Read this:
Homolka became the symbol of evil in Canada in 1993 when she was convicted of manslaughter for her role in the kidnappings, rapes, sexual torture and murders of Ontario teenagers Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy. She was also convicted in the 1990 death of her 15-year-old sister, Tammy, who died choking on her own vomit on Christmas Eve after Homolka held a drug-soaked cloth over her mouth while both she and her husband raped her.
Now read the headline:
Canadian Killer Says She's Not a Danger
Tuesday July 5, 2005 5:01 PM
AP Photo RYR101
By BETH DUFF-BROWN
Associated Press Writer
MONTREAL (AP) - Canada's most notorious ex-inmate took to the airwaves to try to assure the public she was not a danger to the children, hours after she left prison following a 12-year sentence in the rape and murder of three teenage girls.
Karla Homolka, 35, who was secretly spirited from the Quebec prison on Monday because of fears about her security, said in the broadcast she doesn't ``want to be hunted down,'' reflecting popular anger at her release.
Homolka received the relatively light 12-year sentence in return for her testimony against her ex-husband, Paul Bernardo. Homolka told the court and psychiatrists she was a battered wife who took part in the rapes and murders to protect herself and her family.
Months after prosecutors made the deal, however, Bernardo's attorneys handed over homemade videotapes by the couple that indicated Homolka was a willing participant, drawing the ire of Canadians.
``I don't want people to think I am dangerous and I'm going to do something to their children,'``' Homolka told RDI, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's French language news network, after her release.
Speaking in slightly accented French, Homolka said in the interview she's ``unable to forgive myself.''
``I think of what I've done and then often I think I don't deserve to be happy because of this,'' said Homolka, who appeared drawn and tired.
Homolka said she went directly from the prison to the television studio. She said she decided to give the interview after consulting with her lawyer. She plans on living in Quebec and acknowledged those in the French speaking province know less about the horrific details of her case.
``It's certain that the mood in Quebec is not like the mood in Ontario. I have a support network here,'' Homolka said.
Her lawyers and father have said for months that she intended to resettle in Montreal, having learned French during her 12 years in a Quebec prison.
Michele Pilon-Santilli, a spokeswoman for the correctional service, would not say where Homolka would be living. The former veterinarian assistant has changed her name to Karla Teale.
Homolka became the symbol of evil in Canada in 1993 when she was convicted of manslaughter for her role in the kidnappings, rapes, sexual torture and murders of Ontario teenagers Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy. She was also convicted in the 1990 death of her 15-year-old sister, Tammy, who died choking on her own vomit on Christmas Eve after Homolka held a drug-soaked cloth over her mouth while both she and her husband raped her.
``What I did was terrible and I was in a situation where I was unable to see clearly, where I was unable to ask for help, where I was completely overwhelmed in my life and I regret it enormously because now I know I had the power to stop all that,'' Homolka said.
Homolka said she didn't leave Bernardo because she was young and afraid of being abandoned.
Tim Danson, the lawyer representing the French and Mahaffy families, told The Associated Press his clients were stunned that Homolka was free.
``They thought that they had made the necessary mental and emotional adjustments to get ready for today, but when I gave them word that she'd been released, there was just stunned, painful silence,'' Danson said in Toronto, the provincial capital of Ontario.
Danson later called the Homolka interview ``objectionable.''
``Without a doubt this is vintage Karla Homolka who is enjoying the limelight and manipulating the process to her benefit - at least she perceives it that way,'' he said. Danson said he found it incredible that Homolka expressed sadness for her crimes, yet she has never apologized to his clients or expressed any remorse for their daughters' deaths.
In return for her sentence, Homolka testified against Bernardo, a Toronto bookkeeper serving a life term for two counts of first-degree murder.
One of the videos released months later indicated Homolka had offered up Tammy as a Christmas gift to Bernardo in 1990; it showed Homolka performing oral sex on her unconscious sister after slipping sleeping pills in her alcohol. Tammy died choking on her own vomit.
In the following two years, the couple kidnapped and videotaped the rapes and beatings of 15-year-old Kristen, then 14-year-old Leslie.
By the time the videotapes were revealed, Homolka's plea bargain had been sealed. But Canadians were outraged that she would be released in 12 years.
``People think she's cheated the system,'' said Jack Jadwab, executive director of the Association of Canadian Studies in Montreal. ``A violent crime like this, publicized the way it is, represents to many Canadians a bit of a stain on our reputation for being a nonviolent society.''
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5119645,00.html
