Keystone cops, dead girls and a skanky, white, trailer-trash psychopath. (3639 hits)
Category: RomanceRating: 1.85 on 34 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by satchel (View user info) at 2005-06-01 17:25:44 EDT
Summer 1991 - I was seventeen and living in the blissful suburban desert that is nine-tenths of southern Ontario. From Kingston to Niagara Falls, if you discount the world class city of Toronto, there is not much to see except congested highways, mile upon mile of identical treeless housing developments, chemically treated lawns and the occasional auto plant. For sheer ugliness, check out Hamilton and it's signature Stelco steel mill. The mill is best viewed from the Burlington Skyway bridge at night, when the flames from the furnaces blaze brightly, and the ironwork is nicely illuminated by hundreds of hallogen spotlights. For variety, look out on the bay at Lake Ontario. If you are particularly lucky, and happen to be blessed with a day when the smog has lifted, you may see the spire of the CN Tower poking up on the eastern horizon.
Southern Ontario may a bland, featureless waste, but until 1991, it was a damn fine place to raise bland, featureless children in relative safety.
On June 29th, a middle-age couple canoeing on Lake Gibson spotted a concrete block embedded with what appeared to be flesh. Cracking open the block, investigators discovered a foot still attached to a calf. Later, they would identify the braces in yet another block (one of five), and postitively identify the remains of Leslie Mahaffey. She'd been missing for two weeks. Apparently the police considered her a runaway, because she'd been locked out of the house by her parents for missing a curfew.
I don't remember too much of a furor over Leslie's disappearance; this is Ontario, after all - to get us really excited, we need a constitutional crisis, or a renewed threat of separation from La Belle Province. A girl was missing, and later a body was found, but in the 15 days in between not much was said.
Fast forward to April a year later to the disappearance of another girl, this time an A student, popular and very pretty, by the name of Kristen French. This time there was no question of a runaway feuding with tough-love parents. She'd been seen getting into a car with a couple, a man and a woman, in the parking lot of her church. This time the media saturated the television and radio with wall-to-wall pictures of the missing girl, and this time, bland Ontario waited and watched obsessively for hopeful news. Parents watched over their bland, featureless and above-all precious children. This time they knew, viscerally, that something BAD was stalking their safe and boring province. My parents watched me and worried, but they watched my sister even more closely; I was the incredibly straight-laced and responsible one, but her - her they could see climbing into a car with an "unidentified couple".
Fourteen days later, the body of Kristen French was found naked in a ditch. Surprise, surprise.
Of course, this is a story that has been repeated ad nauseaum in too many places to count. Missing girls and rapists and dismembered bodies are hardly news. If that was the extent of the story, I wouldn't be bothered repeating any part of it.
Fast forward yet another year to 1993, and the Toronto cops were closing on a charming specimen whom they tagged "The Scarborough Rapist". Things started to snowball. Police had a sketch dating back to 1987, they had complaints of rape and abuse by ex-girlfriends of the suspect, they had a possible DNA match, they knew the suspect lived in the area where Leslie and Kristen had gone missing. They interviewed the man as a possible suspect in the Scarborough rapes. The sketch was released and tips rolled in but police in Niagara Falls, and police in Scarborough didn't put two and two together to come up with Paul Bernardo.
Enter the skanky, white-trash, trailer-park psychopath.
Not Paul Bernardo, whom I've seen described as "gardern-variety rapist". How we've come to the point where "garden-variety rapist" is an acceptable sobriquet, I won't address. Suffice to say that, until Paul Bernardo met up with Karla Homolka, he was just your average rapist, merrily rampaging through the ranks of teenagers in that great black hole known as Scarborough.
Maybe the sheer banality of his evil is the reason I can forget him, consign him to eternity in a six-by-six isolated cell. He has been designated a dangerous offender under Ontario law, which means that he will probably die in prison, mourned by no one, not even his family. Just your average rapist and murderer left to rot unremarked.
Karla is a whole other story, however. In 1993, having been beaten to a near pulp, both eyes blackened by a flashlight, Karla Homolka went to the police and turned in the Scarborough Rapist - her husband. Over the course of years, Karla had participated in the rape and "accidental death" of her sister Tammy, the rape, torture and murders of Kristen and Leslie, and the rape and torture of two other unidentified women, Jane and Steph Doe.
Prior to her marriage, Karla procured an animal tranquilizer - Halothane - to knock out her baby sister, and give her as a "Christmas present" to her then-boyfriend, Paul. Tammy was raped, choked on her own vomit, and died. Karla was present and participated in the rape. The death was ruled accidental.
Kristen and Leslie were held, raped, sodomized, tortured and murdered over a period of two weeks, each. The rapes were video-taped. Karla is shown, on tape, participating in the rape. Handing Paul the saw to carve up Leslie.
