WARNING: This episode contains discussion of sex crimes against children. Listener discretion is advised.
As always let us begin with the legal system of our neighbors to the north, practice the common law system. Canada is a country founded by England therefore the fundamental principles of Canadian law are not much different from those governing the legal system of Great Britain, the United States. Though Canada is now completely independent from Britain, English common law still applies to the country. Now some of you have asked what is the difference between Civil law and Common Law, now there are many but I can best describe it as, civil tradition, judges interpret laws in a strict and literal way that only considers the circumstances of the particular case, not historic precedent wherein common law a judge will interpret the law based on precedent and their own morals. Now back to Canada, there has been no death penalty since 1976 making life in prison the most severe punishment in the state. You also may have heard of the iconic Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which is a federal police force similar to the work that FBI agents do in The US. Each province can have its own police force or each individual city can have its own force and can ask for the Royal Canadian Mountain Police to assist with a case. Think of it as a murder happens in Atlanta, Georgia so there Atlanta Police Department handles the case but they ask for assistance from the GBI, the Georgia Bureau of Investigations who can ask for assistance from the FBI but so can APD ask assistance from the FBI directly. This is also the case in Canada.
Now originally, I wasn’t going to cover this case because it has been covered in the American media quite a lot because Americans love learning about serial killers and other podcasts have covered this crime. But I had some requests to cover this case from you my listeners, as well as my best friend here in Paris. Now there is a lot of information out there about this case so I wanted to make sure this episode makes it as clear and concise as possible. I often see in case that the victims get lost in the whole mumble jumble of the killers. The killers are also attractive people which made the case blow up more because “how can pretty people commit horrible crimes?” But it happens and I am going to tell you all about it!
Paul Bernardo was born on Aug. 27, 1964, in Ontario Canada in a suburb of Toronto to Kenneth and Marilyn Bernardo. During Paul’s birth, he was deprived of oxygen which is known in children to cause developmental delays and he was also born with a tongue tie which causes speech delays for him. Friends of the family said Paul was “always happy…a young boy who smiled a lot.” His mother described Paul as being the easiest of her children but he was not affectionate, quiet, extremely stubborn, and was easy to frustration. His family was a well-off upper-middle-class family but the family hid some dark secrets. Kenneth was an alcoholic would often take his frustrations out on his wife and they slept in separate bedrooms and Marilyn would often be absent from the home. In 1975, Kenneth (Paul’s father) was arrested and charged with child molestation on who is believed to be his own daughter. Marilyn, Paul’s mother was depressed about her husband’s abuse and kind of withdrew from the family, she even moved into the family home’s basement. Paul’s father's arrest happened when Paul was 9 or 10 but he didn’t find out about it until he was 16 when his mother also told him that he conceived from a guy that she had an affair with her high school boyfriend. This sent Paul into a frenzy, his personality changed. He started calling his mother a whore and a slob and Marilyn would refute by calling him the “Bastard Child from Hell”. After Paul’s high school graduation, he went off to school at the University of Toronto where he would go to bars and make up crazy stories to convince women to sleep with him only to later humiliate and beat them. He also had many girlfriends some of whom were underage during this time where he would ask for odd and scary sex acts from them such as strangulation, forced sodomy and non-consensual acts.
After college Paul got a great job as an accountant at a prestigious firm while continuing his college side hustle of smuggling cigarettes into Canada from America. In early 1987 an ex-girlfriend of his threatened to go to the police. This is when Paul started to attack strangers in May of 1987 in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough. On May 4th, 1987 a 20-year-old woman got off of a bus was grabbed and raped. This happened two more times that same week! This unknown rapist became know as Scarborough Rapist and this spree went on for FIVE YEARS. “The women were all between the ages of 15 and 21 and the attacks all included beatings, intense verbal abuse, and dire threats to discourage victims from going to the police”. The crazy thing about these attacks is they often took place in front of the victims’ homes, out in the open and lasted 30 min to an hour. It was bold. During these five years, Paul was actually questioned…twice! They found Paul to be credible; he provided samples for forensic testing and joked about his resemblance to the composite sketch. Bernardo was released, and delays in forensic testing ensured his freedom. But, Paul was never named a suspect actually another man was arrested, charged, and convicted of these crimes for the crime that Paul Bernard was committing!
Now during his time as the Scarborough Rapist, in 1987 Paul met the women who would be his future wife, Karla Homolka. Karla was 17 and Paul was 23. Karla Leanne Homolka was born May 4th, 1970 in Ontario and was the oldest of 3 daughters. She was described as a “well adjusted, pretty, smart, and popular” but others described her as bossy, controlling, and suffered from mood swings. Karla had by most accounts a great childhood but Karla had many hospitalizations as a child due to her asthma. She was very smart and when tested in the 3rd grade she had an IQ of 131. She becomes obsessed with true crime at a young age but in a very unhealthy way, she once wrote in someone’s yearbook that she loved death and is noted as saying that she wanted to draw dots on someone’s body and play connect the dots with a knife then pour vinegar on them after all while she was in high school. Karla loved animals and in fact started working for a veterinarian after high school. But I did see in one report that she threw a friend’s hamster out the window and later found the dead hamster to study it. Now if you are a true crime fanatic like me you know that hurting animals is often a sign of a psychopath and many serial killers are known to have done this.
