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Freedom denied

UPDATE: 12:05 p.m.

Convicted killer Kelly Ellard won't get the escorted releases from prison she says needs after the recent birth of her child.

Ellard was asking for the parole board's permission to leave prison for medical appointments and parenting programs, but the two board members were split on their decision Wednesday.

Ellard told the panel the birth of her baby has calmed her, and the infant was the best therapy she could have hoped for.

She was convicted of second-degree murder after being tried as an adult in the 1997 beating and drowning death of 14-year-old Reena Virk near Victoria. Virk was swarmed and beaten by a group of teenagers.

The Parole Board says another hearing will be held for Ellard at a later date.

A media report said last October that Ellard was eight-months pregnant following a conjugal visit from her boyfriend. The gender of her child was not mentioned at Wednesday's hearing.

At Ellard's first parole hearing last May, she took responsibility for the death of Virk after repeatedly denying that she was involved, but said she was a child herself at just 15 years old.

Board members rejected her request for parole then, saying she came across as "very entitled" in presenting her case for release.

Ellard was tried three times in Virk's death, and testimony from those trials heard that she and Warren Glowatski followed Virk after the girl limped away from the beating and then drowned the girl in the Gorge waterway near Victoria.

But Ellard's story to the parole board in May differed from that account.


UPDATE: 11:45 a.m.

A parole board panel has been unable to reach a decision to allow convicted killer Kelly Ellard escorted temporary absences.

Ellard was asking for the absences for medical appointments and parenting programs following the recent birth of her child.


ORIGINAL: 6 a.m.

Convicted killer Kelly Ellard is expected to ask for parole again today, less than a year after a parole board said she was too entitled to be released.

At Ellard's first parole hearing last May, she took responsibility for the death of 14-year-old Reena Virk after repeatedly denying that she was involved since the 1997 killing.

While board members said Ellard had made progress serving a life sentence for second-degree murder, they said she also came across as "very entitled" in presenting her case for release.

She admitted during the last hearing that she was responsible for Virk's death, but said she was a child herself at just 15 years old.

Ellard, whose hearing is being held at the Fraser Valley Institution in Abbotsford, was convicted after three trials and has spent about 15 years in prison.

Her case came up again last October after a media report said she was eight-months pregnant following a conjugal visit from her boyfriend.



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