Serial Killers: The Homolka Case

1130 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Media impact on bias

Synopsis of Homolka Case

Karla Homolka is a Canadian convicted serial killer. In May of 1993, after working out a plea bargain with the Crown, she was sentenced to 12 years with 2 counts of manslaughter, to which she pleaded guilty in exchange for testifying against her husband and partner in crime, Paul Bernardo. Without her testimony, there would not have been enough evidence to convict him. In 1991, Homolka took part in the rape-murder of 14 year old Leslie Mahaffy and then the rape-murder of 15 year old Kristen French in 1992. Bernardo was convicted on 2 charges each of kidnapping, unlawful confinement, aggravated sexual assault and first degree murders and then on one count of dismemberment. He was also found to be the Scarborough Rapist, who sexually assaulted and raped more than the 11 known girls in the Scarborough area from 1987-1990. Bernardo was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Tammy Homolka (raped and murdered)
Karla had been a good girlfriend and wife to Paul for many years; she did anything he wanted for fear of losing him as she was a far cry from the innocent virgin which he desired. As their wedding was approaching in the upcoming year, Paul grew closer to the Homolka family and became obsessed with Karla’s younger sister, Tammy. December of 1990, Karla reluctantly agreed to assist Paul in deflowering Tammy by drugging her unconscious so that she wouldn’t remember it later. December 24th after a family Christmas party, Paul got Tammy very drunk and drugged her. Karla knocked her out with the anesthetics she stole from the veterinary clinic where she worked, and allowed her fiancée to rape Tammy. He then forced Karla to perform sexual acts on her own sister. Tammy however began vomiting and choked and died, mu...

... middle of paper ...

...the video tapes. He was cleared of these charges in June.

Witness Testimony

I already typed this. It’s on the school computer.

Verdict, sentence, appeals, already typed as well

ADDITION TO: sentence

Karla’s sentence began in Kingston’s Prison for Women, but when it closed in 1997, she was moved to Joliette Institution in Quebec. During her sentence, she correspondently studied psychology through Queen’s University and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. She paid for it herself, though she admits she had some assistance, with her fortnightly income of $69. The media was not happy about her making good of the situation because as Globe columnist, Margaret Wente, wrote “Nothing has changed. Concepts of remorse, repentance, shame, responsibility and atonement have no place in the universe of Karla. Perhaps she simply lacks the moral gene,”.

Show More
Related

  • Horrific and Disturbing Murders in Illinois

    1753 Words  | 4 Pages

    A horrific murder happened in tiny Skidmore on December of 2004. Lisa Montgomery and Bobbi Jo Stinnett met and found out that they had much in common and became good friends (Nunes 85-86). Surprisingly, Bobbi and Lisa met in an internet chat room. Bobbi was into puppy breeding and she occasionally served as a judge. Lisa lived in Kansas where her close friends were shocked about what she was talking about. Of course, Lisa shrugged it off and she sent an email to Bobbi saying that she wanted to see the puppies (Nunes 85-86). When Lisa met Bobbi Jo she had a fake name which was Darlene Fisher because she didn’t want Bobbi to know her real identity. When Lisa sent Bobbi the email she had a criminal intent on her mind. She was planning to choke Bobbi into unconsciousness and then cut open her womb and steal Bobbi’s unborn baby. When Lisa arrived at the house she threw a rope around Bobbi’s neck and choked her until she was unconscious. That is when Lisa took a knife and started to cut open Bobbi’s stomach. Lisa had to cut through skin, fat, and muscle to get to Bobbi’s uterus. Bobbi’s baby was in eight-month gestation; Lisa cut and tied the baby’s cord. Lisa stole the baby and fled to her house in Kansas. Unfort...

    Read More

  • Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka: Canadian Rapists/Murderers

    1970 Words  | 4 Pages

    Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka: Canadian Rapists/Murderers. Paul Bernardo was a well liked child by all the parents in the neighbourhood, he was pleasant and friendly. Although, when he was sixteen, he got into an argument with his mother and she told him about how he was an illegitimate child and showed him the picture of his real father for whom she had an affair with. Paul was devastated and after the incident, he did not get along with his mother. He started to hang around a tough crowd of people, had a terrible temper and enjoyed humiliating women publicly.

