Karla Homolka volunteered at Montreal elementary school
Even Doug French admits news that Karla Homolka is allowed to volunteer with kids at a Montreal school should have been like a punch in the gut for him.
But it wasn't.
"That's who she is," the father of slain Kristen French said somberly from his St. Catharines home Tuesday night.
While he doesn't like it one bit, French said he's not shocked one of his daughter's killers is getting another break. He has seen it before.
"We have known about it for a while," said French. "Nothing surprises me at all."
Although concerns were expressed about Homolka's freedoms and activities, "we were told there's nothing that could be done about it. They said she's done her time, she served her 12 years for manslaughter and she has her own kids now and that she's a free woman."
Homolka served 12 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the deaths of two school girls. Her ex-husband, Paul Bernardo, is serving a life sentence for his role in multiple rapes and homicides.
Homolka volunteered at her children's elementary school in Notre-Dame-de-Grace last March, according to a report by the Montreal edition of Breakfast Television.
Homolka reportedly supervised kindergarten children from Montreal's Greaves Adventist Academy on a field trip in March and once brought her dog to the school for students to pet. The academy, a private Christian school, was aware of Homolka's criminal past before she started volunteering there.
French said he does not begrudge Homolka's children having their mother's time and he understands her desire to want to be part of it.
As even-tempered and calm as French was about it, the lawyer who represents him and his wife, Donna, as well as slain Leslie Mahaffy's family was outraged and livid by this report.
"My initial reaction it is appalls me," said lawyer Tim Danson. "I have always said, she's a psychopath who got away with murder."
But she is one, he said, who keeps on getting around the rules.
A lot of his feeling on that comes from the family's quarter century of suffering.
"It is very difficult to see her life being so unaffected while my clients have to go though life with pain and despair that is unimaginable," said Danson. "It's not easy for these families to struggle like they do when Karla Homolka goes on and lives a normal life."
Of course, he is right.
jwarmington@postmedia.com
BY JOE WARMINGTON, TORONTO SUN
MAY 30, 2017
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