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 the other victims, Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French.
[8] However, videotapes of the crimes surfaced after the plea bargain and before Bernardo's trial which showed that Homolka had been a more active participant than she had originally claimed, including in the rape and death of her sister.
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.
[16] 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.
Bernardo and Homolka made a number of trips to dump the cement blocks in Lake Gibson, 18 kilometres (11 mi) south of Port Dalhousie.
They pulled into the parking lot of nearby Grace Lutheran Church and Homolka got out of the car, map in hand, pretending to need assistance.
French's nude body was discovered on April 30, 1992, in a ditch in Burlington, about 45 minutes from St. Catharines and a short distance from the cemetery where Mahaffy is buried.
American journalists cited the First Amendment in editorials and published details of Homolka's testimony, which were widely distributed by many Internet sources, primarily on the alt.fan.karla-homolka[21] Usenet newsgroup.
Newspapers in Buffalo, Detroit, Washington, New York City and even Britain, together with border radio and television stations, reported details gleaned from sources at Homolka's trial.
[20] Gordon Domm, a retired police officer who defied the publication ban by distributing details from the foreign media, was charged and convicted of disobeying a lawful court order.
[22] Jamie Cameron, professor of law at Osgoode Hall, noted that "at the time of the Homolka trial, three features of the case worried and concerned the public.
Yet on no view of the facts then known could she be exculpated; by casting her as a victim of his predatory behaviour, her responsibility for the crimes that were committed could be diminished and her credibility as a witness preserved.
"The law society directed Murray in writing to seal the tapes in a package and turn them over to the judge presiding at Bernardo's trial.
"[15] The revelation that a key piece of evidence had been kept from police for so long created a furor, especially when the public realized that Homolka had been Bernardo's willing accomplice.
The public grew incensed as the full extent of Homolka's role in the case was finally exposed and the plea agreement now seemed unnecessary.
However, as was provided in the plea bargain, Homolka had already disclosed sufficient information to the police and the Crown found no grounds to break the agreement and reopen the case.
[32] While at Kingston, Homolka began correspondence courses in sociology through nearby Queen's University[9] which initially caused a media storm.
Homolka was required to pay all fees, as well as her personal needs, from her fortnightly income of about C$69,[33] although, she told author Stephen Williams in a subsequent letter, "I did get some financial assistance".
[36] In 1999, Toronto Star reporter Michelle Shephard came into possession of copies of her application to transfer to the Maison Thérèse-Casgrain, run by the Elizabeth Fry Society, and published the story noting the halfway house's proximity to local schools, hours before the Canadian courts issued a publication ban on the information.
[39] In a 2008 letter of apology to her family, she continued to blame Bernardo for her misdeeds: "He wanted me to get sleeping pills from work... threatened me and physically and emotionally abused me when I refused...
If she posed any kind of danger, said Dr. Hubert Van Gijseghem, a forensic psychologist for Correctional Services Canada, it lay in the ominous but not unlikely possibility of her linking up with another sexual sadist like Bernardo.
"Because she was deemed a risk to reoffend, she was denied statutory release two-thirds of the way through her sentence,"[44] Maclean's reported in explaining what had exempted Homolka from the parole restrictions meant to ease an offender's integration into mainstream society.
In 2004, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation noted that "The National Parole Board has ruled that Karla Homolka must stay in prison for her full sentence, warning that she remains a risk to commit another violent crime.
Maclean's weighed in with a series of possible scenarios: "The most educated speculation has Homolka staying in Quebec, where language and cultural differences supposedly muted the media coverage of her case, and where she'll be less recognizable.
"[47] "Bilingual and armed with a bachelor's degree in psychology from Queen's University, Homolka may choose to try to live a quiet life in Quebec, where her crimes are not as well known as they are in English-speaking Canada," reported CTV in May 2005.
[48] On June 2, 2005, the network said, "the Ontario Crown will ask a Quebec judge to impose conditions under Section 810 of Criminal Code on Homolka's release.
"[48] "The French and Mahaffy families want even tighter restrictions on Homolka, including asking that she submit to electronic monitoring or yearly psychological and psychiatric assessment," CTV said.
As a result, using section 810.2 of the Criminal Code, certain restrictions were placed on Homolka as a condition of her release: There was a penalty of a maximum two-year prison term for violating such an order.
"[54] Graham Glancy, a forensic psychiatrist hired by Bernardo's chief defence lawyer, John Rosen, had offered an alternative theory to explain Homolka's behaviour, noted Williams in Invisible Darkness, his first book on the case.
On August 21, 2005, Le Courrier du Sud reported that she had been sighted in the South Shore community of Longueuil, across the St. Lawrence River from Montreal.