1 case tagged “plea bargain”
Convicted: Karla Leanne Homolka (also known as Karla Leanne Teale and Leanne Bordelais)
She was blonde, pretty, and worked part-time at an animal hospital. She cried on cue for investigators. She told them she was a victim — a battered woman trapped in a monster's web. Canada believed her. Prosecutors believed her. They gave her a deal. Then the videotapes surfaced, and everything changed. The footage showed Karla Homolka not cowering in fear, but actively participating in acts so savage that seasoned law enforcement officers required counseling after viewing them. Among the victims captured on those tapes was her own fifteen-year-old sister, Tammy — drugged, assaulted, and dead by Christmas. The plea bargain had already been signed. Double jeopardy protections made it untouchable. The deal that spared Karla Homolka from a murder conviction — struck before prosecutors had seen a single frame of evidence — would become the most reviled legal arrangement in Canadian history, immortalized forever as 'the Deal with the Devil.' She served twelve years. Then she walked free, changed her name, married, had three children, and disappeared into ordinary life. She is out there still. This is how it happened.
