Customer Reviews

Karla

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Stephen Williams has followed up his infamous Invisible Darkness with a book about Karla Homolka called Karla: A Pact With the Devil. This one focusses on her crimes, how the police handled her plea bargain (badly) and how she has spent her time in prison. She has not been granted parole (obviously) and will have served her full 12-year term by the time she gets out of prison on July 6, 2005. Mr. Williams was given access to her psychological assessments from the time she made her initial confession until 2001 when Corrections had to pull a couple of fast ones to keep her in prison. Rightly so - the woman is a monster. But she was never officially diagnosed as such - an effort to justify her plea bargain and maintain her credibility as a witness against Paul Bernardo. The truth of the matter is that she was as culpable for their crimes, if not more so, than Bernardo himself. What makes this book interesting is that Mr. Williams tricked Karla into a series of correspondence with him by posing as an adoring fan of sorts. Thus, we get a unique insight into Karla's narcissism and her belief that she will leave prison and blend into society, never to be bothered or seen again. I don't think so. Finally, the question is posed: will she reoffend? My opinion: yes. We will hear more of Karla Homolka (or whatever name she chooses on the outside) in the future. Unfortunately, this book is tarnished by Mr. Williams' frustration with the system and his own culpability having infringed many of the court-imposed publication bans. He uses several chapters to vent his own issues - and becomes repetitive in his presentation of the bungled investigation and the subsequent promotion of the lead Green Ribbon Task Force investigators.

I am from the Niagara area and have read all the relevant books on this despicable crime. Time does not erase the horror of what happened or the anger most people across Canada feel about the "deal with the devil" that was made with Ms. Homolka.

Mr. Williams once again saves his most vitriolic passages for the head of the Green Ribbon Task force who brokered this deal and shows Canadians how truly corrupt our justice system and Correctional Services are. People's anger should be directed this way, not at the author for calling it like it is.

Instead of villifying Williams for writing the book, we should commend him for laying out the facts of what led up to this deal. He has made people more aware of how sheer police bungling led to this horrendous situation and how it affected him personally by being prosecuted and exonerated for allegedly seeing the infamous banned videos. It seems that the "legal eagles" had a vendetta against him after "Invisible Darkness."

As for the pictures - yes, I did find some of them very hard to look at - visuals always are the first thing to hit a person. But, the words of the story were just as hard to read due to the subject matter.

My only real criticism of the book is that Mr. Williams tended to get a little verbose and go off on technical tangents in chapters relating to Ms. Homolka's psychiatric reports. That was a bit of a challenge, but on the whole, it was a well written follow up to "Invisible Darkness." Hopefully, there will not be a sequel and that this story can finally be put to rest.

This book is interesting and valuable more for its subject matter than the way it was written. Stephen Williams is not a very good writer, but good editing could have made the book much better. It tends to be repetitious and sometimes difficult to follow - that being said, however, it has very important and thought-provoking material about the Canadian justice system and, in a larger sense, how we view women who commit crimes.
The psychiatrists, police officers and prosecutors in the case seem to have labeled Karla Homolka a compliant victim before they even met her - and refused to change their opinion no matter how much evidence contradicted it (and there was, and is, a great deal of such evidence). The theory seems to be: women are victims, not victimers; only men are capable of heinous sex crimes; therefore, if Karla participated in these crimes with Paul Bernardo - she just had to have been terrorized and brainwashed into participating! He must have abused her into compliance! Karla, being clever, deceitful and manipulative, had no trouble going along with this, telling them what they wanted to hear and reinforcing their theory.

The first third of this book was well-written and seemed to be an excellent account of Karla's experience from the time of her arrest to the present. Unfortunately something happened to the momentum and the book takes a different tone and it is constantly sidetracked from its purpose and it instead delves into subtle bashing of the lawyers and police involved in Karla's deal, investigation, prosecution, analysis, and correctional experience. The book morphs into a book about Stephen's experience in writing the book as he goes off on one tangent or another. The book is a very loosely veiled attempt for us to be afraid of Karla's released, and it labels and examines her on only a superficial level. Williams's observations could have been made by anyone -- they are not complex or profound and they become repetitive and tired. Some of the factual information is incorrect, which is interesting because Williams is so critical of those involved who overlook or misinterpret the facts. The whole purpose of this book is to excite the public into action about Karla's imminent release but it comes across as tabloid journalism that will appeal to only those who are satisfied with the most superficial examination of Karla and of this case.

