Karla Homolka's Life of Crime - Research Paper Example

?Karla Homolka Introduction When more than one person is involved in a murder or series of murders, the role and participation of each person will come under scrutiny. As each individual will blame the other, it will become difficult to find out how much or in what ways each individual contributed to the crime. This difficulty will become more accentuated, if the accused are husband and wife, and if they are involved in a series of murders. Paul Benardo and Karla Homolka are the Canadian husband and wife duo, who were charged and convicted for the rape and murder of teenage girls. With both of them participating in the murders, the role of Karla Homolka in the crimes was figured out vaguely, as there were differences of opinion regarding her contribution to those murders. This paper will chronicle her life starting from her early years, her marriage to Paul Benardo, rape and murder of the girls, finishing with the investigation, conviction and her eventual release. Early life Karla Homolka was born to Dorothy and Karel Homolka in 1970 as the eldest of three daughters in the Canadian town of Port Credit, Ontario. She went to Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School and even while going to the school, Karla worked as a part-time employee at a local pet shop. She graduated in the year 1988, and got employment as a veterinary assistant in Thorold Veterinary Clinic in Ontario. She did a similar job at the Mardinale Animal Clinic as well. “Karla developed a passion for animals and after high school she went to work at a veterinary clinic” (Montaldo). Thus, when one focuses on Karla’s early life, it appears that she lived a normal life, without exhibiting any negative or even psychotic tendencies. However, it all started to change when he married Paul Bernado. Marriage to Paul Bernado Karla as part of her job attended a pet convention in Toronto in the spring of 1987. During that visit, Karla, just 17 at that time, met 23-year-old Paul Bernardo in a “suburban hotel restaurant outside of Toronto and she fell for Paul, immediately.” (biography.com). They had sex on their first meeting and as their relationship started to develop, they “discovered that they shared the same sado-masochistic desires,” (Montaldo). Because of this ‘extremity’ in their relationship, Paul assumed the role of a ‘master’, with Karla willingly assuming the role of a ‘slave’, who has no problems in fulfilling her husband’s extreme fantasies. One of these extreme ‘fantasies’ only leads to their first murder - the murder of Karla’s own younger sister, Tammy Homolka. Rape and the murders Three years into their relationship, Paul starts to become obsessed with Tammy and to abuse her, he gets Karla’s help. One of Paul's constant complaints with Karla was that she was not a ‘virgin’ when they met and so she becomes ‘devoted’ to pleasing Paul in every way possible. (Montaldo). Using this weakness of Karla, Paul openly expressed his feelings for Tammy, and also convinces Karla to aid him in raping her. “It was, therefore, from his point of view, her responsibility to make it possible for Paul to take the virginity of…Tammy without her knowledge or consent.” (Bardsley). Karla wrongly accepts this flawed logic, and decides to make or force Tammy into being a sort of ‘surrogate virgin’ for her. In their first attempt in July 1990, Karla serves Tammy, a spaghetti dinner mixed with heavy doses of Valium, which was stolen from her workplace. “Bernardo rapes Tammy for about a minute before she starts to wake up” and so they temporarily abandon their plan then, waiting for another opportunity. ("Key events in the Bernardo/Homolka case"). Then, six months before their marriage, at a Christmas party at Karla parent’s house, Karla first mixes sedative Halcyon in the alcoholic drinks of Tammy. After the party was over and family members retired, the husband and wife duo took Tammy to the basement, with Karla holding a cloth soaked with Halothane over Tammy's mouth. (Becker, 2005). There, Paul with Karla watching over raped Tammy, and during that rape, Tammy started to throw up. As they did not care, Tammy choked in her own vomit and passed away. The couple concealed all the evidences and called the ambulance, Paul even told the police that he “tried to revive her, but failed.” (“Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka”). Thus, her death was ruled as an accident, and the “drugs in Tammy's system went undetected”. (Montaldo) Then in June 1991, just two weeks before their wedding, the couple committed another rape and murder. Paul met a teenage girl Leslie Mahaffy, “who (unfortunately) was locked out of her home” by her parents for breaking the ‘night curfew’. ("The Ken and Barbie Murderers"). Using it as a chance, he invited her to have a cigarette near his car, then suddenly forced her into it and drove to his home. There, Paul with support from Karla held Mahaffy as a sex slave for 24 hours, as both of them sexually assaulted her repeatedly. “They