Finding Karla: How I Tracked Down an Elusive Serial Child Killer and Discovered a Mother of Three (Kindle Single)

by Paula Todd

  But just as important to me was another question: What if Homolka really had been the youthful battered pawn of a manipulative psychopath — as the majority of experts initially believed — and, away from him, really was unlikely to reoffend? As a young law student, I’d worked with victims of domestic violence and had seen how immobilizing violence could be. With Bernardo behind bars, perhaps Homolka was harmlessly living out the life the justice system promised her after she ended his reign of rape and murder.

  If I could find Karla Homolka, were there any answers to be had?

  But first, how in the world would I locate a woman who never wants herself or her family in the public eye again? I began to spend every free moment sifting through all of the online Homolka gossip, lies and diatribes for shards of truth.

  At one point, bloggers thought they’d found Karla Homolka using the pseudonym “Emily Tremblay” on Facebook. The Facebook account disappeared shortly thereafter. The pseudonym made sense, given Homolka’s rejected court application to change her name to Tremblay, a common surname in French Canada.

  I figured that a defeated Homolka would resort to a variation on her legal name, something she could alter without judicial approval. Just before Bernardo’s capture, the couple had legally changed their surname to “Teale,” adapted from the 1987 movie Criminal Law, featuring a serial killer called “Thiel,” pronounced “Teale.”

  At the time of her arrest, Teale was Homolka’s legal surname, which she kept while in prison. It seemed a strange thing to do, staying tied to the psychopath she was testifying against, the man she claimed had beaten her into submission. But she obviously wouldn’t want to use “Bernardo,” and reverting to her maiden name would have kept the innocent Homolka family forever in the headlines. (In the end, no one would use “Teale,” though. She was, and always has been, identified as Karla Homolka).

  Soon after Homolka settled near Montreal, rumours began to circulate that she was dating a man named Thierry Bordelais, who was possibly related to her lawyer, Sylvie Bordelais, though this was never confirmed. Then, in 2007, Canadian media published a photograph of Thierry, wearing a big parka and toting a covered baby carrier. This, we were told, was Bordelais and Homolka’s new son.

  If the pair was still together, which my gut said was likely, I doubted she’d keep a visceral tie to the name she’d shared with Bernardo. Any man who loved Homolka enough to take on her horrific history likely wouldn’t appreciate her using her ex-husband’s name. I also had a hunch that while Homolka needed a new identity to escape detection, she wouldn’t want to risk fraud charges and a return to prison by adopting a name illegally.

  My bet was that, with angry neighbours and unrelenting media on her tail, Homolka was looking for a hideaway outside of Canada and would have to use a legal name for immigration. That left “Leanne,” her legal middle name, and “Bordelais,” the family name of her baby’s father. My money was on “Leanne Bordelais,” and that’s who I focused on finding.

  I ran computer searches and catalogued what I found. Once I’d picked clean the mainstream Web, I engaged more sophisticated databases, a research method called “forensic surfing.” Leanne Bordelais, if she’d remarried; Leanne Teale, if she hadn’t. I even tried “Bordeaux,” a variation on “Bordelais.”

  Online, I crossed international cyber-borders, scoured foreign websites and chat rooms in different languages. Gossip placed them in the Lesser Antilles. Bordelais spoke French, and now so did Homolka, as her only television interview in 2005 demonstrated so well. Martinique, Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Haiti and more in the Caribbean were all mentioned as possibilities. In Europe, other tips led me through France and the Czech Republic, where her father had spent his early youth. As for the United States, I doubted she would head there, given how much Homolka disliked the press and the relish with which American journalists had broken Canadian court-ordered publicity bans during her trial.

  I mapped constellations of Facebook contacts, tracing social media connections to Homolka from around the world. But I never knew whether I’d started in the right place, with the right Homolka, Teale, Tremblay or Bordelais.