Paul and Karla were married in high trailer-park style while bits of Leslie Mahaffey were being pulled from Lake Gibson. She blew up at her parents for mourning Tammy too much, and taking attention away from her upcoming marriage to Paul.
Jane and Steph Joe were also abducted and raped. Video-taped by Paul and Karla. The courts won't tell us much more than that.
During 1993, Ontario was sold a story - Karla was an abused wife, oppressed and ruled by her banal rapist-husband. Not responsible, somehow, for her part in the murders. She was the star witness, getting a sweetheart deal from the crown, immunity from further prosecution, and twelve years in jail for her part in three murders, and five rapes.
Actually, she got ten years, but they tacked on two as a "consideration" for the "accidental death" of her own sister.
The video tapes were discovered tucked away in a bathroom pot-light by Paul's lawyer. He held on to the tapes for months before releasing them to police. Naturally, this was after the sweetheart deal was signed, sealed and written in stone.
My point, after all this blathering on?
Karla will be released in five weeks from Quebec's Joilette prison, having served her entire 12-year sentence, free and clear. She has a B.A. in psychology, courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer. She plans to cut her hair and settle in Quebec. Apparently, she has decided never to return to St. Catharine's Ontario, because the people there would like very much to kill her.
Me? I just remember two summers where two girls went missing, and one summer where an inept justice system tried to portray a skanky, white, trailer-trash psychopath as a victim. I didn't believe it then, and I sure as hell don't believe it now.
And once again, I find myself an Ontarian proffering an apology to Quebec: coming soon to a neighbourhood near you, Karla Homolka.
User Reviews
Submitted by Enkiel (user info) at 2005-08-18 14:19:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Karla did her time, and unlike you unforgetfull Ontarian, we welcome her back to the real world
Submitted by satchel (user info) at 2005-06-02 20:45:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Genko - I have issues about Hamilton that admittedly have nothing to do with your fine city. Just a whole lot of family history that casts a pall over the whole place.
Look at it this way: I hate Mississauga WAY more than Hamilton. Well, I might hate it if it had a shred of personality. And I live here - go figure.
Submitted by Genko (user info) at 2005-06-02 20:12:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I considered breaking your streak for calling Hamilton ugly.
Instead I'll just suggest that you drive by it again. Hamilton is the best city in the world.
Submitted by shark25 (user info) at 2005-06-02 13:57:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Damn.
Well when she dies she will burn in hell but I hope they get somebody to send her there quickier.
Submitted by satchel (user info) at 2005-06-02 13:48:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by jack11058 (user info) at 2005-06-02 13:26:12 (#)
Ranking: 2
sounds like it's time for the Tax Collector to make a trip up north...
______________________________________________________________________
I dream about meeting this woman in a dark alley with a tire-iron and a rusty razor.
She was in a Quebec courthouse today trying to get out of a peace bond that would let the police keep tabs on her, even though she has completed her sentence. Without even a hint of irony, the same system that portrayed her as a victim twelve years ago is now trying to sell the court on the idea that she is a dangerous psychopath who needs to be watched closely.
If I were her, I'd be begging the police to look out for me.
A spelling error in the original post: it's Joliette prison, not Joilette.
Factual error, as well: while the skank WAS taped participating in all the rapes, she only confessed to helping Paul dismember Leslie.
They convicted Paul for both murders and the Scarborough rapes.
Karla was only ever convicted of manslaughter in the case of Leslie and Kristen. She was never tried or convicted for the sexual assaults, OR for Tammy's death. Like I mentioned earlier, the only acknowledgement that Tammy ever got was a sentencing consideration that added two years to the original ten for two counts of manslaughter.
Submitted by jack11058 (user info) at 2005-06-02 13:26:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
sounds like it's time for the Tax Collector to make a trip up north...
http://www.ubersite.com/m/62175
Submitted by Adamdidit2u (user info) at 2005-06-02 12:58:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm on # 76
Submitted by loki (user info) at 2005-06-02 12:37:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
dear god
Submitted by Jeanneee (user info) at 2005-06-02 11:39:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I had no idea there were bad people in Canada. This changes everything.
Submitted by DonovanMD (user info) at 2005-06-02 11:34:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Robert Pickton? That is some sick shit out there. Some dude is murdering hookers in Edmonton and dumping them in fields. Things are fucked up everywhere.
--
"Some dude" = Stevie_says
....think about it.
Submitted by Jungle_Jimanee (user info) at 2005-06-02 10:58:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good Post
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2005-06-02 08:52:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by stevie_says (user info) at 2005-06-02 01:34:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-06-01 23:30:02 (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by kai070169 (user info) at 2005-06-01 18:41:45 (#)
Ranking: 2
"Law" in Canada is a sad joke
************************************
Dude. The law is a sad joke pretty much everywhere.