recorded the assaults on videotape, including one scene in which Homolka pretties herself for the camera before raping the girl.” (“KARLA HOMOLKA”). This clearly showed her complicity in the crime, and how she willingly participated, without any forcing by her husband. Mahaffy was eventually killed with Paul and Karla both pointing each other as her real murderer. Karla claimed that Paul was the killer as he only strangled the unconscious and heavily sedated Mahaffy with an electrical cord. On the other hand, Paul put the blame on Karla and said that Mahaffy “died while he was out of the room,” and that Karla had only killed her with an overdose of Halcyon. (“KARLA HOMOLKA”). They dumped the body in the basement for some time, and then chopped it with a circular saw, and finally “Karla washed the body parts before setting them in concrete.” ("The Ken and Barbie Murderers") After a year in April 1992, Karla and Paul parked their car at the St. Catharines church parking lot, where they spotted a 15 year old girl, Kristen French. It was Karla who took initiative by stepping out of the car and asked for directions from French, pretending to be lost. As she held her attention, Paul came from behind, got hold of her and forced her into the car at knife point. The couple then brought French to their home “and for several days videotaped their acts of humiliation, torturing and sexually abusing the teen”, eventually killing her as well (Montaldo). In this murder also, both of them traded charges accusing each other. Karla stated that it was Paul who killed her, and dumped her naked in the road. While Paul claimed that it was Karla who “had beaten Kristen French with a mallet as she tried to escape, and she was strangled on a noose tied around her neck secured to a hope chest” (“KARLA HOMOLKA”). Sentencing and releasing In December 1992, Paul had severely beaten Karla with a flashlight with Karla suffering “two black eyes, a hemorrhage in the left eye, a contused forehead, bruises on her neck and arms, bruises and swelling of her legs and a puncture wound above her knee.”("The Ken and Barbie Murderers"). As the same husband, whom she had supported completely, battered her, Karla filed charges against Paul, left him and moved with the relatives. Understanding that the authorities are close on their heels, Karla to save herself, implicated her husband Paul for the rape and murder of the teenage girls, and even revealed to them the existence of video tapes, which had recordings of their criminal acts. To save her from the conviction of serious charges, during the 1993 investigation, Karla showcased to the investigators that she was a ‘victim’ as well. She stated that Paul physically and emotionally abused her, and forced to ‘associate’ with the rape and murders, showing herself as an ‘unwilling accomplice’. Importantly, she made a deal with the prosecutors under which, she will testify against her husband and will issue a guilty plea for manslaughter, for which she will be given a reduced prison sentence of just 12 years. While in 1995, Paul was convicted of murders and received life imprisonment, the maximum sentence allowed in Canada, Karla was given a reduced sentence. However, when the video tapes of their crime resurfaced and showed that she was an active participant and not an ‘unwilling accomplice’, the deal was criticized, with the Canadian press terming it as the “Deal with the Devil”. Although, there was public outrage, the view in the government circles was that, as Karla “had already disclosed sufficient information to the police, the crown found no ground to break the deal, and re-open the case.” (Richardson & Hunt). She spent her jail terms in Kingston's Prison For Women, Joliette Institution and finally at the St. Anne des Plaines prison, before being released in 1995. After her release, “she either married or partnered with a man named Thierry Bordelais in Quebec, and is now a mother to his child.” (Hartsfield, 2009). It seems, she has gone into hiding to avoid any public and media spotlight. Becker, S. (2005) http://www.sabinabecker.com/2005/06/the_ugly_soul_of_a_pretty_girl_1.html biography.com http://www.biography.com/tv/biography/episodes/the-ken-and-barbie-killers-paul- bernardo-karla-homolka Bardsley, M http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/bernardo/murder_3.html Hartsfield, S. (2009). http://www.examiner.com/legal-issues-in-houston/barbie-canadian-serial-killer-karla-homolka-where-is-she-today-conclusion KARLA HOMOLKA http://www.serialkillercalendar.com/KARLA-HOMOLKA.html "Key events in the Bernardo/Homolka case" http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2010/06/16/f-bernardo-homolka-timeline.html Montaldo, C. http://crime.about.com/od/murder/p/homolka2.htm Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka http://www.timetoast.com/timelines/paul-bernardo-and-karla-homolka Richardson, J & Hunt, A. (). http://cln4u-cummings.wikispaces.com/file/view/Homulka.ppt. "The Ken and Barbie Murderers" http://karisable.com/skazpaulkarla.htm Read More