Notorious Canadian sex killer leaves prison
1 hour, 28 minutes ago
TORONTO (Reuters) - A Canadian sex killer was freed after 12 years behind bars on Monday for her involvement in the rape, torture and murder of two schoolgirls, in a case that horrified Canada in the 1990s.
Karla Homolka, 35, was released from prison in Ste-Anne-des-Plaines, Quebec, near Montreal, the Correctional Service of Canada said in a release.
Homolka and her then-husband, Paul Bernardo, kidnapped, sexually assaulted, tortured and killed two teenaged girls in the early 1990s in southern Ontario.
Homolka, who videotaped the assaults, also drugged her 15-year-old sister so Bernardo could rape her in the basement of her family home after a Christmas dinner. The girl choked on her own vomit and died.
She agreed to a plea-bargain sentence for manslaughter in return for testifying against Bernardo, an agreement that angered Canadians and was dubbed "a deal with the devil."
Bernardo is serving a life sentence for murder and will likely never be released.
A Quebec judge rejected Homolka's request last Wednesday for a publication ban that would prevent the media from reporting her whereabouts.
"The thought of being relentlessly pursued, hunted down and followed when I won't have any protection makes me fear for my life," she said in an affidavit.
On Monday, her lawyers were back in court seeking another injunction against the media, but it was again rejected, according to CTV News.
But Homolka will not easily melt into obscurity given her past and the public's morbid fascination with the baby-faced killer who saw herself more as a victim than a predator.
"People are always going to interpret what I do as bad. They'll pick out one bad thing from a sea of good and I'll be judged on that," she wrote in prison correspondence that was published in a newspaper.
PRISON STAKEOUT
Since Thursday, reporters and camera crews have staked out the gates of the prison, filming departing vehicles ahead of the Monday expiry of the five-day window for her release.
But her departure on Monday seemed to go largely undetected by reporters on site.
Last month, lawyers for the Ontario government persuaded a Quebec court to impose rare restrictions on Homolka after she is released from prison.
She must keep police apprised on a weekly basis of her whereabouts and travel plans, and undergo psychiatric therapy to properly accept responsibility for her role in the killings.
She is expected to take up residence in Quebec.
1 hour, 28 minutes ago
TORONTO (Reuters) - A Canadian sex killer was freed after 12 years behind bars on Monday for her involvement in the rape, torture and murder of two schoolgirls, in a case that horrified Canada in the 1990s.
Karla Homolka, 35, was released from prison in Ste-Anne-des-Plaines, Quebec, near Montreal, the Correctional Service of Canada said in a release.
Homolka and her then-husband, Paul Bernardo, kidnapped, sexually assaulted, tortured and killed two teenaged girls in the early 1990s in southern Ontario.
Homolka, who videotaped the assaults, also drugged her 15-year-old sister so Bernardo could rape her in the basement of her family home after a Christmas dinner. The girl choked on her own vomit and died.
She agreed to a plea-bargain sentence for manslaughter in return for testifying against Bernardo, an agreement that angered Canadians and was dubbed "a deal with the devil."
Bernardo is serving a life sentence for murder and will likely never be released.
A Quebec judge rejected Homolka's request last Wednesday for a publication ban that would prevent the media from reporting her whereabouts.
"The thought of being relentlessly pursued, hunted down and followed when I won't have any protection makes me fear for my life," she said in an affidavit.
On Monday, her lawyers were back in court seeking another injunction against the media, but it was again rejected, according to CTV News.
But Homolka will not easily melt into obscurity given her past and the public's morbid fascination with the baby-faced killer who saw herself more as a victim than a predator.
"People are always going to interpret what I do as bad. They'll pick out one bad thing from a sea of good and I'll be judged on that," she wrote in prison correspondence that was published in a newspaper.
PRISON STAKEOUT
Since Thursday, reporters and camera crews have staked out the gates of the prison, filming departing vehicles ahead of the Monday expiry of the five-day window for her release.
But her departure on Monday seemed to go largely undetected by reporters on site.
Last month, lawyers for the Ontario government persuaded a Quebec court to impose rare restrictions on Homolka after she is released from prison.
She must keep police apprised on a weekly basis of her whereabouts and travel plans, and undergo psychiatric therapy to properly accept responsibility for her role in the killings.
She is expected to take up residence in Quebec.
