'I don't want people to think I'm dangerous'
Karla Homolka has been released from a prison north of Montreal and says she wants a new life after finishing a 12-year sentence for her role in killing two Ontario teenagers.
In an exclusive interview with SRC, the French-language service of the CBC, Homolka said she is still haunted by the murders. "I cry a lot," she said, speaking in French, "I can't bring myself to forgive myself, I think about what I did and often I think that I don't deserve to be happy because of that."
She goes on to say she decided "with my lawyers that this [giving an interview] is the best thing to do because I do not want to be hunted down. I don't want people to think that I am someone dangerous who will do something to their children."
She was spirited past squads of reporters and photographers outside the prison without being seen. Her release was confirmed on Monday afternoon by the Correctional Service of Canada and a lawyer representing the families of her victims.
Corrections officials didn't say how she was whisked away, leaving outsiders to guess which of many vehicles that left the prison she might have been in.
"As of today, Karla Teale/Homolka is no longer under the jurisdiction of the Correctional Service of Canada," the agency said in a brief written statement. "In collaboration with our partners in the criminal justice system, the Correctional Service of Canada has released Karla Teale/Homolka."
Legally, Homolka had to be freed by midnight. Officials with Corrections Canada had said police officers would escort her down the long, straight driveway leading from the minimum-security Ste-Anne-des-Plaines Institution by sunset.
Camera crews had been lining the end of that road since June 30, the first day the 35-year-old could have been released under Corrections Canada policy.
She is expected to try to disappear somewhere in the Montreal area, perhaps changing her appearance by cutting and dyeing her long blond hair.
Request for media ban rejected
In advance of her release, lawyers acting on Homolka's behalf appeared in a Montreal court Monday to ask once more for a ban on media coverage of her whereabouts and activities.
A similar request was denied late last week, but the lawyers said they had new evidence to present to suggest Homolka's life will be in danger if journalists are allowed to report where she is living and what she looks like.
Lawyers for news organizations said they should be allowed to cross-examine Homolka on the validity of her fears. The judge again refused to restrict the coverage, at least for now.
- FROM JUNE 29, 2005: Judge denies plea for media ban in Homolka case
Homolka and her ex-husband, Paul Bernardo, kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy in the early 1990s.
Homolka co-operated with prosecutors to help them convict Bernardo, who was at first thought to have forced his wife into helping him commit the crimes.
Videotapes that later surfaced in the couple's home in St. Catharines, Ont., showed her to be have been a willing partner, however.
They also revealed that Homolka twice gave drugs to her younger sister Tammy, 15, so that Bernardo could rape her. The teenager choked on her own vomit and died after the second assault, two days before Christmas in 1990.
The new evidence led Homolka's plea-bargain deal on manslaughter charges to be called, "The Deal with the Devil."
With prison and Crown officials warning that she is at a risk to commit other crimes after her release, a Quebec judge put strict restrictions on her future freedom during a court hearing in June.