Author Stephen Williams has been persecuted by Canadian authorities. And after reading this book, it's not hard to understand why. Williams has done a superb job in exposing the gross ineptitude practiced by the so-called "authorities" that resulted in killer Karla Homolka's lenient plea-bargain deal. Had Inspector Vince Bevan not jumped the gun, the Toronto police (rather than the Niagara police) would have raided Paul and Karla's home, and the notorious deal with Karla would have been completely unnecessary, meaning she would have been prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And Bevan's mishandling of the situation meant that even if the infamous videotapes depicting the actual rapes and tortures of innocent teenage girls had been initially found, the atrocious Homolka deal would have still stood.
The real villian in this book is not Paul Bernardo (who's barely mentioned) or Karla Homolka (she's been a model prisoner who the author feels should have been granted statutory parole). It's the so-called "authorities" who botched this criminal case up badly.
My only criticism of the book is that it's somewhat sloppily edited. However, that doesn't detract from its well-researched and biting content.

I grew up near St Catharines and I am about the same age as Karla. My father was a teacher at the same High School Karla attended. I was there for the whole green ribbon task force force. I remember the hunt for the yellow camero (there never was any yellow car involved) and other hysteria that went on during the search for the two girls.

What I like about this book is it shines a light the people that really made the karla deal happen, the Niagara Regional Police and the Crown Attorny's office. As I read the book I was nodding constantly. It seemed so much like the police force I grew up around. Bumbling key stone cops that were too arrogant to think things through. The Canadian media have spent a lot of time covering Karla getting out recently. Other than this book I have yet to see any in depth coverage of how the Police gave her the deal to begin with.

There is also a lot on Karla's experience in jail. It's a scary look at just how dysfunctional the Canadian justice and jail system is.

On the many books on the Bernardo-Homolka case, this one is the more complete and the more accurate. For someone who don't know anything about the murders, I think it's the best way to learn everything on that strange case, where the justice had fail to impress me on a very big scale. I would'nt be very proud to be a police officer involved with that prosecution. My only hope: with this, we'll learn our lessons and try to make good justice. Good for the people, not for the criminals.

The victims families were outraged at pictures shown in this book. An interview with the author Stephen Williams revealed that he would not remove the book from store shelves.
This topic has been gone over again and again. Time to let it rest. Karla does't deserve any of this publicity. She's a killer who has had far to much air time and now she wants to be a counsellor! The only counselling she should be doing is showing the proper way to sit in the electric chair. Give it a rest Stephen! This topics been done before many times. Take care!

Stephen Williams makes a lot of excellent points in this book, but he tends to repeat himself a LOT. For example, I agree with him 100% that Karla's testimony - and thus the deals with her - were unnecessary to successfully prosecute Paul Bernardo, since the videotape evidence would have spoken for itself, but Williams explains this SO many times that it becomes a bit tedious. Another example is Karla's culpability in the attacks on Jane Doe. Williams is 100% right about this, but I got tired of reading about it in every other chapter. The book would have been better (and 200 pages shorter!) if he'd presented his points and arguments just once or twice.
I was also annoyed by the TERRIBLE proofreading/editing in the edition I have (the 2003 version, with all photos included). Mispellings abound, and commas are badly needed in most sentences. I attribute this to the fact that the book was translated from the French version, but someone should have hired a competent proofreader! I haven't seen later editions, so perhaps the grammatical mistakes were corrected when the book was reprinted. I hope so...
Finally, I was troubled by Williams' assertion that Bernardo didn't start raping people until after he met Karla. That's simply not true, and I was surprised that an author/researcher as meticulous as Williams would make such a mistake.
Nevertheless, the book is interesting, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the Bernardo/Homolka case. But don't spend a ridiculous amount of money on it.

She is one sick woman and she actually got away with murder. Too bad they didn't find the tapes sooner and she would have been off the streets forever.