Not long after the creation of alt.fan.karla- homolka, some pseudonymous users began violating the trial ban as much as possible. One of them posted an article he'd found on the subject to the group. (I'd put in a link to the publication's page instead, but it doesn't seem to exist any more.)

From: an52708@anon.penet.fi (Neal the trial ban breaker)
Date: Wed, 11 May 1994 23:27:33 UTC
Newsgroups: alt.fan.karla-homolka
Subject: Id Article

This was a particularly well written article that gives some interesting background to the the plight of yours truly and a couple of collegues :>

The Electronic Ban Breakers

How three computer users are getting information out about the Karla Homolka trial - and why the government can't do a thing about it.

by Chad Skelton Word count : 1896

The day after Gordon Domm was arrested for distributing information about the Karla Homolka case, "Abdul" sat in the Ontario legislature, listening intently to the MPPs discuss the publication ban. As Attorney General Marion Boyd fended off criticism about the ban, Abdul sat quietly in the gallery. No one in the legislature that day could have known that while they were discussing a man who had distributed information on the trial to 50 people, Abdul, who is responsible for sending some of that same material to almost a thousand individuals, was watching them all from above.

Abdul is one of a hand-full of computer users dedicated to getting information about the Karla Homolka trial out to the public, in a manner which is more quiet, and much more efficient, than anything the many other trial ban breakers have done.

With the help of a computer system in Finland, three users known only as Abdul, Neal, and Lieutenant Starbuck, are becoming the most influential players in this illicit trade of information. While newspaper pages are filled with stories on the printed ban breakers, like Gordon Domm, and Frank magazine - the story of these electronic ban breakers hasn't been told.

Interviewed for the first time, by any member of the media, the three men gave detailed accounts of their connections to the case, their methods of distribution, and their reasons for getting involved.

The first person to tell the electronic community about Karla Homolka and Paul Teale was Neal, who posted information on the case before any of the international press stories broke. Neal, self described resident of cyberspace, and, "freedom fighter", claims to have several direct or indirect connections to the case. These contacts, he claims, include the pathologist's office, a nurse at a Southern Ontario Hospital, and a police officer. Based on the information he received from these sources, Neal posted one of the first notable messages in the "alt.fan.karla-homolka" newsgroup. His message contained details about the killings, the evidence, and the accused - all in sickening detail.

Neal delights in the freedom of the electronic network. Asked why the courts instituted a ban, Neal concludes the decision was "wishful longing (on the part of the courts) to be back in the 19th century before the days of the electronic medium."

Asked if he thought his actions were criminal, he replied, "There comes a time when you have to resist the tyranny of the state. Did the Americans holding the Boston Tea Party think they were criminals? In the eyes of the British law they were - but in their own, they felt they were fighting to uphold some basic freedoms. And that's what I'm doing!"

Neal says he decided to tell the network what he knew to, "get the snowball rolling downhill - if I could post some details, others could perhaps tell what they [knew] as well."

And others did.

Several people posted rumours and speculation on the case into the Homolka newsgroup. Soon the rumours required some sort of organization, so Lt. Starbuck decided to make a FAQ. FAQ stands for "Frequently Asked Questions". As somewhat of an institution on the network, FAQs serve as useful information files on a given topic. They exist for sex, atheism, movies, and television, just to name a few. But in September of 1993, a different kind of FAQ was created. September saw the debut of, "The Paul Teale/Karla Homolka Frequently Asked Questions List".

Lt. Starbuck, the moderator of the FAQ, is a student of Science at a Southern Ontario University. In his mid 20s, Starbuck updates the FAQ regularly as new rumours and information are made available. The latest version, "Version 2.1", was released on February 1st, 1994.

Starbuck posts the FAQ on several newsgroups, and sends it out in electronic mail to those that request it. Asked to estimate how far his FAQ has reached he said it was, "impossible to know how many people have seen the FAQ posts in newsgroups like `alt.censorship' and `alt.true-crime', in addition to people who regularly access (other computers that have it available)."