    Read More

  • Case Analysis: Paul Bernardo And Karla Homolka

    1440 Words  | 3 Pages

    Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka are serial rapists and murderers known for the heinous crimes they committed as husband and wife. Prior to meeting, Paul was seen as the “perfect” child. He was a high achieving student, polite, and always happy. No one ever suspect that he harbored such dark and vile sexual fantasies. May 4, 1987, Paul brutally attacked and raped a 21-year-old woman he followed home (Fowles, 2013). Days later, he attacked and raped a 19-year-old girl in her parents’ backyard. This incident was followed by another incident in July of 1987. Meanwhile, in October 1987, Paul met Karla at convention in Toronto (Montaldo,

    Read More

  • The Serial Killer: The Case Of Lemuel Smith

    1202 Words  | 3 Pages

    When it come to the wrongdoing of serial murders the first thing people think of is that the offender is psychotic, white, abused as a child and experimented with animals. However that is not true, serial killers have different alternatives, motives and desires. Some are sexual sadist, act in necrophilia and are mission base serial killers. However people do not know that African-Americans consist of the largest racial minority group among serial killers, representing approximately 20 percent of the total amount of serial killers in America. (Bonn) Most believe that serial killers are white and other races are not likely to partake in that type of crimes. However two notorious well known black serial killers are Lemuel Smith & John Floyd

    Read More

  • Book Review: A women Doing Life

    948 Words  | 2 Pages

    Erin G., 2010, A Woman Doing Life: Notes from a Prison for Women: The Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. vi, 202, Vol. 8(2)175.

    Read More

  • Jeff Jacoby’s Bring Flogging Back

    1009 Words  | 3 Pages

    Many young criminals are less likely to become career criminals if punished through public embarrassment than through prison. Prison can be a sign of manliness or a “status symbol” (Jacoby 197). He says “prison is a graduate school for criminals”, providing evidence that criminals want to be convicted and be in prison, to strengthen their status (Jacoby 197). Jacoby knows how to properly get his view across to the reader, by saying that prison is not as effective now, as it used to be.... ... middle of paper ...

    Read More

  • The Hela Cells

    1540 Words  | 4 Pages

    When Deborah was only sixteen she became pregnant with her first child by Cheetah and boy she liked when she was younger. Cheetah and Deborah got married and then had their second child. Deborah became very unhappy in the marriage because Cheetah started drinking and doing drugs. He started abusing Deborah. Cheetah pushed Deborah so much she almost killed him if it wasn’t for Bobbette. Deborah’s brothers Sonny and Lawrence were doing well except for Joe. Joe was another case. Joe went to the military, and the family was hoping that would do him good; but he came out worse than when he went in. Joe was threatened and beaten up by a boy named Ivy. Joe was in so much rage he went and stabbed him and killed him. Joe eventually turned himself in to the law, was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced fifteen years in prison.

    Read More

  • Serial Killers: H. H. Holmes

    2489 Words  | 5 Pages

    As if molded directly from the depths of nightmares, both fascinating and terrifying. Serial killers hide behind bland and normal existences. They are often able to escape being caught for years, decades and sometimes an eternity. These are America’s Serial Killers (America’s Serial Killers). “Even when some of them do get caught, we may not recognize what they are because they don’t [sic] match the distorted image we have of serial killers” (Brown). What is that distorted image? That killers live among everyday life, they are the ones who creep into someone’s life unknowingly to torture and kill them. The serial killers that are in the movies, Norman Bates, Michael Myers, and the evil master mind of SAW, these characters are just that characters. They have been made up as exaggerated fictional characters from the Hollywood imagination.

    Read More

  • Wrongful Conviction - A Miscarriage In The Canadian Justice System

    1655 Words  | 4 Pages

    Maidment, M. (2009). When justice is a game: Unravelling wrongful convictions in Canada. Canada: Fernwood Publishing.

