Karla and new pal Maggie at subway stop-exclusive Toronto Sun photo

In prison he'd be branded a rat, on the street a stoolie. But the man who employed schoolgirl killer Karla Homolka at his hardware store is basking in the media spotlight after helping expose her new life, loves, and inner thoughts.

Did he do it for money? Did he befriend her then sell her out? That's what everybody's trying to find out.

He also charges that she's already violated court-imposed restrictions several times, which could land her back in prison.

Today's Toronto Sun newspaper carries eleven pages of exclusive, copyrighted photos and interviews about Karla after breaking the story. I'm reprinting just one of those stories, but for complete coverage see TorontoSun.com.

Later today I will post again - this time with my no-bullshit opinion on the Karla Exposed story.

By Alan Cairns and Brodie Fenlon

Toronto Sun

LONGUEUIL, Que. - A Montreal-area man who secretly employed Karla Homolka at his hardware store to see if he either could rehabilitate her or get "the truth" from her says he has evidence she has breached at least two release conditions.

Richer Lapointe, 39, says he will provide Ontario and Quebec prosecutors with evidence that he says shows Homolka was in contact with at least one and possibly four violent criminals who are either still in prison or have been released from prison.

And Lapointe said that Homolka broke another condition when - without his knowledge of her conditions - he left her alone in his store with his sons, aged 9 and 14.

Lapointe also said:

"She really loves herself ... better than what she sees in the mirror. Her body has to be perfect. Everything has to be perfect. She only thinks about her. Her environment is important ... but it only has to be good for her."

Lapointe once suggested to Homolka that she would manage a store for him and she could invite all of her friends to a party.

"She didn't want that. She likes to keep her friends one on one."

He said while Homolka gave him her rapt attention on matters dealing with her own welfare, her eyes seemed to glaze over when "we were talking about blah, blah, blah."

"She is like a bee, jumping to every flower."

Lapointe said that during in-depth discussions in her three weeks of employment with him, Homolka:

-Asked him to help her find temporary refuge for a son of a convicted killer.

- Told him that she cooked a week's worth of meals for her boyfriend in Laval -- a boyfriend who Lapointe believes is imprisoned killer Jean-Paul Gerbet.

- Suggested she had been in touch with another imprisoned killer whom she befriended in a western prison and a recently released inmate in Quebec.

- Was enjoying social outings with two guards whom she befriended at Joliette prison.

Lapointe described Homolka's behaviour at the sight of a 19-year-old sales clerk as "trembling" with excitement.

HOPES TO MARRY

He also said that Homolka accidentally dropped an explicit photograph of a naked woman with her legs spread on the floor of his store while showing him a personal photo album that contained pictures of her parents, her sister and her nephew.

He asserted that Homolka told him she was a lesbian but that she also liked guys and one day hopes to marry and have children.

Homolka, 35, has been underground in Montreal since she was released from prison July 5. She served 12 years for manslaughter for her part in ex-husband Paul Bernardo's sex slayings of Kristen French, 15, and Leslie Mahaffy, 14, and the fatal drug rape of Homolka's youngest sister, Tammy, 15.

Bernardo was convicted Sept. 1, 1995, on two counts of first-degree murder in the French and Mahaffy deaths.

He was also sentenced to serve an indefinite prison term as a dangerous offender on guilty pleas to Tammy Homolka's manslaughter and to more than a dozen rapes attributed to the Scarborough Rapist.

At his murder trial, Bernardo tried unsuccessfully to pin the murders on his ex-wife - who became the Crown's star witness after she struck a deal with prosecutors to testify against Bernardo in exchange for the 12-year sentence.

Bernardo, who started his reign of terror in Scarborough in May 1987 - five months before he and Homolka met - admitted that he raped French and Mahaffy, but said it was Homolka who killed them.

Bernardo insisted at trial that Homolka enjoyed their perverted sex just as much as he did and that she was bisexual.

APPEARED WILLING

Homolka vehemently denied that she murdered the girls or had any interest in women. She claimed she was a beaten and abused woman who did everything for Bernardo out of fear.

Some jurors who saw the videotapes at trial -- only audiotape portions were played in open court - told Sun Media afterwards that Homolka did not appear as unwilling a participant as defence lawyers had made out.

After her imprisonment in 1993, Homolka was segregated at Kingston's now-closed Prison For Women until 1997, when she was transferred to Joliette in Quebec.

At Joliette, Homolka began a lesbian relationship with a butch lesbian named Lynda Veronneau. The relationship, which lasted until early 2000, cast Homolka's denials of lesbianism into doubt.

Veronneau suggested in an earlier interview with Sun Media that Homolka is not a "true" lesbian.

Homolka dumped Veronneau when she began what the National Parole Board would call an "emotional and sexual" relationship with Gerbet.

A former inmate pal of Homolka's told Sun Media that Homolka fell head over heels for Gerbet after the two met in the Ste-Anne-des-Plaines prison library.

FONDLED GERBET

The inmate said Homolka and Gerbet not only swapped underwear and letters by hiding the articles in library books, but that Homolka also sexually fondled Gerbet through a gap in the fence in the prison exercise yard.

Homolka told doctors that she had kissed Gerbet and that she had a photograph of him.

The family of Gerbet's victim - his ex-girlfriend Cathy Carretta - warn that Gerbet is a dominating, manipulative and possessive man and that the killer couple's bizarre union could spell disaster.

Lapointe was flabbergasted when Homolka accidentally dropped the photo of the naked woman on the floor while showing him family photos.

He said that Homolka's obvious interest in young women is frightening, given her crimes.

Throughout hours and hours of discussions, Lapointe noted, Homolka "never, never, never, never, never, never mentioned sorrow for her sister Tammy.

"It's as if she vanished away," Lapointe said.

"Inside of me, I wanted to say 'What about your sister, Tammy?' ... but I didn't want to put the knife in the wound."

When Lapointe confronted Homolka one day about her conditions to stay away from "Jane Doe," Homolka finally confirmed the girl's first name to him.

Lapointe said that Homolka looked down and clenched her fists.

"Well, she's still alive," Lapointe recalled Homolka saying.

Lapointe said he is going public with his information on Homolka because he feels there is something that is "unresolved" about her case.