Starbuck doesn't claim that all, or even most, of the rumours are true. In fact, even while widely distributing the FAQ, Starbuck believes the rumours may be harmful. "The existence of the ban", he says, "And the speculation that followed it, are just as dangerous as not having (a ban)."

Abdul, known as, "the Electronic Gordon Domm", is unquestionably the most influential of the electronic trial ban breakers. In the first few months of the "alt.fan.karla-homolka" newsgroup, Abdul (still using his real name) was one of the most active rumour posters. A student at a Toronto University, in his early 20s, and living in Scarborough - Abdul found himself hearing plenty of rumours about the case, which he quickly posted to the newsgroup. In addition to the rumours, however, he also knew people with connections to the case, including someone he met at a party that knew Karla Homolka's sister Tammy, and a friend whose father was the Durham Region Staff Sergeant.

In the beginning, Abdul posted the information he had on the case to as many newsgroups as possible - but this led to mainstream groups, such as "soc.culture.canada" being banned from network sites, angering many people. So, as an alternative, Abdul decided to begin an electronic mailing list, by compiling the electronic mail (e-mail) addresses of people that wanted to be sent information on the case.

Newsgroups are like newspapers, and electronic mail is like a private letter. Very few network sites will search e-mail, as they consider it private and confidential. This allowed Abdul a method of getting the information about the case out - even though "alt.fan.karla-homolka" was rapidly being banned at universities and network sites all across the country, including the University of Guelph, Toronto, and Waterloo - and Canada Remote Systems, a computer bulletin board.

As he worked out the logistics of the electronic mailing list, Abdul was, as he put it, "getting tired of reciting the FAQ at every party." So he decided that in addition to his electronic efforts to get information out, he would also help to distribute facts about the case in more conventional ways. This led Abdul to collect all the articles and rumours he had on the case, and organize them into one large file he called the, "Teale Tales Digest".

Using three printer ribbons, and a full box of computer paper - he printed over 50 copies of the digest. "(I) gave them to everyone I knew, and some I didn't," Abdul recalls, "I left five on the TTC and three in the washrooms of a Toronto university." Talking to people he gave the digest to, he says, "some of their copies have been photocopied up to fifteen times."

And while his conventional methods of distributing information match those of his namesake, Gordon Domm, Abdul's most notable breach of the ban was, and is, electronic.

When interviewed, Abdul's electronic mailing list was growing at an incredible rate. He claimed to have over 800 e-mail addresses, with 200 of those having signed up within the last week. Having directly given the information to at least 800 people, Abdul believes that he has already been indirectly responsible for giving information on the case to about 10,000 people. A number that is increasing every day as the electronic articles and rumours are printed out, photocopied, and distributed - over and over again.

In addition to sending regular updates to interested individuals, Abdul is also equipped to provide computer users with exactly what they want. With computerized copies of everything from the Washington Post article on the trial, to a transcript of the tabloid show "A Current Affair", Abdul has virtually everything that has ever been printed or broadcast in the foreign press about the case. And each article can be requested individually from his electronic mail address. Abdul promotes these articles, and the mailing list, by posting messages in over 30 newsgroups, telling people how to get them.

Although what Abdul is doing is on a scale much larger than that of Gordon Domm, or any of the other trial ban breakers, Abdul insists he isn't afraid of being arrested. In fact, all three electronic trial ban breakers said they don't feel they will ever be arrested for what they're doing.

This is due mainly to the common link of the electronic trial ban breakers - a computer service in Finland and a Finnish computer user named Julf.

Julf is a self-employed businessman living in Helsinki, who runs what is called, "The anon.penet.fi Anonymous Server". The server, originally intended for Scandinavians, allows computer users to post messages and send electronic mail anonymously - by bouncing it off the Finnish system. Traceable electronic mail addresses are replaced with generic anonymous accounts, which conceal the location and name of the sender, making it next to impossible for the messages to be traced back to their original source.

