Karla Homolka / Canadian Serial Killer / She’s Free Today

Karla Homolka / Serial Killer

Karla Homolka
Karla Homolka

Karla Homolka


Deal With The Devil

Canadian Female Serial Killer

Crime Spree: December 1990 – April 1992


Karla Homolka, also known as Karla Leanne Teale and Leanne Bordelais was born on  May 4, 1970 in Port Credit, Ontario, Canada. She is a convicted Canadian serial killer. She attracted worldwide media attention when she was convicted of manslaughter following a plea bargain in the 1991 and 1992 rape and murders of two Ontario teenage girls, Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French, as well as the rape and death of her own sister Tammy.

Karla Leanne Homolka and Paul Bernardo, her husband and partner in crime, 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, Karla 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 for manslaughter.

‘A Deal with the Devil’

However, videotapes of the crimes would later demonstrate that Karla was a far 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 and gave birth to a son.

In 2007, the Canadian press reported that she had left Canada for the Antilles with her husband and their baby, and had changed her name to Leanne Teale. In 2012, journalist Paula Todd found Homolka living in Guadeloupe, under the name Leanne Bordelais, with her husband and their three children. (wikipedia)

Karla Homolka

Pretty as she was, 17 year old Karla Homolka was not a virgin. And that was a problem, because that’s what her 23 year old fiancée, Paul Bernardo, wanted. A virgin. (Masturbating over her 15 year old sister, Tammy, while she slept – who Karla gave access to and watched as the act was preformed – was no longer enough. He wanted more.) And Karla was more than happy to oblige him. She said she wanted to give him “Tammy’s virginity” as a Christmas gift. He was elated with the idea.

So, on the evening of December 23, in 1990, Karla Homolka and her future husband served an unsuspecting Tammy a drink laced with an anesthetic Karla had previously stolen from the animal clinic where she worked. Tammy soon fell unconscious.

While her parents slept upstairs, Karla helped her boyfriend strip her little sister naked and set the video recorder in place. Karla then moistened a towel with Haothane, an inhalant for general anesthesia, that she’d also stolen, and placed it over her sister’s nose and mouth.

Tammy Homolka
Tammy Homolka

With the video camera rolling, Karla and Paul filmed themselves as they raped the little girl in the basement. Then Tammy began to vomit. The pair tried to aid Tammy but could not revive her. After dressing the young girl and moving her into a basement bedroom, they hid the evidence of their crime then called 911. Within hours, 15 year old Tammy would be pronounced dead without ever regaining consciousness.

Despite the obvious battery to her body and the chemical burns on her face, the coroner deemed the death accidental due to choking on her own vomit while intoxicated on alcohol.

And, despite the fact that Karla Homolka was vacuuming and doing laundry in the middle of that night, her parents too accepted her version of the last night Tammy was alive.

Paul Bernardo

Karla and Paul
Karla and Paul

Karla Homolko and her boyfriend Paul moved into a new apartment of their own. She was extremely happy but a bit worried about keeping her future husband just as content. She loved him more than life itself and would do anything to keep him smiling.

When he asked her if she cared if he was a rapist, she simply said ‘cool’ and supported, and in fact encouraged, his sadistic sexual behaviors.(She had quite a few of those behaviors herself.) Paul Bernardo was thrilled. He’d obviously found the one true love of his life!

Paul now started raping women with more frequency. (He’d been raping for several years already but now he had a bit more freedom since he didn’t have to hide the facts from Karla.) Following a routine, Paul would haunt bus stops. He would grab his victim from behind and get her to the ground. He would sodomize his victims, talking out loud, assuring them that they were doing well throughout the attack. Then he would let them go.

Karla knew exactly what Paul was doing and encouraged him.  She even went along on several occasions and video taped the attacks for him.

Tammy’s Replacement

Karla Homolka had one obsession and that was keeping her fiancée happy. After all, she was getting older and was not the ‘virgin’ dish that he always hungered for. So she was mindful to always find ways to keep him excited. Boredom was a bad place for Paul to be in.

For a wedding gift, Karla decided to give him a young girl’s virginity, just as she had given him her little sister Tammy’s. After all, Paul blamed Karla for Tammy’s death and more importantly blamed her for the fact that he no longer had Tammy for his sexual pleasures. So Karla was excited to be able to give him ‘Jane’ as Tammy’s replacement. She was young, looked a lot like Tammy and, most importantly, she was a virgin.

Jane would also be an easy target, as she liked Karla and eagerly accepted her dinner invitation and a night of partying together. Karla drugged her (Jane) with Halcion. Once Jane was unconscious, Karla called Paul and he came to the apartment. He was thrilled with his gift.

Jane was stripped naked and Paul recorded Karla making love to Jane. Then, with Karla now filming, Paul took the girl’s virginity and then sodomized her. Fortunately for Jane, she was so drugged that she did not wake during the attack. Karla cleaned the girl’s body and left her to sleep through the night.  Paul was happy, which meant Karla Homolka was happy. She’d done good!

Karla Homolko
Karla Homolko

The Happy Couple

Karla and Paul were married in a lavish wedding ceremony.

Champagne, a sit down dinner that included veal-stuffed pheasant for one hundred and fifty guests, white horses and a beautiful carriage.

It would be the perfect wedding where money was no object. And Paul was in control of it all.

He figured the grander the wedding the grander the gifts and monetary donations the guests would be expected to give.

To Paul it was simply a great business opportunity and he intended to gain at least a $50 thousand dollar return on the event.

And Karla didn’t care. She was going to be Mrs. Paul Bernardo and that was all that mattered.

