The Appealing Rapist-Murderer

Sentences lifted from Killer's Release Repels, Transfixes Canada, in Sunday's Washington Post.

Sometime before Tuesday, a pretty blond woman of 35 will slip out of a penitentiary near Montreal, trying to escape a media mob that has been waiting for this moment for 12 years.

The saga of Karla Homolka has transfixed the country since she helped her husband drug, rape, torture, videotape and kill two teenage girls and cause the death of her own sister. Throughout the trial and ever since, her eyes -- hard and icy under her wavy hair -- have stared regularly at Canada from newspaper boxes and television screens...

Homolka has been both analyzed and demonized. Web sites make competing offers for her head in murder or her hand in marriage...

...she has now served her entire sentence, which is highly unusual in Canada. But as her release date neared, prosecutors went to court and won "special conditions" on her release. She must report often to police, seek permission to travel, and may not have contact with anyone younger than 16. She is appealing. [italics mine]