  Cyberspace is currently the world’s most powerful information realm — and also a maddening chaos of fake existences, false leads and tangled lies. The number of accounts and phony Facebookers make it difficult to know who you are really dealing with on the World Wide Web.

  At one point, some bloggers insisted Homolka was living in the Bahamas with the bisexual porn actor Luka Magnotta. A Bahamian newspaper spurred an international blog buzz when it reported in 2010 that local residents feared the schoolgirl killer was living in their midst.

  I didn’t buy the Homolka-Magnotta coupling. First, many now believe it was the narcissistic Magnotta himself who started the story online. He’d apparently been obsessed with Homolka since her starring role in the Bernardo trial. And besides, when Magnotta complained to The Toronto Sun in 2007 that rumours of a relationship with Homolka were ruining his life, she was likely nursing her newborn son.

  Nor did I think Homolka, so set on anonymity, would be stupid enough to date a man who spent his life pouting for photographs he obsessively posted online. And even if Homolka had once hidden away in a Bahamian guest house, she most certainly would have fled after the front-page frenzy in 2010, so there didn’t seem much point looking for her there.

  I didn’t buy the bisexual-porn-actor scenario for another reason: Trial evidence suggested this was a woman who craved “happily ever after” so desperately that she was willing to kill for it. No, if Bordelais had fathered Homolka’s son, and they’d married — a big if — my bet was she would follow him anywhere.

  I went back to the paper trail, rereading news reports, snippets of trial transcripts, and biographies — all the while trying to guess where she was by getting inside her head. I wasn’t always sure I wanted to succeed.

  Still, every day and night I pondered what strategy she’d use to remain hidden from those who wanted her further punished, harassed, even killed. How far would she go to thwart reporters or vigilantes? As far as needed, probably, but it was unlikely she had much money for an intricate escape plan. In prison, Homolka made only pocket change. Once free, she worked briefly as a hardware store clerk until her boss handed her over to the media. She’d been spotted twice, once by a Toronto Sun reporter in 2005, and the following year by a television crew from Canada’s Global TV. She refused to comment and fled into the subway system.

  By my calculation, though, a couple, possibly one with a baby and no cash, would most likely turn to family. I still wondered whether Homolka’s parents, Karel and Dorothy, had ever forgiven her. She did, after all, offer her sister’s virginity to Paul Bernardo, and participate in the rape-death of her parents’ youngest child. So despite their decision not to relocate and their public shows of unity, I doubted Homolka could go back to the home in which she’d grown up. Ontarians certainly didn’t want to see her again.

  But her rumored new partner, Thierry Bordelais, was thought to be from the Caribbean, and that’s where I needed to look. Other than tracing a few foreign companies and sifting through computer IP addresses, I didn’t waste a moment looking in Canada.

  Homolka has been characterized in the press as computer-savvy, cagey and highly manipulative. According to her own letters to unauthorized biographer Stephen Williams, she had begun planning her disappearance from public life while still in prison. She’d pored over biographies of other criminals, such as Canadian murderer Evelyn Dick, who vanished for good after doing time for killing her husband and child. This was the escape Karla Homolka had longed for and there was every chance she’d managed it.

  I stayed on the case. Canadians had a right to know what happened to their most notorious female killer. After a couple of weeks, though, it seemed I’d sucked every piece of information out of cyberspace, and I feared I’d hit the dead end where others had turned back. One night, I even decided to drop the search and begin preparing for a n
ew semester teaching journalism. Yet the next morning, and the next, I awoke with fresh ideas for finding Homolka. I was no longer pushing this search — it was pulling me.

  And so it was that one chilly spring night, while I was eating dinner with one hand and punching Homolka leads into a foreign database with the other, my new search parameter triggered a surprise download. A business document I’d never seen filled the screen. I swiftly pushed away my plate and captured a copy of the page. At last, a lead with promise.

  The new document appeared to be a routine administrative certificate so banal and abbreviated it could easily have been missed online, even by Homolka herself. I quickly cross-referenced it several times, checking dates and places. I could find no other blog or website that mentioned the certificate. If this was an authentic document, maybe I’d found it exclusively.

