Ghost of a flea: Jean-Paul Gerbet

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June 03, 2005

Jean-Paul Gerbet

Karla Homolka's new man sounds much like the last.

He is a smooth-talking Frenchman from Cognac and she kept a nude photo of him in her cell. Officials say Karla Homolka and the new man in her life courted each other by leaving notes hidden in common areas that male and female inmates used separately at different moments in jail.

Jean-Paul Gerbet is a 38-year-old French citizen serving a life sentence for strangling Cathy Carretta, who he moved to Quebec to date and with whom he had a stormy, jealous relationship.

Given the full-page, full-colour front page photos the Toronto Sun seems to run every time they have an excuse to feature Karla Homolka I can only imagine this latest news will add to the grotesque voyeurism that has typified their coverage. But The Sun is by no means alone in this rendering of atrocity as celebrity. The above quote is from an article in Canada's self-proclaimed newspaper of record, The Globe and Mail and ran under the tagline "She kept nude picture of her new man". What is wrong with this country? Instead of being jailed for life as a dangerous offender, Homolka is soon to be free and the press will continue to treat the details of her jail-house romance with the same utter contempt for the gravity, or indeed the reality, of her crimes.

Googling Gerbet's name I came across a blog entry publishing a letter written by the sister of the woman he murdered, Cathy Caretta. It is difficult, troubling reading. Her life, and the ongoing trauma imposed upon her family, should not be forgotten in the devilish circus surrounding Homolka's release from prison.

Perhaps a Flea-reader can explain something to me that I have never understood. Under the plea bargain Homolka made to testify against then husband Paul Bernardo - "Scarborough rapist" and Homolka's conspirator in the abduction, torture, rape and murder of two girls as well as Homolka's younger sister - she agreed to cooperate fully with the Crown prosecution even as she failed to mention the video tapes police officers had missed in a search of the Homolka-Bernardo home. Having apparently broken the terms of her plea bargain all those years ago I cannot understand why she was not prosecuted as a willing accomplice to the crimes of her then husband at least one of which seems to have never been the subject of any prosecution whatsoever.

Upon her release for serving the full twelve years of her fatuous sentence we are going to have to live with the consequences of that decision. Much has been made of the danger Homolka may present to the public - and particularly to young women and girls - and her reported association with Gerbet would seem to confirm public fears. It is worth adding that Homolka faces no small danger herself from the men to whom she is evidently drawn or indeed from that segment of the public one can only fear might be inclined to take justice into their own hands.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at June 3, 2005 06:53 AM

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Comments

Perhaps a Flea-reader can explain something to me that I have never understood.

I would think that it's obvious: the courts have decided that a woman cannot possibly be a criminal - she can only be a victim. They will never admit that the political decision they made in this case was wrong.

Posted by: Lickmuffin at June 3, 2005 09:52 AM