• In 1997, 14-year-old Reena Virk was attacked by a group of teenage girls later dubbed the Shoreline Six.

• Nicole Cook initiated the attack that ended with two other people killing Virk.

• This is what happened to the Shoreline Six.

Hulu’s true crime thriller “Under the Bridge” centers on a fictional version of writer Rebecca Godfrey (Riley Keough) who investigates the murder of Canadian teenager Reena Virk (Viritka Gupta).

In 1997, a group of teenagers later dubbed the “Shoreline Six” by the press attacked Virk in Saanich, British Columbia.

After Virk escaped, Warren Glowatski (Javon Walton) and Kelly Ellard (Izzy G) followed her and continued the attack before drowning her in the Victoria Gorge waterway. They were later tried as adults and both received life sentences.

The Shoreline Six included Ellard, Nicole Cook, Nicole Patterson, Courtney Keith and Gail Ooms, as well as Virk’s best friend Missy Grace Pleich, all of whom were charged with assault.

Hulu has quietly become a prolific producer of true crime series, and “Under the Bridge” follows similarly popular series like “The Act,” “Under the Banner of Heaven” and “Candy.” It’s likely a response to Netflix’s huge output of suspense dramatizations and documentaries, and it continues to dominate with projects like “American Nightmare” and “Baby Reindeer.”

Nicole Cook began the attack by putting out a cigarette on Virk’s face

Several teenagers who initially attacked Virk at the riverside party were given new names for the series, including Cook, who is called Josephine Bell (Chloe Guidry) in the series.

This was the name Godfrey Cook gave for her 2017 Vice article about the incident to protect her identity since she was a teenager at the time of the incident.

Cook has given only one interview about Virk’s murder. In 2011, she told Dateline that she was the leader of the attack. She began by stubbing out her cigarette on Virk’s face. Then the group of girls – Pleich, Ellard, Patterson, Keith and Ooms – joined in, repeatedly punching and kicking the teenager.

On Dateline, Cook claimed she took revenge on Virk after she started harassing her friends. “I left my phone book at her house and she called a lot of people,” she recalled. “She was very insecure. I didn’t really want to hang out with her anymore because it seemed like she was jealous of me.”

Cook also claimed that Virk spread rumors about her, saying, “Like my eyes were contact lenses or my breasts were fake. I couldn’t understand why she did that. I was so angry.”

In the 2017 Vice article about the murder, Godfrey also claimed that Virk told several boys that Cook had AIDS.

The Shoreline Six were charged with assault

Although Cook began the attack by burning Virk with her cigarette, she told Dateline, “I am in no way responsible for her death.”

The Shoreline Six were each charged with assault in juvenile court, the Vancouver Sun reported.

They received prison sentences ranging from 60 days to one year in juvenile detention. However, it is not clear who received which sentence.

Cook and Pleich were the only ones interviewed on “Dateline” about the incident; the others stayed out of the spotlight.

According to a Vancouver Island newsletter, a young woman named Gail Ooms died of a rare heart condition in 2001, but it is not clear if she is the same person who was one of the Shoreline Six.

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