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Tammy Lyn Homolka (January 1, 1975 - December 24, 1990) was the younger sister of Canadian murderer Karla Homolka. She grew up in the small city of St. Catharines, Ontario. She was known for her athletic abilities and she avidly participated in a variety of sports, with soccer being her favourite. She was a Grade 10 student at Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School in St. Catharines at the time of her death.
On 23 December 1990, less than two weeks before Tammy's Age 16 birthday, Karla Homolka and her fiancé, Paul Bernardo, plied Tammy with Halcion, a sedative, and raped her. Some time after this, Tammy Homolka became sick and died. Her official cause of death was listed choking to death on her own vomit.
After Bernardo and Karla Homolka were arrested for the murders of Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French, Tammy Homolka's body was exhumed and Bernardo was subsequently tried and convicted for her murder.
Dangerous Obsession
From the beginning of their relationship, Karla noticed that Paul had taken a particular liking to Tammy. Paul would often pay special attention to her, and even went so far as to have Karla pretend to be Tammy during sex. In other instances, Paul would secretly watch Tammy undress from outside the Homolka house, masturbating as he watched. On a few occasions, he even masturbated over her as she slept, ejaculating onto the pillow beside her head.
In September 1990, as their relationship progressed, Paul started to press Karla to allow him to have sex with Tammy. The widely accepted theory is that she initially refused, but she became more willing the further he pushed. She eventually conceded, obtained a bottle of Halothane (a liquid general anesthetic) from the veterinary clinic where she worked, what would later be used to sedate Tammy during the rape. On December 23, 1990, Tammy was drugged with a combination of sleeping pills and alcohol, passing out in the family room in the basement of the Homolka house. Karla's parents and other sister Lori were upstairs asleep at the time.
It is believed that this was a "Christmas present" of sorts from Karla to Paul, and they filmed the whole rape, with Karla multi-tasking between filming, using the Halothane to keep Tammy unconscious, and performing sexual acts on her unconscious sister. To what extent Karla was compliant in the rape is a matter of speculation, as there were no other witnesses to the rape or any of the preceding events. Some claim that Karla was forced into it by an abusive fiance, while others feel that she was obsessed with keeping Paul, so she was totally compliant in the event. In 2001, the magazine Elm Street published an article in which it implied that forensic evidence proved that Tammy's death was not an accident and that Karla had deliberately administered an overdose of Halothane. The magazine described Karla as a "malignant narcissist" who was so incensed by her fiance's attraction to her baby sister that she took steps to remove Tammy from Paul's affections permanently.
The implications of Karla's plea bargain
On February 26, 1993, the defense lawyer and the Crown began negotiations on a 10-year sentence for Karla, in exchange for her testimony and full disclosure of all crimes. At the time, the role she and Paul had played in Tammy's death was not known. When she was admitted for psychiatric assessment in March 1993, Karla confessed in a letter to her parents about her involvement in Tammy's death.
When the plea agreement was finalized, the initial 10-year sentence was still intact, with two years added for Tammy's death. She was officially sentenced to 12 years on July 6, 1993.
Tammy Homolka's body rests in the Victoria Lawn Cemetery in St. Catharines, only a short distance from her parents' home. A picture of a soccer ball was inscribed on her tombstone to reflect Tammy's love for the sport.
Sources
1975 births | 1990 deaths | Canadian murder victims | Murdered children
"Tammy Homolka"