Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings

Serial Killer Couples: Karla Homolka & Paul Bernardo

Karla Leanne Homolka (born May 4, 1970), also known as Leanne Teale, is a Canadian serial killer who, with her first husband Paul Bernardo, raped and murdered at least three minors. She attracted worldwide media attention when she was convicted of manslaughter following a plea bargain in the 1991 and 1992 rape-murders of two Ontario teenage girls, Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French, as well as the rape and death of her sister Tammy.

Homolka and Bernardo were arrested in 1993. In 1995, Bernardo was convicted of the two teenagers' murders and received life in prison and a dangerous offender designation, the full maximum sentence allowed in Canada. During the 1993 investigation, Homolka stated to investigators that Bernardo had abused her and that she had been an unwilling accomplice to the murders. As a result, she struck a deal with prosecutors for a reduced prison sentence of 12 years in exchange for a guilty plea to the charge of manslaughter. Homolka scored 5/40 on the Psychopathy Checklist , in contrast to Bernardo's 35/40.

However, videotapes of the crimes surfaced after the plea bargain and demonstrated that she was a more active participant than she had claimed. As a result, the deal that she had struck with prosecutors was dubbed in the Canadian press the "Deal with the Devil". Public outrage about Homolka's plea deal continued until her high-profile release from prison in 2005.

Following her release from prison, she settled in the province of Quebec, where she married again. She briefly lived in the Antilles and Guadeloupe but by 2014 was back in Canada and living in Quebec.

Victims

During the summer of 1990, according to Karla, Bernardo became attracted to her younger sister, Tammy Homolka. Homolka hatched a plan to frame Bernardo for drugging Tammy, seeing an opportunity to "minimise risk, take control, and keep it all in the family." In July, "according to Bernardo's testimony, he and Karla served Tammy a spaghetti dinner spiked with Valium stolen from Karla's workplace. Bernardo raped Tammy for about a minute before she started to wake up."

Homolka later stole the anesthetic agent halothane from the Martindale Veterinarian Clinic where she worked. On December 23, 1990, after a Homolka family Christmas party, Bernardo and Karla Homolka drugged Tammy Homolka with the animal tranquilizers. Bernardo and Karla Homolka raped Tammy while she was unconscious. Tammy later choked on her own vomit and died. Before calling 911, they hid the evidence, redressed Tammy, who had a chemical burn on her face, and moved her into her basement bedroom. A few hours later, Tammy was pronounced dead at St. Catharine's General Hospital without having regained consciousness. Bernardo told police he tried to revive her, but failed, and her death was ruled an accident.

Aftermath

Publication ban

Citing the need to protect Bernardo's right to a fair trial, a publication ban was imposed on Homolka's preliminary inquiry.

The Crown had applied for the ban imposed on July 5, 1993, by Mr. Justice Francis Kovacs of the Ontario Court (General Division). Homolka, through her lawyers, supported the ban, whereas Bernardo's lawyers argued that he would be prejudiced by the ban since Homolka previously had been portrayed as his victim. Four media outlets and one author also opposed the application. Some lawyers argued that rumours could be doing more damage to the future trial process than the publication of the actual evidence.

Public access to the Internet effectively nullified the court's order, however; as did proximity to the Canada-US border, since a publication ban by an Ontario Court cannot apply in New York, Michigan, or anywhere else outside of Ontario. American journalists cited the First Amendment in editorials and published details of Homolka's testimony, which were widely distributed by many Internet sources, primarily on the alt.fan.karla-homolka Usenet newsgroup. Information and rumours spread across myriad electronic networks available to anyone in Canada with a computer and a modem. Moreover, many of the Internet rumours went beyond the known details of the case.