Chateauguay is a suburb of Montreal. Over the weekend, a news reporter was going around to folks in the neighbourhood, asking for their reaction to the news that Karla Homolka had moved into the neighbourhood and her kids were attending the local school.
Karla, then married to Paul Bernardo, assisted him in raping, killing and dismembering two teenaged girls, and also the drugging and rape of her own sister, who died on her own vomit. Homolka pled out to manslaughter charges and turned Queen’s Evidence to put Bernardo away for life.
She was sentenced to 12 years and served the sentence right to the day.
She’s now re-surfaced, living in Chateauguay under the name Leanne Bordelais, with kids.
She would be someone whom I felt would be preferable dead — not alas an uncommon judgement — however, forgetting all the glop about having served her sentence, since crimes don’t have moral slot-machine payments, the fact remains she is now free. She has to be somewhere on God’s Earth [ I was going to say whilst living, but really It works either way ], so unless one wants her in continual flux like the Wandering Jew, which would spread her contagion everywhere, it’s like released paedophiles and every other criminal, there is somewhere she will call home.
I wouldn’t like it much, but then I take comfort in one of the greatest teachings I ever read, and realise there’s fuck all I can do about such things since it will be happening in any case, and if not here, somewhere.
Feel sorry for the kids though, and it would be utterly wrong to take it out on them; to even bring up the subject near them would be a betise.
Makes you wonder though, how such people mention their crimes to their child… And in Britain we have a rich heritage of repulsive murderers obsessed with by the press ( The Family West; Dr. Shipman; The Krays; The Moors Murders; 10 Rillington Place; The 'Orrible Murders dahn the Ratcliffe 'Ighway; Oliver Cromwell, etc. etc. ):
“Hi! I’m your new neighbour Karla. I am very pleased to meet you. I’d love to rape, murder and dismember your daughters!”
Lest anyone still think that Homolka did what she did because she was dragged into it by her boyfriend/husband, note that she sexually assaulted at least four girls, not just the two that she and Bernardo murdered. Following her convictions on some of the Homolka/Barnardo matters, her next boyfriend was someone who had murdered his previous girlfriend and who’s girlfriend before that one had suicided. Holmoka then moved on to getting her own girlfriend, who was unnerved by Homolka’s preference for bondage rape in bed. Corrections Canada’s shrink says that Homolka is attracted to sexual sadists.
IMHO, Homolka is someone who should never be permitted to live outside of prison, not just because of what she has done, but more importantly because I believe that she may do the same again to other teenage girls, particularly when she finds yet another murdering boyfriend.
Without hesitation, if I had daughters, and if Homolka lived in the same or a near-by neighbourhood, or if my daughters were or eventually could be in the same school as any of Homolka’s children, we would move back across the water to Beaconsfield PDQ.
As it happens, my kids did go to school with the child of a notorious criminal and probable (unconvicted) murderer, who claimed to have killed well over a dozen people. There was a certain degree of restriction placed on him regarding contact with other kids - he wasn’t anyone’s first choice to umpire under-twelves sport, for sure. But mostly as far as I could tell everyone just got on with life, and tried not to let it influence our treatment of his kid, who could hardly be blamed for dad’s misdeeds.
On the other hand … person in question was more “old school gangster” - you didn’t (or at least, I didn’t) feel in danger from him if you weren’t a drug runner or money launderer.
Having a Karla Homolka in your neighborhood would certainly feel scary … but I’m not sure if it would really put you (or your kids) in an unusual amount of danger. To be really clinical about it - if she ever feels the need to go murdering kids again, you’d think she’d try to find someone not obviously connected to herself.
There’s lots of really evil people about in this world - you just, mostly, don’t know it. Pleasant dreams! :eek:
Yesterday was twenty-four years since fifteen year old Kristen French was murdered after having been abducted at knife point and tortured and raped for several days.
Boy. Yeah, I totally understand about not punishing kids for the sins of the parents on the other hand --Who is instilling their values in them?
I wouldn’t allow my children to harm her children, but on the other hand, as much as humanly possible I would limit my children’s exposure to hers. On what seems to me the reasonable basis that if my kids became friends with hers, it would lead to my kids coming to the attention of the mother.
It came out at the trial of Luc Magnotta, who murdered, dismembered and mailed the body parts of his victim to various people. The return address of one of the gruesome mailings was that of Homolka’s sister (the surviving one, not the one she and Barnardo raped on more than on occasion and eventually killed). The surviving sister spilled the beans on Holmolka’s whereabouts.
Holmolka has had relationships with two murderers (Barnardo and Gerbet), and she has been diagnosed as being attracted to sexual sadists. When in a relationship with a murdering sexual sadist, Holmolka raped, murdered and dismembered.
Now that her whereabouts are known, it won’t be difficult for murdering sadists to find her (as did Magnotta). If one finds her, and if she is true to form and diagnosis, she will then rape and murder again. It is bad enough for her to not be permanently incarcerated, but it is even worse now that here whereabouts are know because this will make it easer for further tag-team rape/murder pairings to take place.
…says she’s living under the last name Teale. Which, it states, is especially chilling because originally, she and Benardo tried to change their names to that after having seen a movie about serial killers that had it.
But let’s not forget, she’s out walking around because she got a great deal to turn on him. A deal she jumped on because she knew there were incriminating video tapes showing her as far more than an accomplice to these horrific crimes. A video tape that want undetected by a large and expensive police investigation. For months. It was concealed in a dropped ceiling! And they still didn’t find it till it was too late, and the deal was signed. Shame on them all.
If there’s blame to lay, I think that’s where it belongs. Had she not been granted protection from prosecution, she would have been classified, like him, a danger to society. And, like him, she could continue to apply for release, but continually have it denied.
Law enforcement is largely responsible for this mess, straight up.
Poor kids. This is why sometimes I question the right of everyone to just make babies, whether they should or not. Yeah, yeah, I know, I wouldn’t want that power in the hands of any government, either, but still.
That being said, unless we are going to put people away forever or just enact the death penalty on them we have to deal with this. And may I say, ostracizing the kids and punishing them for mommy’s sin’s isn’t exactly going to help them to grow up into stable members of society. I don’t suggest that parents allow their kids to go to her house, but forbidding all friendships?
My bad. Behind a recess light (in a ceiling fixture you could reach without a ladder.!) Which doesn’t make even the slightest difference to me, or most people, I suspect.
Still shameful, they searched for weeks and weeks and didn’t find it. Shoddy police work. (I have friends who are cops and RCMP, and when pressed, they ALL acknowledge, they should have found the tapes during the search. Period.)
And if they had any shame at all, they’d be watching this woman like a hawk, since they’re the real reason she’s out on the street.
I disagree with the death penalty, and agree the sins of the mother should not be visited upon the children, of course. But why would she choose to raise her kids where it’s 100% guaranteed to be in their face? Why not stay in France? Montreal is a stupid choice if you want to protect your kids in any way!