The most reviled woman in Canada is set to walk out of prison today, facing death threats and rage from a public still bitter that she only served 12 years for the rapes and murders of teenage girls, including her younger sister.
Karla Homolka is so frightened someone might harm her that her lawyers are demanding an unprecedented media blackout on her release and subsequent whereabouts, a move that will be challenged by media attorneys in a Montreal courtroom today.
Many in this French-speaking city believe Homolka has done her time and should be given her second chance at life, which she got after making a deal with the state in exchange for testifying against her ex-husband.
Dubbed "English-Canada's monster," by Quebecois, the 35-year-old former veterinarian assistant who grew up near Niagara Falls has said she intends to settle in Montreal, hoping for anonymity amid those perhaps less familiar with her crimes.
Those offenses, when made public through her testimony at her ex-husband's murder trial in 1995 and from homemade videotapes of their sexual killing sprees, knocked the wind out of the nation.
Canadians, unaccustomed to the grisly crimes they typically attribute to their neighbors to the south, felt as if they had lost a touch of innocence.
Renewed interest in the killer, who now calls herself Karla Teale, has reached beyond Canadian borders. The Internet search engine Google reports Homolka was among their top 10 search subjects last week, just after Michael Jackson and Angelina Jolie.
Homolka was convicted of manslaughter in 1993 and given the relatively light sentence of 12 years for her role in the rapes and murders of Ontario teenagers Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy. In return, she agreed to testify against ex-husband Paul Bernardo, a Toronto bookkeeper serving a life term in an Ontario prison for two counts of first-degree murder.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique