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Nov. 10, 2006
Deconstruction of a murder
Author paints a detailed portrait of teens involved in Virk death.
BAILA LAZARUS
On the day after I interviewed Rebecca Godfrey about her book on
the murder of Reena Virk, Surrey teenager Michael Levy was at a
party when he was struck viciously in the back of the head with
a hatchet. He is 18 and, most likely, will never walk again. His
assailants were also teenagers.
The irony was not lost on me that it was a similar type of crime
that drew Godfrey back home to Victoria seven years ago.
Godfrey had been studying and then living as an author in New York
in November 1997 when Virk was swarmed by a mob of teenagers and
eventually drowned in a Victoria suburb. It took years before all
the details of the crime came out and before the killer, Kelly Ellard,
even got to trial. By then, Godfrey was working on her first novel,
The Torn Skirt, which dealt with teen violence, and she headed
to the juvenile detention centre in Victoria to do some interviews.
"When I was there, I saw some of the girls who had just been
arrested [for the Virk murder] and everyone was talking about it,"
Godfrey told the Independent in an interview from New York.
"As soon as I saw the girls involved, I thought it was worth
investigating because they weren't talking to anybody and it seemed
like there was a sort of secret, hidden story."
She knew the complexity of the situation demanded more than a magazine
article and was able to get a book contract in 1999. She then started
to put together the narrative, fragment by fragment, memory by memory.
Under the Bridge: The True Story of the Murder of Reena Virk
was published last year.
"What surprised me was how typically teenager it all started,
going to parties like they always did, getting angry over the silly
things girls get angry over, and how it all spiralled into this
awful, tragic event," she observed. "And it brought in
a lot of people. It's a classic tragedy because it started with
one or two people and it engulfed these dozens of people.
"It wasn't a gang killing, it wasn't a psychopath on the loose;
it was these girls upset because someone kissed their boyfriend."
The more Godfrey learned about the story, the more she wanted to
write about it.
"I was always really interested in mysteries and books that
are reporting about social issues or struggles," she said.
"I thought it would give me the opportunity to [write] a mystery
story, but I thought it also revealed a lot about how we treat abandoned
kids. It explored a lot of larger issues beyond the crime."
Godfrey's position as an author put her at a bit of an advantage.
She wasn't from law enforcement, nor was she a journalist, and she
had had experience talking to teens, so she managed to get people
to open up and reveal their feelings almost every step of the way.
"Once I had won the trust of someone, their friends would talk
to me," Godfrey explained. "They knew it would be a book,
they knew it would be a story, and a lot of them had felt misrepresented
in the media. They wanted someone they felt wasn't going to judge
them."
Godfrey had access to police files, which gave her a comprehensive
understanding of how the whole case unfolded, but she was also able
to gain access to many of the characters involved, included the
two main accused – Warren Glowatski and Ellard. And even beyond
her talent for making her subjects feel at ease is her ability to
ask the delving questions that explore what's in people's heads.
The details with which she recreates the scenes leading up to the
murder and afterwards are so meticulous, there are times you forget
you're not reading a novel.
"I would have them take me to a scene, for example – I
would say, 'When you were underwater looking for the body, what
were you thinking?'...That wasn't made up," said Godfrey. "I
knew that I wanted to write about scenes. In order to make a scene,
you need a lot of detail.
"You have to get beyond what they initially say. It takes a
lot of time for those details to come out, especially with adults.
Kids were more comfortable with me."
Of course, Godfrey couldn't get access to everyone she wanted, or
for as much time as she needed. She wasn't able to talk to Ellard
as much as she would have liked, for example, because her case was
so often under appeal. Rather than dwell on this hurdle, however,
Godfrey smartly weaves the story around those people to whom she
had access.
"The people I became interested in and I felt were willing
and honest, I centred the book around," she said. "I sort
of chose the story based on who was the most credible."
The hardest interviews, she noted, were those done with the victim's
family.
"You feel you don't want to be adding to their pain, but [the
Virks] were always very gracious and articulate," said Godfrey.
"The grandparents couldn't have been kinder. That made the
book easier to write."
Overall, Godfrey doesn't seem to have come away with bitterness
or negativity from the experience. In fact, she is able to see a
silver lining in the dark cloud of violence.
"I was always interested in the goodness that came out of it,"
she said. "Who would have courage and moral strength?"
Unfortunately, in the immediate aftermath of the murder, at least,
not many people did.
Godfrey will read from her book as part of the Cherie Smith JCC
Jewish Book Festival, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 12:30 p.m., at the Jewish
Community Centre of Greater Vancouver.
Baila Lazarus is a freelance writer, photographer and
illustrator living in Vancouver. Her work can be seen at www.orchiddesigns.net.
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