Anguish for victims' families as Homolka released

Canadian Press via Sun Media ^ | 2005-07-04 | Colin Perkel

[Clive]

TORONTO (CP) - In the end, nothing could have prepared them for word that their daughters' killer was free.

Despite having known for 12 years that the day would come, despite every effort to steel themselves, the release of Karla Homolka still hit the parents of schoolgirls Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy like "a brick in the head," their lawyer said Monday.

"When I communicated the news to them that Karla Homolka had been released, there was this dead silence and you could just feel the pain and the anguish and the heartbreak over the telephone," Tim Danson told The Canadian Press.

"The silence lasted for quite some time."

Danson said both the French and Mahaffy families had believed they were prepared emotionally and mentally for the inevitable - the day Homolka's manslaughter sentence was finally done.

But that belief was washed away by a wave of raw grief as the reality that Homolka was no longer behind bars dawned on them.

"When it was actually real as opposed to about to happen, it just resonated in them in terms of the enormous loss that they've experienced," Danson said.

Reached at home in St. Catharines, Ont., Kristen's dad refused to comment on Homolka's release.

"I'm not answering any questions," said a subdued Doug French. "You'll have to talk to our lawyer."

Danson said the families told him that they themselves were "shocked" at how hard the news hit them.

"All they're doing is thinking of their children, Kristen and Leslie," Danson said.

"They just have the sense that there's been an egregious miscarriage of justice, that someone like Homolka could be walking free when their daughters will never see freedom."

Having served to the very last day of her sentence, Homolka slipped out of the Montreal-area prison to destinations unknown as reporters and photographers hustled to get a glimpse of a person who is likely the country's most reviled former inmate.

Danson said he didn't know where she was headed beyond public knowledge that she would try to make her home in Montreal.

Nor did he expect to be told, saying what was important was that authorities knew where she was and could keep her under surveillance

Homolka, who says she fears for her life outside the safety of the prison walls, appeared to have largely succeeded in getting released in relative obscurity.

"They knew the media was there and through Corrections and I guess the security people, they designed a release that would accomplish that result, so I'm not surprised," Danson said.

"That's what their intent was and they achieved it."

Even for the longtime lawyer, the pain that Homolka's ride to freedom brought with it was intense.

"It's awful," he said.

[Clive]

No criminal in the history of Canada has triggered the Canada wide emotional reaction that Homolka has triggered.

Nor the degree of revulsion.

[Clive]

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[FormerACLUmember]

Memo to all outraged Canadians: Rember this next time you consider voting for one of the socialist scum parties that rule your nation.

[Xenalyte]

Haven't followed the story . . . is there a thread on which I might catch up?

[Clive]

I can't suggest a single thread but you might try search terms "Homolka" and "Karla" and choose "match any word"

[TheBigB]

Evil. No other word fits.

[Stonewall Jackson]

A shark has more of a heart and soul than this inhuman monster.

[SandyB]

In the United States, the average person convicted of murder, only spends less than 9 years in prison. for manslaughter about 5 years. This woman was in prison much longer than an American who is convicted of manslaughter. Those who spend longer time in prison, are usually the high profile cases, like the Manson family, or Robert Kennedy's killer - which is unfair.

[GarySpFc]

A pretty psychopath.

[tahotdog]

A pretty psychopath.

People do not turn into psychopaths at age 17. Psychopaths are born, and not made, and it's real obvious at a very early age. Robert Hare pretty much notes that virtually all parents of psychopathic children would be happy to turn them over to government agencies at about age six or seven. Karla Homolka's childhood was perfectly normal. The basic bottom line is that you have a girl who at age seventeen had never committed any sort of a crime or hurt anybody or anything, and then she got thrown into a meatgrinder with a for-real total psychopath (Bernardo) who was also a sexual sadist and a serial rapist and who had made a major study of brainwashing and psychological control.

Pretty much everything we have seen in the media on this story, to the extent that it concerns Homolka, is a bunch of BS

Twelve years in slam for something somebody did while brainwashed is more than enough. Nonetheless Homolka has made a public statement and apology to the Canadian people tonight:

She didn't have to show anybody what she now looks like. I seriously doubt any more than one out of a thousand people would have recognized her from earlier pictures or memories. That would be using age as a disguise the same way Carlos Hathcock spoke of using distance as a silencer (for sniper rifles).

Sounds to me like a straight up attempt to level with the Canadian people.

The Canadian people have no legitimate reason to hate this woman. The people they should be angry at would include Paul Bernardo, the Canadian keystones who sat on DNA evidence and positive identifications of Bernardo as the Scarborough rapist for three years while people were being raped and killed, and this Ontario AG Michael Bryant who stood in front of cameras and stated that this 110-lb woman with no resources at all was a greater threat than Nazi Germany was.

[tahotdog]

fyi

[SilentServiceCPOWife]

Nonetheless Homolka has made a public statement and apology to the Canadian people tonight

I wonder if she's apologized to her parents for helping to rape and murder their other daughter. And putting a picture of her dead sister's face over her own while having sex with her murdering husband was a nice touch as well.

[TheBigB]

FYI, piss off and don't post any poor-little-psychopathic-murderess bull excrement to me again.

[Stonewall Jackson]

Sorry, but I'm not buying it.

One of my old girlfriends from high school could weave a pretty story also, telling everyone how cute and innocent she was, but she is now listed on several sex offender websites for sexually abusing several young teenage boys in her care (fortunately she never managed to sink her claws into me, but it was a close call).

After dealing with this on a personal level, it will take a lot more than crocodile tears and a pretty face to change my mind.

[tahotdog]

There are two things which jump out at me in the transcripts of the videos I've seen: one they are scripted (by Bernardo) and two they are 100% one-sided in that all of the benefit is to Bernardo. The only motive or benefit there could possibly have been for Homolka to have participated in any of those things was to stay alive another day.

Apparently also, three of the jurors spoke of the worst videos which showed what appeared to be active participation by Homolka and two of the three stated the opinion that Homolka had been coerced. This is basically a case of control which is entirely similar to the Patty Hearst case.

Some of Hearst's commentary on the Elizabeth Smart case are worth noting:

"There's no question at the time of the abduction she was in fear, and was fearful for a period of time," said Salt Lake City Police Chief Rick Dinse.

He also said the fact that she was walking around with the couple in an area where she might have been able to escape indicted that they had some sort of psychological control over her.

Patricia Hearst Shaw understands what that is like. She was a college student when she was kidnapped from her apartment in 1974, imprisoned in a closet, sexually assaulted and forced to participate in a bank robbery before being freed.

"You have been so abused and so robbed of your free will and so frightened that you come to a point that you believe any lie that your abductor has told you. You don't feel safe. You think that either you will be killed if you reach out for help, or you believe your family will be killed," said Hearst.

"You've, in a way, given up, you've absorbed the new identity they've given you. You're surviving -- you're not even doing that � you're just living while everything else is going on around you," she said.

Hearst said that for some time after Elizabeth is back with her family she may still believe "her kidnappers have some sort control over her."

Hearst said she didn't feel free until she faced her abductors in court and "knew for sure that they could never, ever hurt me again."

Elizabeth's father, Ed Smart, also believes his daughter was brainwashed. He and his family have not pressed her for details to spare her further trauma.

The Patty Hearst conviction struck me as a flagrant miscarriage of justice at the time, so much so that had I been the judge I'd have set the jury verdict aside without a second's hesitation. You had a case in which a very naiive 20-year old girl had been subjected to techniques which broke down trained soldiers in the Korean war and the criteria of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt was clearly not met.

[Xenalyte]

Did Homolka kill anyone herself?

[SilentServiceCPOWife]

I won't attack you, but I do not agree with you.

I don't believe that it's possible to brainwash a decent human being into raping and murdering their own little sister.

As much as we'd like to find rational explanations for the evil that exists in the world, sometimes we just can't. All we can do is try to stop it when it occurs.

[GarySpFc]

People do not turn into psychopaths at age 17. Psychopaths are born, and not made, and it's real obvious at a very early age. Robert Hare pretty much notes that virtually all parents of psychopathic children would be happy to turn them over to government agencies at about age six or seven. Karla Homolka's childhood was perfectly normal. The basic bottom line is that you have a girl who at age seventeen had never committed any sort of a crime or hurt anybody or anything, and then she got thrown into a meatgrinder with a for-real total psychopath (Bernardo) who was also a sexual sadist and a serial rapist and who had made a major study of brainwashing and psychological control.

My doctorate is in theology, with a secondary in psychology. My wife is a psychologist. We strongly disagree with your statement that individuals are born psychologists.