Montreal – The most reviled woman in Canada is set to walk out of prison Monday, facing death threats and rage from a public still bitter that she served only 12 years for the rapes and murders of teenage girls, including her younger sister.
Karla Homolka is so frightened that someone might harm her that her lawyers are demanding an unprecedented media blackout on her release and subsequent whereabouts, a move that will be challenged by media attorneys in a Montreal courtroom on Monday.
Many in this French-speaking city believe Homolka has done her time and should be given a second chance at life, which she got after making a deal with the state in exchange for testifying against her ex-husband.
Dubbed “English-Canada’s monster” by residents, the 35-year-old former veterinary assistant who grew up near Niagara Falls has said she intends to settle in Montreal, hoping for anonymity amid those perhaps less familiar with her crimes.
Those offenses, when made public through her testimony at her ex-husband’s murder trial in 1995 and from homemade videotapes of their sexual killing sprees, stunned the nation.
Canadians, unaccustomed to grisly crimes, felt as if they had lost a touch of innocence.
Homolka was convicted of manslaughter in 1993 and given a relatively light sentence of 12 years for her role in the rapes and murders of Ontario teenagers Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy. In return, she agreed to testify against ex-husband Paul Bernardo, a Toronto bookkeeper serving a life term in an Ontario prison for two counts of first-degree murder.
At sentencing, prosecutors also considered Homolka’s role in the 1990 death of her 15- year-old sister, Tammy, who died after Homolka held a drug-soaked cloth over her face while Bernardo raped her.
Several psychiatrists who interviewed Homolka, who was often beaten by Bernardo, claimed she was suffering from battered-wife syndrome. She was given further leniency for her own mental state.
“She does seem to be very perturbed, yes, but she’s done her time and either the system works or it doesn’t,” said Christian Immer, who lives next to the halfway house where Homolka has received counseling and may stay while looking for a place to live and attempting to elude reporters.