Julf's service has existed for over a year. He says his intentions with the server are to, "provide a means for discussion on sensitive topics without having to fear repercussions from peers, employers, totalitarian regimes and fussy mothers."

Julf hasn't actively been involved in distributing information on the trial, even though his service is involved in cloaking the information sent by others. Julf, for whom English is a third language, isn't even particularly interested in the case. He only learned about it when computer users complained that his service was being used to post information on the trial. However, as Julf puts it, "it is impossible, and unethical, for me to monitor the over 4000 messages handled by my server every day."

Julf says the only way that investigators in Canada could possibly track down Abdul, Neal, Lt. Starbuck, or any other user posting information on the trial, would be to seize his computer, in Helsinki, which contains logs of where mail has been sent. However, Julf isn't concerned. "It would definitely take a Finnish court," he stresses, "And involve a fair bit of international jurisdiction juggling."

However, that may all be irrelevant, as it's not even clear as to whether the police, or Attorney-General's office, are actively pursuing the electronic ban breakers. While Abdul, Neal, and Lt. Starbuck are very hard to identify and locate, they are easy to contact through the Finnish server. And all three say they haven't received anything in electronic mail from law enforcement or government agencies.

Barbara Krever, of the Attorney-General's Office, refused to comment specifically on the electronic trial ban breakers, saying all potential breaches of the ban brought to the attention of the Attorney General's office are reviewed. Asked whether there were people qualified to deal with the electronic breaches of the ban, Krever refused to "talk about specifics". She also refused to comment when asked why the people mentioned in this article hadn't been contacted.

In the meantime, Abdul's electronic mailing list continues to grow. When asked if he had a message for those trying to enforce the ban, Abdul had this to say:

"There is no way you can stop us. For years you have tried to regulate us ... Now we can go wherever there is a phone line, without you looking over our shoulder. You'll have to shut down every phone, every radio transmitter, to keep us quiet."

While Bernardo waited for his trial, Homolka was already serving her sentence. She had become a controversial figure, not only because of the murders but because of her light sentence. The obvious conclusion for many people was that she had copped a plea bargain in exchange for promising to testify against Bernardo. That was pretty much what happened, but the trial ban made saying so illegal. The ban's purpose was to ensure that Bernardo had a fair trial, untainted by prior public knowledge of the details of the crimes, and yet Homolka's light sentence strongly suggested that Bernardo was the guiltier party. The other thought on the minds of many was that Homolka had gotten away with murder, and items like the following didn't help Homolka's public image. Somehow, the Toronto Sun got copies of letters written by Homolka from jail and published them as part of an article by Alan Cairns and Scott Burnside on Monday, September 12, 1994. (I'm reproducing only Homolka's words from this article, not the reporters'. I've also rearranged the sequence of the letters, so they appear chronologically. If the Sun holds the copyright on Homolka's letters, I'll be surprised. So will Homolka, probably.)

Letters From Prison: Where's the Remorse?

[Before prison]

January 15, 1993

"I've also been in a lot of meetings with Green Ribbon. And trying to finish up my course and study for my exam. And of course trying to mentally prepare myself for the preliminary. Right now I'm in a pretty good mind frame. I just hope it lasts! Actually part of me is really looking forward to it. I'm trying not to put so much pressure on myself about it. The police don't help though. I am feeling mega pressure from them. I don't think they're doing it intentionally. You know they say all kinds of things and then on top of that everyone keeps telling me, "Oh, you'll do great." Maybe so, but hearing it all the time sometimes makes me think if I don't do great I'll be disappoint everyone. Well, I'm trying to change my way of thinking."

