MONTREAL — A year after Karla Homolka was freed from prison, she's trying to blend unnoticed into Quebec - but the media is still keeping a careful eye on the notorious teen killer despite her unsuccessful efforts to change her name and vanish from the public eye.

Homolka, who'd already changed her name once to Karla Leanne Teale, recently lost a bid to become Emily Chiara Tremblay, Tremblay being one of the most common surnames in Quebec.

Her lawyer, Sylvie Bordelais, said her infamous client just wants to stay out of the spotlight. Homolka is believed to be living in the Montreal area and has no court-imposed restrictions on her movements.

"The objective of Madame Teale was always to try to live life as quietly as possible, far away from the media, and make as few waves as possible - to become as ordinary a citizen as she can be," Bordelais said in a recent interview.

But if the media frenzy that ensued after Homolka was discovered by a Toronto tabloid last August working in a hardware store in nearby Longueuil is any indication, a quiet and anonymous life isn't likely in the cards.

Al Parker, the Sun's deputy managing editor, said the newspaper will always keep an eye on her.

"We're not devoting our lives to following every movement. . but she is not just yesterday's flavour," Parker said. "People are still interested in knowing what she's doing with her life. .I think you'll see Karla Homolka resurface in some form or another in the not-too-distant future."

Homolka's former husband, Paul Bernardo, is serving a life sentence in the abductions and sex slayings of Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French in the early 1990s.

Homolka was given a lesser sentence in exchange for her testimony against him in a controversial plea bargain dubbed a "deal with the devil" by one of Bernardo's former lawyers. It was negotiated before officials had seen damning videotapes of the rape and torture of the two teens - footage that apparently portrayed Homolka as an enthusiastic participant in the attacks in the couple's home in St. Catharines, Ont.

She was freed from a prison north of Montreal last July 4 after serving her entire 12-year manslaughter term in the deaths of the two young teens. The sentence also took into account the death of her 15-year-old sister, Tammy, who died after Homolka knocked her unconscious to allow Bernardo, her out-of-town boyfriend at the time, to rape the girl.

A judge recently turned down Homolka's bid to change her name again. The Crown argued successfully that Homolka's lawyer was late filing an appeal after an earlier request for a name change was rejected.

The ever-protective Bordelais refused to rule it out when asked if Homolka would make another bid to change her name. Nor would she comment when asked if her media-shy client was living in the Montreal area.

Except for a few reported Karla sightings that local media attribute to their own tipsters, Homolka has avoided being spotted in public since last August, when she was discovered working at the Longueuil hardware store.

Photographs showed Homolka sporting a new, shorter brunette hairstyle, sitting outside a restaurant eating ice cream, and walking her dog.

Her former employer, Richer Lapointe, who secretly taped their conversations last summer in an apparent attempt to have her sent back to prison, has since disappeared from the media's radar screen after being largely discredited.

More recent Homolka sightings include a report that she was seen applying for a passport in January. Another report had her visiting the downtown Montreal office of Quebec's health insurance board a few weeks ago.

While behind bars, Homolka reportedly had a relationship with convicted killer Jean-Paul Gerbet, a Frenchman who murdered his girlfriend. An official with the Correctional Service of Canada said he's still in prison, but wouldn't comment when asked if Homolka had visited Gerbet.

Mike Gasher, director of the journalism department at Montreal's Concordia University, says the media is right to "keep an eye on things" due to the horrific nature of Homolka's crimes.

But he added that, except for selling newspapers, continuing to "unnecessarily" hound Homolka doesn't serve any public interest.

"She is legally free. .I think (Homolka) should be left alone unless a journalist finds out that she's up to some kind of criminal activity," said Gasher.

The French and Mahaffy families, for their part, fear running into Homolka in St. Catharines should she happen to be in town visiting her own relatives.

"There's no question that certainly for the French and Mahaffy families, that's something that they hope never happens,"said the families' lawyer, Tim Danson. "Donna French (Kristen's mother) has always expressed the fear that she could run into Karla Homolka in a local mall."

The quiet community where the sadistic murders took place still holds a certain sick fascination for tourists, officials say.

David Oakes, the acting director economic development and tourism services in St. Catharines, says his office gets "an average 20 calls per year."

"Some people do come, they want to drive by where the house was," he said.

Oakes points out to the curious that the house has been torn down and replaced with a new one.

Mayor Tim Rigby is baffled that anyone would want to visit St. Catharines simply to visit Homolka's hometown.

"There are people out there, I guess, some sadists. .why would you want to go and do that unless you're somewhat of a morbid individual?" Rigby said.

The 66-year-old mayor couldn't avoid complaining about the sentence Homolka received.

"Frankly, the length of time she served and was given wasn't enough ... people who do far less crimes are getting more than that," he said. "The judicial system made its decision and we can't do anything about it. But we'd rather just get on with life down here. I wish people would just go away and leave it alone."