Karla Homolka

Karla Leanne Homolka (born May 4, 1970), also known as Karla Leanne Teale, Leanne Teale, and Leanne Bordelais, is a Canadian serial killer who acted as an accomplice to her husband, Paul Bernardo, taking active part in the rapes and murders of at least three minors in Ontario – including her own sister, Tammy Homolka – between 1990 and 1992.

Homolka attracted worldwide media attention when a controversial plea bargain with Ontario prosecutors meant she was only convicted of manslaughter, and served only twelve years for the torture, rapes and murders of two teenaged girls, Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French.

Homolka testified against Bernardo, who was convicted of the Mahaffy–French murders and received life imprisonment and a dangerous offender designation.

Homolka stated to investigators that she had been an unwilling accomplice in Bernardo's murders as a result of domestic violence, resulting in a deal made with prosecutors for a reduced prison sentence in exchange for a guilty plea to the charge of manslaughter.

Homolka scored 5/40 on the Psychopathy Checklist, in contrast to Bernardo's 35/40.

However, videotapes of the crimes surfaced after the plea bargain and before Bernardo's trial, proving that Homolka was a more active participant than she had originally claimed, including in the rape and death of her sister, Tammy Homolka.

As a result, the deal that she had struck with prosecutors was dubbed in the Canadian press the "Deal with the Devil".

According to Homolka, her husband Paul Bernardo became attracted to her younger sister, Tammy Homolka, during the summer of 1990 (this attraction was confirmed by Bernardo, during an interview conducted in 2007 while in custody, to have begun in July 1990).

Karla hatched a plan to help Bernardo drug Tammy, seeing an opportunity to "minimise risks, take control, and keep it all in the family."

In July, "according to Bernardo's testimony, he and Karla served Tammy a spaghetti dinner spiked with Valium stolen from Karla's workplace. Bernardo raped Tammy for about a minute before she started to wake up."

Homolka later stole the anesthetic agent halothane from the St. Catharines veterinarian clinic where she worked.

On December 23, 1990, after a Christmas party at the Homolka household, Bernardo and Homolka drugged Tammy with the animal tranquilizer.

The couple subsequently raped Tammy while she was unconscious.

Tammy later choked on her own vomit and died.

Before calling 9-1-1, Bernardo and Homolka hid the evidence, did the laundry, redressed Tammy (who had a chemical burn on her face), and moved her into her basement bedroom.

A few hours later, Tammy was pronounced dead at St. Catharines General Hospital without having regained consciousness.

Bernardo told police he had unsuccessfully tried to revive her, and her death was ruled an accident.

On June 7, 1991, Homolka invited a 15-year-old girl she had befriended at a pet shop two years earlier, known as "Jane Doe" in the trials, to their home.

"Doe" was then drugged by Homolka.

Both Homolka and Bernardo sexually assaulted her and videotaped their assault.

In August, "Jane Doe" was invited back to the couple's residence and was again drugged.

Homolka called 911 for help after the girl vomited and stopped breathing while being raped.

The ambulance was recalled after Homolka and Bernardo resuscitated her.

Early in the morning on June 15, 1991, Bernardo detoured through Burlington (halfway between Toronto and St. Catharines) to steal licence plates and found Leslie Mahaffy standing outside her home.

The 14-year-old had missed her curfew after attending a friend's wake and was locked out of her house.

Bernardo left his car and approached Mahaffy, saying that he wanted to break into a neighbour's house.

Unfazed, she asked if he had any cigarettes.

He claimed he had some in his vehicle.

When Bernardo led her to his car he blindfolded her, forced her into the car, drove her to Port Dalhousie and informed Homolka that they had a victim.

Bernardo and Homolka videotaped themselves torturing and sexually abusing Mahaffy while they listened to Bob Marley and David Bowie.

At one point Bernardo said, "You're doing a good job, Leslie, a damned good job", adding: "The next two hours are going to determine what I do to you. Right now, you're scoring perfect."

On another segment of tape played at Bernardo's trial, the assault escalated.

Mahaffy cried out in pain, and begged Bernardo to stop.

In the Crown description of the scene, he was sodomizing her while her hands were bound with twine.

Mahaffy later told Bernardo that her blindfold seemed to be slipping, which signaled the possibility that she could identify her attackers if she was set free or lived.

The following day, Bernardo claimed, Homolka fed her a lethal dose of Halcion; Homolka claimed that Bernardo strangled her.

Public outrage about the plea deal continued until Homolka's high-profile release from prison in 2005.

Each of the three murders was committed the day before a family holiday spent with Homolka's family (Christmas, Father's Day, and Easter).

Following her release from prison, Homolka settled in Quebec, where she married a brother of her lawyer.

She briefly lived in the Antilles and Guadeloupe, but by 2014, had returned to Quebec.