Book Notes: Under the Bridge by Rebecca Godfrey

This is a true crime book by a Canadian journalist and it details a 1997 murder of a teenage girl Reena in Vancouver by her classmates.

There was absolutely no reason for Kelly and Warren to murder their school mate Reena. In fact, it seems that they never had contact with her before the murder. The absolute horror and the senselessness of a 14-year-old child being murdered by the only somewhat older Warren and Kelly shocked everybody in Canada. Rebecca Godfrey researched the story for years and wrote this book about it in 2006. She is a gifted author, and Under the Bridge is beautifully written. The real mystery in it, however, is not why Warren and Kelly murdered Reena. It is, rather, why Godfrey writes about Warren like she’s in love with him.

The entire point of the book seems to be to vilify Kelly and whitewash Warren. The descriptions of the teenaged Warren that Godfrey provides seem to have been written by a besotted groupie and not an adult journalist. Even the collection of photos at the end of the book starts with a picture of Warren and ends with another picture of Warren posing next to Godfrey. The victim is an afterthought. For Godfrey, the suffering, wounded hero of the story is the murderous Warren.

In spite of Godfrey’s efforts to make him sound angelic, Warren seems to be a right sociopath who played the Canadian justice system like a violin. Understanding the Canadian obsession with the natives, he invented an indigenous heritage for himself and got early release as a result.

This is a beautiful book but you’ve got to read it as a fictional account because Godfrey got so emotionally involved with the participants that the actual story is almost entirely lost.