Leslie Mahaffy

In June of 1991, Karla’s husband surprised her with a new “playmate” for them to share and enjoy. And nope. It wasn’t a puppy.

It was 14 year old Leslie Mahaffy. He had lured the girl to his car with the promise of a cigarette and proceeded to force her into the vehicle. He drove her to the couple’s home.

The couple set the video gear in place again and recorded themselves torturing and raping the girl while listening to David Bowie, as Paul kept assuring the young Leslie that “she was doing a damn good job.” However, as Paul was sodomizing her, the blindfold, that he’d placed over her eyes at the car, slipped and suddenly the game changed, as now she could describe both of her assailants.

The following day Karla would feed Leslie a lethal dose of a powerful sleeping pill. (Karla would later dispute this stating that Paul had actually strangled her to death and she would eventually produce the video and every gruesome detail to prove it.) After the couple had killed Leslie, they carried the body to the basement of their home.

The next day, AFTER Karla’s parents and sister had left from having dinner with the couple, Karla and Paul made the decision to dismember Leslie’s body, that was laying in their basement, and encase her in concrete pieces. So they purchased a dozen bags of cement and used a circular saw to cut Leslie into smaller, more manageable pieces. The two then transported the concrete pieces, that contained Leslie’s body parts, to Lake Gibson.

Kristen French

In April of 1992, Karla and Paul were once again on the prowl for a victim. They found, and kidnapped, 15 year old Kristen French.

Over the Easter weekend, Paul and Karla once again recorded themselves as they raped, tortured and sodomized the girl. Because she had never been blindfolded, and could most assuredly identify her torturers, it was certain that she too would be murdered and this time with obvious forethought on the matter. The following morning, Paul would spend seven minutes strangling Kristen to death as he sodomized her, with Karla recording the entire event.

The couple then happily hurried off to Easter dinner at the Homolka’s home.

On April 30th, Kristen French’s nude body was found in a ditch.

The Beginning of the End

karla-homolka-11

Although Paul had always been a violent man towards Karla Homolka when the mood struck him, it was in the summer of 1992 that his rage toward his wife would be the beginning of the end for the murderous couple. 

With the help of her parents, after a more than server beating at the hand of her husband, Karla was taken to a hospital by a Toronto cop. He was a friend of her sister Lori and also on the Green Ribbon Task Force that was investigating the Scarborough Rapist. (Paul had already been questioned concerning these rapes but had been deemed an unlikely suspect and dismissed. But not before giving a DNA sample way back when. – opps!)

Oh, and there was that little matter of the mickey mouse watch on Karla’s wrist that looked an awful lot like the one Kristen French wore!

By February, the Toronto police department, as well as the Ontario Green Ribbon Task Force, had their eyes on Karla. They wanted an interview. They wanted her fingerprints and they wanted to discuss that watch.

The Interview of Karla Homolka

The interview lasted five hours and quite frankly was beginning to freak Karla out. It was becoming more than obvious that the authorities had finally put two and two together. The Scarborough Rapist was the murderer of Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French.”

Karla decided this was the time to save herself and spilled the beans. She told them exactly who and what her husband was: the Scarborough Serial Rapist and the man who had strangled both of the girls to death, was in fact Paul Bernardo. 

On February 19th, the police searched Karla and Paul’s apartment. It was a detective’s heaven. Paul was extremely neat. Everything was orderly, clean and tidy. His diary was a literal novel of facts with detailed descriptions of every one of the Scarborough rapes he’d ever committed! His library was filled with books and videos of every imaginable perversion, pornography and serial killing.

They also found that the library contained quite a few “home” videos of lesbian romps featuring none other than a very aggressively involved Karla Homolka herself with two other women. Little miss ‘victim of a meany husband’ just shot out the window. It was more than obvious that the couple shared equally in the sport of rape, torture and murder.

Karla Homolko

Lawyer Up

Karla hired attorney George Walker and he and a plea-bargain specialist for the attorney general, placed a deal on the table for Karla. Twelve years for both murdered girls, served concurrently, eligible for parole in three years, serve her years in a psychiatric hospital instead of a prison and she would waive her right to a preliminary hearing. All for her testimony against her husband Paul.

Karla agreed unconditionally to these terms and promised the absolute truth about the crimes she had participated in. She also wrote a letter to her family explaining exactly what had happened to Tammy. She asked for forgiveness..

Karla Homolka

Karla Homolka
Karla Homolka

During the trial Karla’s psychologist stated that she ‘knew’ what was taking place but felt that she was unable to help herself or anyone else. She was, in his opinion, paralyzed with fear and simply became obedient to the husband she both loved and feared.

With the fear of public outcry at the leniency given Karla, the plea-bargain specialist made a statement. He said, “Why not a greater penalty in light of the horrendous facts? Without her, the true state of affairs might never be known.”

He also added that a guilty plea is the traditional hallmark of remorse, which he believed she felt. Plus it was to be noted that with her lack of any criminal record and her young age, it was highly unlikely she would ever re-offend.

Karla Homolka honored her word and did indeed help lock Paul Bernardo away for life. (Remember that the jurors saw every tape both she and Paul had ever made and that Karla explained in great, gruesome detail the kidnappings, the tortures, the rapes and the murders)

However, it is stated that while testifying against her husband, it became brutally obvious that she (Karla) had used the system in her favor and had quite cunningly manipulated the government into offering, and then honoring, one of the worst deals with a criminal witness that has ever been made.

Free Among Us

Karla Homolka was released in 2005, to an outraged public. She changed her name Leanna Teale, remarried and had three children. She lives quietly in Canada – as if anybody cares!

WickedWe logo

source: murderpedia

This site contains affiliate links. We may, at no cost to you, receive a commission for purchases made through these links