 3: also that conviction and they won. It was overturned her
Speaker 3: third conviction, and then the prosecution took her to the
Speaker 3: Supreme Court who upheld it. So she's really been like dragging,
Speaker 3: it's been dragging out forever. So interestingly, Warren through all this,
Speaker 3: you know, he went to jail right away and served
Speaker 3: his time. He never appealed to her asy trials to that,
Speaker 3: and he I think he appealed the first the first
Speaker 3: conviction that it was kind of cursory and not very
Speaker 3: serious and not you know, didn't go to any higher court.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 3: So but he's he's out of prison.
Speaker 6: Now, how many years did he actually spend physically in prison?
Speaker 3: I guess I thirteen years?
Speaker 7: Thirteen years.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know what's interesting to me, you know, and
Speaker 6: I know I understand Canadian law pretty well, and it
Speaker 6: is very very unusual for a person not to get
Speaker 6: out on bail.
Speaker 7: Regardles.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I know it's a murder trial, but he's not
Speaker 6: a flight risk.
Speaker 7: And he's quite young.
Speaker 6: That's a pretty poor defense lawyer. They cannot because I mean,
Speaker 6: in some cases people want to spend the double time
Speaker 6: credit because they're pretty certain they're going to be convicted.
Speaker 6: And in particular case, with a young man.
Speaker 3: Like that, he had he had no family there, so geez,
Speaker 3: there is just nobody too, you know.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's quite unfair for sure.
Speaker 6: I mean I don't feel sorry for killers too often
Speaker 6: or people involved in these types of things. But there's
Speaker 6: obviously a little uh obviously you pointed out there's quite
Speaker 6: a difference in the defense that those two people could
Speaker 6: afford or had regardless, right, Well, she.
Speaker 3: Had, you know, exceptional lawyer, just incredible lawyers. It was
Speaker 3: also a really hard case to try because there was
Speaker 3: no physical evidence except for that code. But mostly you
Speaker 3: had all these teenagers stories, and the teenagers were not
Speaker 3: the most you know, articulate witnesses. They were like teenagers.
Speaker 3: They were surly and and in that attitude and were
Speaker 3: you know, contradictory or couldn't you know if they lied
Speaker 3: originally they and now were telling the truth. They couldn't
Speaker 3: explain that they would get defenses. So it was almost
Speaker 3: comical at times watching these these kids come up because
Speaker 3: they were you know, every word was like and they
Speaker 3: were fantastic, and yeah, so it was hard. And also
Speaker 3: I think there really was this perception that a girl
Speaker 3: was not capable of physical violence and at this level,
Speaker 3: and that really worked in her favor, whether people consciously
Speaker 3: think that or you know, it's it was definitely there.
Speaker 3: It's just easier, or it's just it's just we've seen
Speaker 3: so many murders of these forty year old, creepy looking guys.
Speaker 3: When you see a pretty girl who's who's five foot two,
Speaker 3: it defies belief that she could do this.
Speaker 6: Well sure, And and I think the thing is when
Speaker 6: you have good representation and the law advises you wisely
Speaker 6: to dress a certain way and have your hair a
Speaker 6: certain way and present yourself a certain way, and then
Speaker 6: he does his job and presenting you a certain way,
Speaker 6: then yeah, I mean, I think historically men are obviously
Speaker 6: more often killers, and you know, it's even unusual for
Speaker 6: a woman's serial kill. That's a very unusual thing. And
Speaker 6: you are seeing a lot of stories that are quite
Speaker 6: popular now that where kids kill, mom said kill or
Speaker 6: things like that, which is really shocking to people. I
Speaker 6: think people realize that that there's certainly the Willie Picton's
Speaker 6: around and Robert Picton's around, but the young kids is really,
Speaker 6: it really is unnerving to the public. And I think
Speaker 6: that's why this case was so high profile. It was
Speaker 6: just the difference. Like you say, nobody even told their parents.
Speaker 6: I mean it's like, I mean, you're in a little
Speaker 6: I was just in Victoria a couple of years ago.
Speaker 6: It's such a beautiful paradise. I mean, really, it is
Speaker 6: the jewel of Canada. It really is to imagine something
Speaker 6: like that and kids being just as bad as they
Speaker 6: are here in crime capital of Canada, Winnipeg or anywhere else.
Speaker 6: It is unnerving to people because I think really that
Speaker 6: you always hear that, oh in my neighborhood, how unusual.
Speaker 6: It's Victoria. What is the most if you were if
Speaker 6: if you were to ask people, this is the place
Speaker 6: this is least likely to happen. I think that's why
Speaker 6: the whole community in the country was so unnerved.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. I mean they really do call it paradise.
Speaker 3: It looks you know, that's what people think it's you.