  When a few more pieces fell into place, I sat back, astonished. Here was the solid lead I needed. Someone named Leanne Bordelais had indeed been living in the Caribbean, at least a few years ago. The document carried no precise address and no phone number. But there was a country name: Guadeloupe.

  I’d never been deep into the Caribbean, but I knew at that moment that there was absolutely nothing more I could do from Canada. Good old-fashioned boots on the ground was the only chance I had to pick up Homolka’s trail. I had a week off from teaching and a line of credit.

  Two days later, I was on a plane over the Caribbean islands, which stretch like a snake’s spine from the Bahamas to the northern tip of Venezuela.

  Chapter Five

  Guadeloupe, a full day of travel from Canada, is a group of four islands, which sit roughly in the middle of the other 7,000 islands known simply as the Caribbean. On a map, the country’s largest island, Guadeloupe, looks like a butterfly. The right wing is home to the most popular beach resorts, local businesses, and government offices, while the left wing is a verdant jungle of massive palm trees, waterfalls, undulating mountains, and isolated enclaves. The islands remains today an overseas department of France, whose financial support paves the roads and puts Parisian groceries on the shelves of even the lowliest corner store.

  For the first few days, I methodically trace every lead I’ve recorded in my spiral notebooks. I follow tendrils of addresses, check out a language school, a daycare — nothing. I learn that there are no public voters’ lists, no way to see birth or marriage records, and that a white woman asking nosy questions on the islands is not much appreciated.

  The sun scalds, the air is a steam bath, local men make unappealing offers. I climb dingy stairs, hoping to find a business that’s been linked online to Homolka. Nothing. Other local leads dry up fast, so I rent a car and expand my search radius.

  On my third day, I drive to a primary school where certain bloggers say Homolka could be teaching. Finding the school is a job in itself. The building is surrounded by jungle and set well back from the street. The path to the school is too steep for many cars. There are, of course, gates everywhere, protecting the precious wards inside. Parking out front is risky: small children are cherished here and strangers instantly recognized. But I figure everyone has the right to inquire about enrolling their kids in school. I climb the long incline toward the bright pink and yellow adobe classrooms.

  The first thing I see on the outdoor bulletin board is the name of the headmistress: L. Bordelais. My heart skips a beat. I’ve vowed never to use that corny expression in my writing, but it’s the truth. Homolka teaching at a school would be hard enough to fathom, but running a school?

  I spend most of the afternoon there, hoping to see Madame Bordelais. But they say she has taken ill. Could the island grapevine have already alerted Homolka that I am on her home turf? Left on my own to visit the classrooms, I look for any sign of her.

  Inside a bright yellow and blue classroom jammed with books and toys, I stand silent and still, wondering if this is what Homolka sees every day: vulnerable children, malleable minds. Suddenly, I notice a stack of papers sitting out in the open, with a handwritten note on top. I look closely. No matter how narrowly I squint my eyes, the tight loops look nothing like the short, rounded letters Homolka forms. The media has often made Homolka out to be something of a genius, certainly well organized and devious. Who knows? Maybe she’s managed to change her handwriting.

  I have two more schools on my list to visit today, but this new Bordelais clue needs my immediate attention. There is little wireless service on the island, so I zoom back to the hotel and hunker down at the computer.

  After two hours of Internet surfing through reports from teacher conferences and photographs in local newspapers, I finally put a face to L. Bordelais. She is an older black woman with the serious face of a veteran educator. Another case of an online blogger steering people in the wrong direction.

  I switch gears. Something about the school angle doesn’t feel right anymore. Given Homolka’s criminal record, it would be hard to convince authorities to let her into a foreign country, let alone educate its children. With time evaporating, I turn again to the certificate I found online and its vague reference to an address.

