Victims' families want to keep Homolka leashed: lawyer

The families of Karla Homolka's victims will fight any relaxation in the rules governing her release from prison after serving a 12-year sentence, a lawyer representing them said Tuesday.

• INDEPTH: Bernardo and Homolka

"They're feeling a real sense of injustice that Karla Homolka's free and their daughters never will be," said Tim Danson, who speaks for the families of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy.

The two Ontario teenagers were kidnapped, raped and killed by Homolka and her ex-husband, Paul Bernardo, in the early 1990s.

"They're obviously concerned as well that Homolka's appealing her 810 order and they wanted me to make sure the authorities know that they'll be seeking formal intervenor standing in that appeal," Danson said of the French and Mahaffy families.

Homolka was released from the Ste-Anne-des-Plaines minimum-security institution north of Montreal Monday afternoon.

Less than a day later, lawyers representing her were in court in Montreal to appeal restrictions placed upon her release under Section 810 of the Criminal Code.

Those restrictions include having to notify police if she changes her name or address, reporting to police the first Friday of every month and having no contact with Bernardo.

• FROM JUNE 3, 2005: Judge says Homolka still poses threat, imposes strict conditions on her freedom

In an interview conducted in French less than two hours after she left prison, Homolka told the CBC's French language service that she'll never forget what she did to French, Mahaffy and her own teenaged sister Tammy.

Tammy Homolka choked to death after Homolka drugged her so that Bernardo could rape her, two days before Christmas in 1990. Karla Homolka also took a turn sexually assaulting the 15-year-old girl as she lay unconscious in their family's home in St. Catharines, Ont., with Bernardo recording the assault with a video camera.

Karla Homolka being interviewed by Radio-Canada Monday.

"There are concrete prisons and there are interior prisons, and I think I'll always be in an interior prison because of what I did," Homolka told her Radio-Canada interviewer, Joyce Napier, in French.

• FROM JULY 4, 2005: I think it's time I talk,' says Homolka

Homolka's decision to talk to the CBC came just hours after her lawyers were in court trying to obtain a ban on media coverage of their client, on the grounds that she was terrified someone would try to hurt her if the media revealed where she was living.

That request for a publication ban was denied.

"Karla Homolka, in my view, is damaged goods. She is a psychopath," Danson said Tuesday.

Lawyer Tim Danson, who represents the French and Mahaffy families. (File photo)

"The fact that she sought a media ban whilst giving a media interview is somewhat remarkable... She just wants no conditions on her so that she can disappear."

In 1993, Ontario prosecutors cut Homolka a deal. She agreed to plead guilty to two counts of manslaughter and serve 12 years in exchange for testifying against Bernardo. The plea bargain outraged many people and has been criticized for being too lenient.

Bernardo, who has admitted to sexually assaulting at least 14 women in southern Ontario, was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder.

He has been declared a dangerous offender and will likely spend the rest of his life in jail.