Speaker 6: So is there any conclusions you have, any commentary you
Speaker 6: have from What did you have you learned from this
Speaker 6: whole process, with the court process, and did you agree
Speaker 6: with the verdict? Tell us a little just a little
Speaker 6: bit about what you got from this other than this
Speaker 6: fine book, But what did you get out of it?
Speaker 6: What are your kind of conclusions or some of the
Speaker 6: things that you came to that you would not have
Speaker 6: come to had you not done this entire process.
Speaker 3: In this case, I guess I think the stories are
Speaker 3: so much more complex than we see in the media.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is just in the media. Was this
Speaker 3: murder story and misfit killed like gang girls. And what
Speaker 3: I really tried to do in the book was show
Speaker 3: the complexity of this story and the sort of you know,
Speaker 3: there is pure evil. We like to think that that's
Speaker 3: what causes the murder, but there's also you know, good
Speaker 3: people who get caught up in these things, who are
Speaker 3: then faced with these moral conflicts between right and wrong.
Speaker 3: And then so many people acted really bravely like those sisters,
Speaker 3: and that you wouldn't expect they were quote criminals. And
Speaker 3: then you have these parents who are quote good parents
Speaker 3: who ignore their the signs of their kids being cruel
Speaker 3: or believes. And so I think, you know, whenever we
Speaker 3: see these stories in the yeah, we kind of want
Speaker 3: to just think, oh, these are these are bad people,
Speaker 3: and it's it's so much more complicated. At least this
Speaker 3: case was so much more layered and more fascinating and
Speaker 3: sort of the people and how they ended up here.
Speaker 3: There was a long history for each of them, what
Speaker 3: brought them to this place. And I remember Rieing his
Speaker 3: uncle saying like, if you could just find out how
Speaker 3: they all met and even the stories of how all
Speaker 3: these girls their lives crossed and how they drew them
Speaker 3: to this place. And I think with Warren that he
Speaker 3: really turned his life around, and I mean became somebody
Speaker 3: who worked, you could have just become hardened, and did
Speaker 3: heer and he worked in prison to kind of become
Speaker 3: a better person. He ultimately met with the Urk family
Speaker 3: and how to and spoke with them and and you know,
Speaker 3: really was they just changed for the better in very
Speaker 3: difficult situation. And so and yet and then Kelly, you see,
Speaker 3: is somebody who really has had no remorse. So I
Speaker 3: think just the complexity of people and the different ways
Speaker 3: that we all act when we are faced with something
Speaker 3: like this, you know, how do how do how does
Speaker 3: a parent act when they find out their daughter is
Speaker 3: talking about beating up somebody? And how does the girl
Speaker 3: trying to act right? How does a girlfriend act when
Speaker 3: her boyfriend may have done something terrible? And so these
Speaker 3: sort of moral conflicts that people face. What does a
Speaker 3: detective do when a you know, some girl tells him
Speaker 3: about something and he sort of scoffs at it and
Speaker 3: then later realizes who was wrong. So that was you know,
Speaker 3: all the human stories that are in one night that
Speaker 3: you can unfold in terms of like social issues. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm not really people ask me that a lot. That's
Speaker 3: the most common question, like what can we learn from this?
Speaker 3: And that was never my approach and not as you know,
Speaker 3: I wasn't writing.
Speaker 6: It from the kind of well you can't be expected
Speaker 6: to do it anyway.
Speaker 3: I mean psychologists, But yeah, but I did. I was
Speaker 3: sort of struck by how many of these young teenagers
Speaker 3: had nothing fucilling in their life, you know know, whether
Speaker 3: it was music or sports or something that they could
Speaker 3: find a purpose with, and that they really they didn't
Speaker 3: have good education, they didn't have good parents. They didn't,
Speaker 3: so they sort of drifted into this identity of being gangsters,
Speaker 3: or they were more affected by popular culture that became
Speaker 3: kind of what influenced them, because they were just sort
Speaker 3: of emptiness. I think if those kids had been exposed
Speaker 3: to art or sports, had just been given more attention,
Speaker 3: this wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 6: Well, I mean, the thing is I always hear that
Speaker 6: in Canada, but I never hear that in America. The
Speaker 6: thing is more rex space for killers, potential killers. I
Speaker 6: personally think if you have the capacity to kill, it's
Speaker 6: a very unusual thing. I know that there's this phenomena
Speaker 6: of the mob mentality, or not even a mob mentality,
Speaker 6: just sort of like you said, people just jump in
Speaker 6: there and then didn't do anything, and then didn't do
Speaker 6: anything proper after that as a result, didn't have a
Speaker 6: conscience either.
Speaker 7: So you can see that a.