  It turns out that the area I must search is so remote that few homes have addresses. To find a resident you must ask for them by name, something I can hardly do if I am to keep my presence on the Guadeloupe islands a secret. If Homolka has sympathetic friends, especially strong or influential ones, I’m even more vulnerable. One tipoff to the wrong people and the purpose of this entire trip will be jeopardized.

  Then a large man loses his temper at the front desk of my hotel. While I don’t yet know it, this is my first big breakthrough on the way to finding Karla Homolka.

  It happens at the end of day four. I’m tired, hot and dusty from waking before dawn and fighting crazy drivers on bad roads. I ask the hotel clerk for help deciphering the name of a district I’d found on the online business certificate. It’s a vague reference, with no street name or house number, just what looks like a city name.

  “Oh, that’s not a town, it’s a neighborhood,” the clerk says. She’s instantly interrupted by another hotel employee who appears aggravated.

  “Why are you looking for that place?” he demands in French, tinged with the strong Creole patois of the French islands. The head clerk translates for me, but makes no attempt to intervene as the big, angry man leans in closer. “Why would you go over there? Why?”

  I try to laugh and act confused, but he shakes his head violently and curls up his lip. Later, I ask the clerk why the man was so upset. She shrugs. “He lives over there. Not many people do.” I get her to show me on a map.

  Back in my room, I think about the man’s unwarranted display. I replay our interchange, distilling it to a single emotional arc: anger is usually fear. The big man is protecting someone or something in his neighbourhood. There are other places to stake out on this trip, but now I know where I’ll be headed first thing the next day.

  Chapter Six

  Since her release from prison in 2005, Karla Homolka has been tracked down in Montreal by the press only twice. Both times she refused to answer questions and fled. Given her past guardedness, I could be waiting in this little town for hours — or days. If I don’t spot her outside, the next step will be to check every name on every mailbox (there are no street numbers here) until I find one that sounds vaguely similar. But what are the odds of Homolka broadcasting a suggestively similar name on her mailbox?

  Nevertheless, I head out in my rental car, in search of the neighbourhood the angry man doesn’t want me to find. Could he really be protecting Homolka and Bordelais? Had he already warned them about my query to the hotel clerk?

  After taking a number of wrong turns that lead me to meandering cattle in muddy fields — I suspect there is no GPS or map that could have prevented this — I find the area I’m looking for. It’s a place where roads slice straight through the mountains and cavernous hillsides are embedded with orange, pink and yellow houses. Crumbly dust rolls down the hills toward t
he occasional huddle of buildings. There are no sidewalks, no shoulders to pull over on, no parks. I find some weedy wilds growing up and over a collapsed shack and slip the car in behind them. Pulling my hat and scarf close to disguise my white face — which is like a neon light around here — I walk very quietly through the neighborhood. One store, one school, rocky roads and curtains of jungle. There’s no way to get close to houses or mailboxes except on foot. But old men on porches and women hauling grocery bags along the roadside follow my every move, openly swivelling their necks to stare. This, I decide, is too risky.

  I jump back into the car. Traffic has picked up and no one will yield an inch. Drivers here take hairpin turns with one hand on the wheel, the other on the horn. I gun it and fly into traffic before anyone can shut me out. But the bulky rental has no muscle and falls short. Suddenly, I see in my rear-view mirror a white car hurtling toward me. The driver has over-estimated my speed and is almost on top of me. This is a simple two-lane road and swerving into oncoming traffic isn’t an option. Thankfully, at the final second, an escape route appears in front of me. I crank the wheel hard and feel a strong whoosh at my back as I careen blindly down a gravel side road. It’s as if a stronger force has pushed me out of harm’s path.

  I pump the brakes hard and send up a gravel spray. My hands are still cramped around the steering wheel. Close one.

  Catching my breath, I survey the hidden enclave where I’ve landed. Incredibly, the first thing I see when I turn my head to look through the open passenger window is a square, old-fashioned metal mailbox hanging on a post. There’s a name neatly painted in black ink on the front. It reads simply, “Leanne Bordelais.”