Killer Ellard allowed escorted trips with baby
Parole board will allow four excursions a month for her and baby in community I am not made of glass. I am not as breakable as everybody thinks.
Notorious killer Kelly Ellard will be allowed to take her young son to appointments and activities in the community, the Parole Board of Canada decided Monday.
Board members Alex Dantzer and Jim Hart said that while Ellard continues to minimize her role in the 1997 murder of teenager Reena Virk, she has taken responsibility and her risk in the community can be managed.
Dantzer read a summary of the board’s brief decision after about five minutes of deliberations.
He said Ellard’s behaviour in prison has been good for years and that her community management team believed the “escorted temporary absences” would be beneficial for both Ellard and her young son, who was born about four months ago. He said Ellard was clearly remorseful for the vicious beating and drowning of Virk under a Victoria bridge when Virk was just 14 and Ellard was 15.
“It would be hard to exaggerate the nature and brutality of the in- dex offence,” Dantzer said, calling it “very, very disturbing.”
But he noted the progress Ellard has made by taking special programs and counselling. She is now considered a low risk to reoffend.
“There hasn’t been any violence for many, many years,” Dantzer said.
Ellard will be allowed to leave the Fraser Valley Institution with Correctional Service Canada staff or approved volunteers up to four times a month for up to four hours each time over the next three months. She will take her baby to medical appointments and other activities to socialize her son.
Last month, two other board members were split on whether Ellard should be granted the trips, leading to a second hearing Monday to resolve the issue.
Ellard assured the board that she didn’t get pregnant on purpose and was not trying to use her child to get special privileges.
When she found out she was pregnant after a conjugal visit with her criminal boyfriend, “I was in shock and I was very scared,” Ellard said. “I chose to keep the child. It was a very hard decision.”
Dantzer asked her about her relationship with the baby’s father, who has now been returned to prison after violating his parole conditions.
While he wasn’t identified Monday, Postmedia earlier revealed he is a gang associate named Darwin Dorozan.
Ellard said Monday that if the new allegations against her “partner” prove to be true, she will sever ties with him.
“I have no choice but to do my own thing and do the best thing for my child,” she said.
The board members heard that Ellard had been on more than 100 temporary absences without incident before Correctional Service Canada rules changed in 2015.
Dantzer asked to recount the night she and other teens attacked and killed Virk under the Craigflower Bridge in November 1997.
She admitted she threw the first punch that night and later rolled a bloodied and unconscious Virk toward the water, where she drowned.
She continued to deny the version of events presented in court by her co-accused Warren Glowatski, who said Ellard held Virk’s head under the water.
But she told Dantzer that Virk would still be alive today if Ellard had not done what she did that night.
“I don’t blame anyone else for my actions,” she said.
She said her biggest fear is that while out in the community a member of the media will photograph her and the baby.
If that were to happen, “there is nothing I can do but ask ... to leave,” she said.
Ellard has been in prison or pretrial custody for about 15 years. In 2005, she was sentenced to life in prison with no parole eligibility for seven years. She now lives in a minimum-security unit and is part of Correctional Service Canada’s mother-and-child program.
Ellard was denied day parole last May, but said Monday she now feels ready for it.
“I am not made of glass. I am not as breakable as everybody thinks,” she said.
I am not made of glass. I am not as breakable as everybody thinks.