Karla Homolka should be hounded for the rest of her life: DiManno

15/15

Rosie DiManno - Columnist3 hrs ago

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Twenty-five years seems like a long time. A lifetime. A life sentence.
The life sentence, with no possibility of parole for 25 years, Paul Bernardo received for two first-degree murders, kidnapping, forcible confinement, aggravated sexual assault and committing an indignity to a dead body.
Following his 1995 trial and conviction in the slayings of teenagers Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy, Bernardo confessed to raping 14 women. Later still, the “Scarborough Rapist” admitted to his lawyer that he’d raped 10 others.
But the clock has been ticking, no doubt more slowly for incarcerated Bernardo than the rest of us.
Unless Bernardo pulls back, as he’s done once before, the schoolgirl killer has a date with the parole board in August.
He is seeking day parole. He becomes eligible for full parole on Feb. 17, 2018.
Neither is likely to ever happen. Bernardo consented to designation as dangerous offender in November, 1995, meaning he can be kept in prison indefinitely.
It must eat the monster up, aging now into his 50s, stuck in his cell at Millhaven penitentiary, probably going to die behind bars, knowing that his partner-in-crime is footloose and free having transformed herself from psycho sexual vulture into soccer mom.
Read more:
Karla Homolka no longer allowed to volunteer at Montreal elementary school
Convicted teen killer Karla Homolka volunteering at Montreal elementary school
Bernardo has always claimed — of course nothing he says can be believed — that while he bound and tortured French and Mahaffy, it was his fiancée and then bride who actually strangled the teens.
Karla Homolka wore her “Deal with the Devil” for all of 12 years, the sweetheart sentence she received for pleading guilty to two counts of manslaughter, with the death of her younger sister Tammy — whom she’d drugged and, with Bernardo, sexually assaulted — tossed in as footnote only upon discovery of videotapes that showed her participation in Tammy’s defilement. Nor was there any judicial comeuppance for the friend, Jane Doe, Homolka procured for Bernardo — also drugged and sexually assaulted, an episode Homolka “forgot” until police came into possession of the notorious videos. A snippet on the tape showed Homolka grinning and mugging as she sexually assaulted the unconscious girl.
With scarcely a backwards glance, Homolka has carried on, marrying the brother of her former Quebec lawyer, who’d successfully fought to lift strict conditions placed upon Homolka’s release from prison. Three children, a stint residing in Guadeloupe and a return to Canada — a fact that emerged, weirdly, at the 2016 trial of murderer Luka Magnotta — and presently domiciled in Chateauguay.
Where, we learned this week, Homolka has been permitted to engage with children as an occasional volunteer at the private Seventh-day Adventist Greaves Academy attended by her children, allowing kids to pet her dog and such.
The school’s administrators apparently had no problem allowing Homolka access to other people’s children, despite her heinous assaults against children and, as reported in recent days, getting quite shirty with concerned parents since Homolka’s involvement was disclosed by Quebec media.
Homolka has always put forward a dizzying array of faces, depending on the situation, from the flat-eyed affect adopted in court when she testified against her ex-husband, to the pseudo-victim — beaten spouse — she professed to be during negotiations for her plea agreement, to bar-cruiser while awaiting her own trial to lesbian seducer in jail.
Perhaps the Seventh-day Adventists see Homolka as a harmless creature — a compassionate view not extended to, say, gays — circa 2015 and have adopted the Christian way forward. I suspect they haven’t seen the other personas.
That has long been Homolka’s modus operandi, from before she ever met Bernardo, leading with her sex core.
She pimped for Bernardo, enthusiastically shared his sadism against victims and is, by every measure, a sexual offender who should never be allowed around kids.
You figure that’s all gone away now that she’s just another middle-aged fading blond mummy?
There’s really not that much enigma about Homolka. She is what she’s done — a killer, manslaughterer, and sexual psychopath.
It’s outrageous that Homolka’s name has never appeared among the 40,000 or so individuals on Canada’s sex offender registry. Her crimes pre-date the federal data bank’s creation, and it isn’t retroactive. At the very least, her history would have been red-flagged to a prospective employer or volunteer organization doing background checks. It seems, however, the outing of Homolka came as no surprise to Greaves. So much for duty of care for children.
Homolka should be hounded for the rest of her miserable life.
“It’s somewhat remarkable that someone who was engaged in such unspeakable crimes of a sexual nature is not on the registry,” says lawyer Tim Danson, who represents the families.
The registry certainly doesn’t prevent anyone from hiring or otherwise engaging someone with a sex offence record — and Homolka has no such record because she was never convicted of or pled to a sex crime, even though her crimes were clearly of sexual deviancy.
“It would be highly unlikely that any voluntary organization — although we now have an exception — would allow someone like her to be around children,” says Danson. “The problem which I have is that, in my view, she got away with murder.
“This is not a situation where you’ve got someone who was convicted of first-degree murder, did their 25 years, met the criteria for parole eligibility,” Danson continues. “That’s not her. The problem I’m vexed with, as the (victims’) parents are, is that her children are innocent. They have the right to a happy, fulfilling life. I find it a difficult juxtaposition between the kids who are not responsible for their mother’s crimes and what she did.”
Nobody, of course, wants to traumatize those three youngsters. But if they don’t already know their mother’s vile history, they’ll certainly find out some day. Homolka can’t outrun her past, nor wave off her kids the way she has shooed away photographers staking out their school.
Bernardo, by comparison, is shielded from media, unless he chooses to make contact.
Danson can’t do anything about Homolka. But he’s girding for battle with Bernardo, preparing victim impact statements should he actually appear before the parole board.
“He’ll never get parole but we’re not going to be complacent about it either.”
It is unclear how Bernardo would seek parole whilst still designated a dangerous offender. Danson insists the latter — with its higher legal threshold — must be dealt with first but has been told that both matters could be conflated at the hearing.
“He would have to come forward with very compelling evidence to displace the previous finding. But those who disagree with me in the government say it’s academic because the parole board is responsible for dealing with dangerous offender designations and so they can deal with them at the same time.”
Frustrated by privacy legislation, thus far Danson hasn’t even been able to winkle out the name of Bernardo’s lawyer, or if he has one.
Bernardo & Homolka, the Ken & Barbie Killers: He’s in prison overalls but she can be dressed up in mommy outfits.

Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.