    Read More

  • A Critical Analysis of Healthcare Serial Killers

    1471 Words  | 3 Pages

    Serial murder, which is defined as “the unlawful killing of two or more victims, by the same offenders, in separate events”(Lubaszka & Shon, 2013, p. 1), is a term that American society has become quite familiar with. At a ripe age, parents begin teaching their children not to talk to strangers in hopes of shielding them from the potential evil our world has to offer, but what if I told you the serial killer may not always be the scary man driving a van and offering candy? Our society, like it does most things, has placed a stigma upon serial killers. Although not all implied labels are untrue, this stigma makes us vulnerable to the hidden deviance lurking behind us, dressed in sheep’s clothing. Over the course of this analysis, I will discuss and elaborate on Christine Lubaszka and Phillip Shon’s work, “The notion of victim selection, risk, and offender behavior in healthcare serial murders”. My evaluation will consists of a thorough description of Lubaszka and Shon’s article, followed by a brief critic explaining how their work relates to other forms of deviance, social control, and the material studied in this course, as well as stating a few of the drawbacks and benefits of the authors’ work and suggestions for future researchers.

    Read More

  • How Serial Killers came to be

    1910 Words  | 4 Pages

    A serial killer is traditional defined as the separate killings of three or more people by an individual over a certain period of time, usually with breaks between the murders. (Angela Pilson, p. 2, 2011) This definition has been accepted by both the police and academics and therefore provides a useful frame of reference (Kevin Haggerty, p.1, 2009). The paper will seek to provide the readers with an explanation of how serial killers came to be and how they are portrayed in the media.

    Read More

  • Studies on The Childhood of Serial Killers

    1453 Words  | 3 Pages

    A serial killer is a person who murders three or more people over a period of more than 30 days, with a "cooling off" period between each murder, and whose motivation for killing is largely based on psychological gratification. Most people do not understand what can make a person want to kill multiple people for no reason other than own satisfactional gain. In actuality serial killers have been studied for over hundreds of years, and the information that has been documented continues to grow. The research that I have gathered about serial killers focuses on their childhood development, the differences and similarities between men and female serial kills, and finally general information on how their brains operate and their motives for committing such harmful acts.

    Read More

  • Serial Killers: A Different Brain

    1412 Words  | 3 Pages

    Serial killers have captivated the attention of scientists from the first signs of their existence to modern day. Interested by these killers’ inhumane actions, researchers set out to determine the cause of such graphic, horrific crimes. The brain has been brought into question regarding the motivation of these cold blooded killers. After extensive research, abnormalities of both the chemical composition and material makeup have been identified within the brains of numerous serial killers. These differences are more than mere coincidence, they are evidence that killers do not think in the same way. The killers’ drives and motives are irregular, just as their brains are. Not only are these variations interesting, but they are also crucial to the justice system in regards to the punishment of past, future, and present sequential murderers. It is important that as a society we learn the differences in the mind of a killer, and also recognize and understand them. A serial killer’s brain greatly differs in function from the average citizen’s brain due to physical variations in the brain and a different chemical makeup.

    Read More

  • The Mind of Serial Killers

    722 Words  | 2 Pages

    We can all agree that serial killers are unpredictable scary people but when it comes to why they kill, everyone has a different view. In my research paper I will get into the mind of a serial killer and try to figure out what exactly sets them into uncontrollable rage.

    Read More

  • Serial Killers and Mass Murderers

    1992 Words  | 4 Pages

    Mass Murderers and Serial Killers are nothing new to today’s society. These vicious killers are all violent, brutal monsters and have an abnormal urge to kill. What gives people these urges to kill? What motivates them to keep killing? Do these killers get satisfaction from killing? Is there a difference between mass murderers and serial killers or are they the same. How do they choose their victims and what are some of their characteristics? These questions and many more are reasons why I was eager to write my paper on mass murderers and serial killers. However, the most interesting and sought after questions are the ones that have always been controversial. One example is; what goes on inside the mind of a killer? In this paper I will try to develop a better understanding of these driven killers and their motives.

    Read More

More about Serial Killers: The Homolka Case

Open Document