Excellent, excellent post. Hits close to home...I dated a girl who lived in the general area as Kristen French. I don't think anyone in Southern Ontario who's old enough to remember will ever forget this.
Kind of makes me glad I live in a boring place. Have you seen the news on this guy in Vancouver, the one who has (allegedly) killed 55 women and is being dubbed as Canada's worst serial killer ever?
---
Robert Pickton? That is some sick shit out there. Some dude is murdering hookers in Edmonton and dumping them in fields. Things are fucked up everywhere.
Submitted by CunningVision (user info) at 2005-06-01 23:55:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Sick.
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-06-01 23:30:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by kai070169 (user info) at 2005-06-01 18:41:45 (#)
Ranking: 2
"Law" in Canada is a sad joke
************************************
Dude. The law is a sad joke pretty much everywhere.
Excellent, excellent post. Hits close to home...I dated a girl who lived in the general area as Kristen French. I don't think anyone in Southern Ontario who's old enough to remember will ever forget this.
Kind of makes me glad I live in a boring place. Have you seen the news on this guy in Vancouver, the one who has (allegedly) killed 55 women and is being dubbed as Canada's worst serial killer ever?
Submitted by stevie_says (user info) at 2005-06-01 21:38:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
If I were her, I'd stay in jail.
Submitted by PokeyPecker (user info) at 2005-06-01 21:09:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I don't care what you say! America is still better than Canada! We have WAY more rapists and murderers than YOUUUUUU do! Nya-nya-na-na!
USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2005-06-01 20:41:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This is why I study Forensic Psychology.
The never ending quest of "why did this happen?"
Submitted by peckerhead (user info) at 2005-06-01 20:28:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was review for me but maybe not for many others. This is one story that cannot be overpublicized <--- probably spelt wrong but I don't care. The point is that everyone from age 7 and up should be aware that Karla H. is being released from prison. Personally, I think that there is an excellent chance that she will try to commit another crime along the lines of the ones described in this well written post. Beware.
Submitted by SkyLaR (user info) at 2005-06-01 20:00:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by CoreaPeekay (user info) at 2005-06-01 19:38:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Saxon (user info) at 2005-06-01 19:00:21 (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2005-06-01 17:52:27 (#)
Ranking: 2
Wow that is a little disturbing.
How do two people that twisted find each other, and most the people on Ubersite can't find girl/boyfriends?
-------------------------
This was such a profound point.
-----------------------------
You'd be suprised what people would admit to and discuss when they're 'secure' with eachother. Even I, the most hidden bastard on the face of the planet, have opened up to love. Its just sheer bad luck that two crazies end up together and work it out before they rape and murder eachother.
Submitted by satchel (user info) at 2005-06-01 19:17:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Interesting factoid: they've made a a movie about the whole mess. The red-haired chick from "That 70's Show" plays Homolka.
The makers claim that the movie treats the victims "respectfully".
I don't think I will be seeing it.
Submitted by Saxon (user info) at 2005-06-01 19:00:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2005-06-01 17:52:27 (#)
Ranking: 2
Wow that is a little disturbing.
How do two people that twisted find each other, and most the people on Ubersite can't find girl/boyfriends?
-------------------------
This was such a profound point.
Submitted by kai070169 (user info) at 2005-06-01 18:41:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"Law" in Canada is a sad joke.
Submitted by Yams (user info) at 2005-06-01 18:25:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nothing short of beautiful.
Submitted by Morlock (user info) at 2005-06-01 18:17:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was on A Current Affair recently.
Very sick, very twisted. She is obviously nuttier than the guy....
Submitted by WildcatMcGee (user info) at 2005-06-01 18:12:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
So are we all going to get drunk, track her down and kill her or what? Is anyone with me? Anyone?
Fine. I'll do it myself.
Submitted by Deidra (user info) at 2005-06-01 17:58:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Very well written.
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2005-06-01 17:52:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Wow that is a little disturbing.
How do two people that twisted find each other, and most the people on Ubersite can't find girl/boyfriends?
Submitted by strider (user info) at 2005-06-01 17:51:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I read about this last Fall. What you wrote pretty well summarizes it. There are some very sick people in the world. Here is the very long version:
http://www.crimelibrary.com/serials/bernardo/bernmain.htm
Submitted by YELLOW-MAN (user info) at 2005-06-01 17:40:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by DonovanMD (user info) at 2005-06-01 17:32:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was an awesome post. Very well written. I may live out West but there has been plenty of Karla talk the last few weeks.
Submitted by jumpinjellyfish (user info) at 2005-06-01 17:31:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Sounds like a little future vigilantism coming to Quebec.
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2005-06-01 17:31:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Interesting post. Bit Tabloidy.