April 14, 1993

"Wow! I only found out about it a few hours before the media did. I was kind of mad at first, believe it or not. I was so geared up for it, so prepared, and so looking foward to getting out from behind these walls. I was very angry because I went through all of those meetings in Feb/March apparently for nothing. But about an hour later, I was really happy about it. It's very frustrating though - constantly being built up to do this, then everything changes ... I'm at the point where I just want to get it over with. I'm past the point of never wanting it to happen."

June 5, 1993

"I brought a bottle of beaujolais (to a party) and drank the whole thing and wasn't even halfway drunk. My tolerance is ridiculously high. But I had a really good time. It's nice to get out of the house once in a while."

"The reporters keep coming back and hanging around because they don't have a really good current photo of me yet. It's kind of like a game now, trying not to let them get a picture ... I plan to move, on my own, to Brampton. I can't stay in St. Catharines, people hate me here, and I will never get a job. I had such a good time in Brampton and I have a lot of good memories there, plus an aunt and uncle who are fantastic. I really need single girlfriends to go out and meet men with."

[Letters from prison]

October 5, 1993

"I started seeing one of the psychologists in addition to the psychiatrist last week. I felt like I was on the verge of another breakdown. Why exactly, I don't know. It could have something to do with the fact that an inmate got stabbed a while ago."

"I'm going through some really difficult times dealing with the death of our relationship. That's how I'm trying to treat it - like a death -because I think it'll be easier to deal with that way. I am really having a hard time with this. I almost would rather have had him die, because then I'd at least be able to grieve properly. And visit his grave and say goodbye. As it stands, here I sit knowing I'm going to be seeing him god knows how many times ... "

October 28, 1993

"You know, I'm really enjoying being a student. It feels so good. I am so glad I decided to go back. I'm really glad I have the opportunity. I am looking so forward to getting out of here and rebuilding my life. I can't wait to see what the future holds for me- a new job, a new husband (...a loving one this time!) children..."

"Paul made me into a very insecure person. Hopefully that will all change in time. I am trying to really change myself back into a newer, better version of the person I was before I met Paul. I have a new therapist. She and I get along really well and she is really helping me. I absolutely HATE the psychiatrist here now. I only see him every other week now. He told me the last time I saw him that I would never heal until I told him all the details of what happened. Asshole. He is so mean and cruel. So now I don't really tell him anything."

November 24, 1993

"I'm really nervous about the future. When I'm finally released, that is. I know I really should be concentrating on things in the nearer future like court. But I just can't bear to think about such a painful thing anymore. You know it's really not fair. My trial is over and done with, but none of the pain is. Well, the pain will never be gone, but talking about it will just make it raw ... Our life wasn't supposed to end up this way."

December 15, 1993

"Whenever I think about it (the preliminary and trial) I get a sick feeling. It's going to be so hard. The cops were here asking more questions last week and it was awful. And they were nice! Paul's lawyers are going to try to put the whole thing on me. It will be one of the worst things I'll ever go through. But I keep reminding myself that this is all a million times better than living with him. And it is, truly."

"(That card) fits perfectly with my Mickey Mouse posters, hey, I'm getting Sesame Street towels and sheets on Friday. My room is going to be the most juvenile in the whole institution, but hey - I like it that way."

"I know what you mean about loving Christmas. It's always been my favorite time of the year. Of course since Tammy died things haven't been the same. But one thought I've always held is that she wouldn't want us to live in misery over the holidays."

December 16, 1993

"Maybe this isn't healthy, but I don't even think to myself that I'm in Prison For Women. I think I'm away at school. Whether it's healthy or not, it works - I don't feel all that bad."

"I'm growing my bangs. Or at least trying to. They're really irritating me. I'm going to give them until March - If I don't like them then I'm cutting them!"