Speaker 6: Lot of people don't really care so much. But those
Speaker 6: people that are capable of doing this horrendous, horrific murder,
Speaker 6: that is unusual. And so I say, yeah, maybe those
Speaker 6: other people, yeah, idle hands, but I don't know a
Speaker 6: couple of psychopathic people maybe, like you say, Warren G.
Speaker 6: But at least one of these people in this book,
Speaker 6: to me, I have no redeeming value.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think Kelly was, you know, had all
Speaker 3: the marks of a psychopath and not sense and you know,
Speaker 3: those those people, and I'm not where the parents and
Speaker 3: they don't start to react to the signs in their
Speaker 3: child or that their child is harming because she had
Speaker 3: hurt other people before. And so I think that's you know,
Speaker 3: it's surprising to me that a parent when intervened earlier
Speaker 3: with their child.
Speaker 6: Sure, you know what, I just thought. We're just going
Speaker 6: to wrap it up now and just want to let
Speaker 6: people know where they can get the book obviously from
Speaker 6: Amazon and Barnes and Noble in chapters and everywhere else.
Speaker 7: But we'll just give a little bit of information.
Speaker 6: What I just thought was interesting in your book was
Speaker 6: that you did a follow up and so Josephine Bell
Speaker 6: was a new dancer in Sirita as for the story
Speaker 6: is speaking to girls about not getting into the kind
Speaker 6: of pitfalls that she almost got into.
Speaker 7: Yeah, kind of interesting in your book.
Speaker 6: Yeah, because Josephine Bell is one cocky person, that's for sure.
Speaker 6: And you know what's really I got to tell the
Speaker 6: audience that what's really unusual, or you know, because I
Speaker 6: read a lot of true crime and I've interviewed all
Speaker 6: these people, is that you've done a great job of
Speaker 6: really getting down to everyone's level by including so many
Speaker 6: exclusive conversations and so the way these people are speaking,
Speaker 6: you really tried to get into their minds, into their
Speaker 6: mindset to try to understand this.
Speaker 7: I mean, who can.
Speaker 6: But you've done a remarkable job in capturing that and
Speaker 6: through the conversations.
Speaker 7: That you have been able.
Speaker 6: To get in this book.
Speaker 7: So it's quite good.
Speaker 6: So I want to tell you also, I want to
Speaker 6: tell our audience that you've been listening to Rebecca Godfrey
Speaker 6: and this is her book Under the Bridge, the True
Speaker 6: Story of the Murder of Rena Vik and it's the
Speaker 6: two thousand and six British Columbia Award for Canadian Nonfiction.
Speaker 7: Well deserved.
Speaker 6: And so tell us about if you have a website
Speaker 6: or any other contact information or what you're doing right
Speaker 6: now of any new projects in the true crime genre.
Speaker 3: I do have a website, and I, you know, wasn't
Speaker 3: the true crime writer. I was a novelist and wrote
Speaker 3: this and I was quite you know, I spent a
Speaker 3: long seven years and it took me a long time
Speaker 3: to get these kids to talk, and it was quite
Speaker 3: distressing in a hard books. Right, So I'm gone, doct
Speaker 3: I'm right, we're here on fiction now.
Speaker 6: I don't believe at all.
Speaker 7: Yeah, because it's just such an ordeal.
Speaker 6: It's like you can these people in America turning on
Speaker 6: one of these one one a year.
Speaker 7: I'm going, really right.
Speaker 3: I don't know how people do it, but yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean you can if you want to do it quickly.
Speaker 3: I really wanted to, like you say, get all their
Speaker 3: voices and thoughts and yeah, and have a really deep
Speaker 3: look into their lives, not just like take the police
Speaker 3: report and summarize it.
Speaker 6: So absolutely, yeah, you've done a great job. And so yes,
Speaker 6: So anyway you've got the website, can give us the website.
Speaker 7: This is Rebecca.
Speaker 6: Godfree dot com.
Speaker 3: Yet there we.
Speaker 6: Go, and that's Godfree. If people don't see these, uh,
Speaker 6: it's good. F R E Y Rebecca Godfrey. Under the
Speaker 6: Bridge The True Story of the Murder of Rena K.
Speaker 6: Thank you very much Rebecca for coming onto the program.
Speaker 6: And then during the mix up with our Canadian MLS telephone.
Speaker 7: Service, that's who it was.
Speaker 6: They're to blame so well. Thank you very much for
Speaker 6: coming on and doing this interview. It was very very
Speaker 6: informative and I want to thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Thank you Dan.
Speaker 6: Well, you have a good night, and will and I
Speaker 6: will talk to you soon and good luck with all
Speaker 6: your ventures.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Okay, good night bye.
Speaker 6: You've been listening to the program True Murder, the most
Speaker 6: shocking killers in true crime History, with your host Dan Supansky.
Speaker 6: Have a good evening, Good night,