"I have to get my laundry together. It's Friday and Fridays are my laundry and "house" cleaning days. It really makes things difficult though because we've been locked up for two weeks! Why, I don't know, but it's really starting to drive me crazy. It's not that I mind that much being locked in. (After all I'm out all day with the Crown). It's just that it's hard doing laundry - You have to bug the guards constantly to get out to change loads. Washing and sweeping the floor is almost impossible because there's just no room ! And the thing that really angers and upsets me is this phone call thing. While we're locked up we're only allowed a maximum of two 15 minute phone calls a week. It's next to impossible to say everything in 15 minutes!"

"I'm going to sue Paul for the return of my clothes and personal items plus a bunch of other stuff - TV, VCR, stereo, dining room set, china and silver and a lot more. Wedding dress, photos, you know. Oh well, I'm not letting him have everything. Also, my divorce will be final in a month or 2. It really feels weird to say that. You know I don't believe in divorce. But this is not your normal situation."

December. 21, 1993

"I am constantly thinking about what my life is going to be like when I leave here. I am going to live so differently. Life with Paul ... as well as being in prison really opens your eyes to how life should be lived. I am going to do the things I always loved to do but never got to do. I'm going to start horseback riding again. I'm going to take lessons and even learn to jump! I also want to do volunteer work - I would love to work on the Kids Help Phone and I've decided what I want to do - work with abused women. I want to work to help prevent women from being abused and also to work with women who have already been abused. I want to go out on picnics with my friends and sister. Life is going to be so great when I'm out of here. I will never take anything for granted again in my life!"

"My mom told me that a girl has filed a $10 million lawsuit against me, Paul and some apartment building. She claims she was raped in 1989 by him and that I knew or should have known and should have stopped him and also that they building was deficient in security. So far I haven't been served with any papers ... Wow! I don't know what this woman thinks she's going to get because Paul and I are broke!"

One of the sillier moments in the Bernardo-Homolka saga was the publication of Frank Davey's Karla's Web (see my review). Published before Bernardo's trial and, therefore, before the end of the ban, the book relied on the gimmick of blacked-out text and a promise of replacement pages. Davey and his publisher exploited the deaths of three young women to sell a book decrying American influences in Canadian life. The Ottawa Citizen, on Thursday, November 3, 1994, carried some Canadian Press wire copy promoting the book.

Media exploit Bernardo case, book says; Profit drives blackout battle, professor claims

Self-serving media coverage of the Paul Bernardo case has exploited the tragic killings of two teenage girls and undermined Canada's justice system, says the first book on the Bernardo story.

Karla's Web, which could be followed by as many as five more books on the case, will disappoint people seeking for dramatic new revelations about Bernardo and his ex-wife Karla Homolka.

The work by university professor Frank Davey bills itself as a "cultural investigation" of the slayings and attacks the portrayal of the case by the media in Canada and the United States.

Davey said he hopes the 318-page book -- to be released next week -- restores some dignity to victims Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy.

"There's a lot of vicarious sexual fascination going on and it's being tapped by the media," Davey said Wednesday from London, Ont.

"A lot of people have had a great deal of questionable pleasure from what happened to them. I hope the book diminishes some of that."

Karla's Web hits bookstores wrapped in a strip of paper labelled Special Blackout Edition, a reference to passages that have been obscured to comply with a publication ban in Homolka's trial.

Readers are invited to mail a postcard to Penguin Books asking that the censored parts -- two per cent of the text -- be delivered intact once the ban is lifted.

[...]

Insensitive media coverage turned the killings and their aftermath into a form of entertainment, helping sell newspapers and boost TV ratings, said Davey, a professor of Canadian literature at London's University of Western Ontario.

The media created "an ongoing soap opera with ... a recurring cast of agonized relatives, distraught students, grieving townspeople and weeping reporters."

News reports gradually turned the victims into saintly and pure figures, implying the crimes wouldn't have been as horrible if the victims were less innocent, the book says.

The killers were depicted in the media as "monsters," cruel anomolies of society rather than products of it, Davey wrote.

That ignores the factors that drive people to commit such crimes, he said.

The book also questions the unrelenting media attack on the publication ban, which it attributes more to the profit motive than an idealistic defence of freedom of expression.

American media criticism of the gag order unduly influenced views on the issue here, Davey said, undermining the sovereignty of the Canadian justice system.

[...]

From the appallingly tasteless to the purely appalling... the long-rumoured existence of videotaped evidence was confirmed in a typically restrained Toronto Sun article by Cairns and Burnside on Friday, December 4, 1994.

Karla's Tapes: Lesbian Sex With Dead Sister's Girlfriend, Prostitute Depicted

Controversial videotapes show convicted schoolgirl killer Karla Homolka in criminal sex acts with a teenage girlfriend of her dead sister Tammy.

Homolka, 24, is shown on the videotapes administering incapacitating drugs to the girl, then sexually assaulting her while she is unconscious, the Sun has learned.

[...]

She is also filmed in consensual sex acts with an adult American prostitute.

At her July 1993 trial, Homolka was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 12 years in prison for the sex- slayings of Kristen French, 15, and Leslie Mahaffy, 14. Details of the sensational trial cannot be reported because of a publication ban imposed by Justice Francis Kovacs.

The publication ban was criticized by former Bernardo defence lawyer Ken Murray, who called it an instrument to hide "a deal with the devil." He fought the precedent-setting ban, saying Bernardo wanted Homolka's trial held in public.

Detectives have interviewed Homolka since the tapes were turned over by Murray in a bizarre courtroom manoeuvre in September. It isn't clear, however, whether police will charge her with any new offence.

The tapes came into police hands after Murray quit the case suddenly in September.

The sex acts with the teenage girl were not discussed at Homolka's one-day trial.

Sources say the videotapes were missed in a painstaking 10-week police search of the house but Murray's defence team recovered them from a ceiling pot light in the attic of 57 Bayview Dr.

Murray applied to be taken off the case in September. On the advice of the law society's professional conduct committee, he attempted through lawyer Austin Cooper to hand the tapes to Bernardo trial judge, Mr. Justice Patrick LeSage.

The tapes were intercepted by new Bernardo lawyer John Rosen and lawyer Clayton Ruby, who appeared with Rosen. Shortly after, Ruby turned the tapes over to prosecutors.

[...]

When Bernardo's trial started at last, there was a brief flurry of activity on then-moribund alt.fan.karla-homolka, but the sheer volume of material generated by the press made it unnecessary to rely on alternative sources of information. The first day of the trial, which featured a surprisingly detailed statement by the prosecution, resulted in thousands of words in every Ontario newspaper. Before long, alt.fan.karla-homolka and its email equivalent, Teale Tales, faded into obscurity. All the gory details were right there in the daily paper, as were the debates about Homolka's role and the justice of her light sentence. The end came on Friday, September 1, 1995, as the following day's Toronto Star reports.

GUILTY: Crowd cheers, jeers as Bernardo jailed for life in murder of schoolgirls

Guilty on all counts.

That was the verdict handed Paul Bernardo, who was convicted yesterday in the abduction, rape and murder of schoolgirls Kristen French, 15, of St. Catharines, and Leslie Mahaffy, 14, of Burlington.

The man who liked to be called the ``king, the master, the most powerful man in world,'' was led away in handcuffs moments after Associate Chief Justice Patrick LeSage sentenced him to life in prison for the two murders.

That means Bernardo will be jailed for 25 years before he has a chance for parole.

As he was driven away from the courthouse to begin a life behind bars, the crowd waiting outside, numbering in the hundreds, cheered, hurled insults and applauded.

[...]

Of course, for the media, it isn't over yet. The Toronto Star's Nick Pron and the Toronto Sun's Cairns and Burnside had their books on the racks a few months ago. Another writer has a more prestigious hardcover due out in the summer of '96. CBC Newsworld has aired a documentary on the media scrum at the Bernardo trial. Fortunately, a number of broadcast company execs have said they have no plans to do a TV movie based on any of this.

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