Now Karla was Paul’s type young and beautiful, they were both strongly attracted to each other and fell in love, Karla later said the first time she met him she knew she was going to marry him. Karla’s parents loved Paul and so did Karla’s sisters, and Paul told them about his rap career. Now from what I could find, he loved Vanilla Ice and purchased recording equipment with money he made smuggling tobacco across the US border. Bernardo indulged in grandiose fantasies, often assuring his friends that famous artists were interested in sponsorship deals. His lyrics were grotesque and people speculate that the provide insight into his crimes. Paul disclosed all of his sick sexual encounters including his Scarborough Rapist crimes to her and his fantasies and this didn’t scare Karla, this excited her. In fact, their first sexual encounter involved Karla being handcuffed to the bed while Paul had his way with her. Paul and Karla entered into a sadomasochistic relationship, with Paul acting as master and Karla as his slave, Karla later stated Paul could not perform sexually if something wasn’t done to demine her.
Paul was very controlling of Karla, he told her how to act, what to wear, where to be in when, however, Karla didn’t seem to mind because they got engaged in December 1990 in Niagara Falls and set a wedding date for June 1991. But Paul was getting bored with Karla, I mean she was getting older she was 20! One day Paul was going on an errand, Karla’s younger sister Tammy wanted to go with Paul. Tammy had a little crush on Paul, which Karla knew and Paul even told Karla that he had fantasies about Tammy in which Karla encouraged. They had sex on Tammy’s bed, Paul would play peeping Tom with Tammy, and one night they drugged her and Paul pleasured himself to sleeping, Tammy. Paul told Karla that if he loved her, she would let him have Tammy. So in a sick move, Karla told him she’d love to present him her young sister’s virginity as a gift for Christmas and their engagement.
On December 23rd, 1990 during a party in the Homolka home, Karla spiked her sister drink with an animal anesthetic called Holocim that she stole from her place of work which caused her sister to sleep. Then Karla held a cloth soaked in Halothane over her sister’s mouth and nose to make sure Tammy would not wake up. Karla later stated that she never wanted to hurt Tammy she just wanted Paul to have younger girls out of his system before they got married. After the cocktail of medication was administered to Tammy, Paul raped Tammy while Karla was telling him to hurry up would every couple of minutes or so poor more Halothane on the cloth and cover her nose and mouth with it. Then Paul told Karla what to do to Tammy, I know this is very disturbing and it was all being videotaped. After a bit, Tammy started to vomit Karla turned Tammy over so she wouldn’t choke on her vomit then carried to the basement but her clothes back on and preformed CPR but Tammy wasn’t responding so they hid the evidence and called 911. Tammy was taken away in an ambulance but never woke up. She was pronounced dead at the hospital; the coroner noticed a strange chemical burn on her face, but her death was ruled an accident caused by alcohol poisoning. Tammy was just a few weeks shy of her 16th birthday. Paul said, Karla owed her a redo because it went so horribly wrong.
In June 1991, Karla invited a friend who was 15 that she had previously worked with to come over to her place for a girl’s night in. The 15-year-old only known as Jane Done. Jane Doe and Karla watched the movie Ghost then Karla called Paul and said that his surprise wedding gift was ready! Karla laced Jane Doe’s drink with Halcion and she lost consciousness. Paul came home and raped Jane Doe while it was being videotaped. The next morning Jane Doe woke up in their apartment and was nauseous she though from drinking, she didn’t realize she was date raped. On June 29th, 1991, Paul and Karla were married on the very same day that a couple found concrete blocks containing human body parts. These remains belonged to 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffy, who had disappeared on June 15th. This girl had been abducted by Paul and Karla, used and abused over several days, and then horrifically discarded after being drugged with Halcion. In August 1991, Paul and Karla invited Jane Doe back to their place but she stopped breathing after she was drugged. Karla called 911 but then called back and said everything was all right. Jane Doe survived. Thank God.
On April 16th, 1992, Karla and Paul drove around looking for young girls. They passed a Catholic School and saw 15-year-old Kristen French walking home. They pretended to be lost and ask Kristen for directions then they pulled out a knife and forced her into the car. When Kristen did not return home her parents immediately notified the police. Over the next couple of days, Karla and Paul held Kristen hostage in their apartment making her drink lots of alcohol and raping her. They killed Kristen Easter Sunday by strangulation and went to Easter dinner at the Homolka’s after. Kristen body was found April 20th in a ditch, she was washed and her hair was cut off.
Police were starting to notice a pattern and realized that Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy’s murders were connected. they released a composite sketch of the murderer. A colleague from his work tipped off authorities that the man was Paul Bernardo, regaling the police with tales of Bernardo’s disturbing love for violence. In January 1993, Karla left Paul after Paul beat her with a flashlight. Only two months later the DNA sample that was taken when Paul talked to the police in the Scarborough rapist case was finally in, and the rapist matched Paul and he was arrested. Now I know DNA was so new at the time in early 1993, but if it could have been tested earlier 3 lives would have been saved and many women would have not had to experience rape.
Karla lawyered up and as granted a plea bargain to testify against her husband. She claimed her husband had admitted to raping more than 30 women and painted herself as a victim, Police began an extensive search at 57 Bayview Drive, the apartment that Karla and Paul shared. Detectives found a series of videotapes documenting the rape, torture, and murder of Tammy Homolka, Leslie Mahaffy, and Kristen French. Investigators searched the home for 71 days. Over 100 tapes were discovered—including those documenting the rapes of Jane Doe. After the police left, Paul’s defense team entered the apartment and found a letter in his briefcase from Paul. The letter contained directions to a spotlight, leading to a small attic space. It was here that more tapes were discovered of their victims. The tapes showed that Karla was far more involved than her testimony suggested. The defense attorney for Paul withheld the tapes from the prosecution in order to discredit their star witness. But Karla’s plea deal protected her.
Paul Bernardo was sentenced to life in prison for the rape, murder, and kidnap of two teenage girls but we know he had so many other rape victims and possibly murder victims. In 2018 after 25 years in prison, Bernardo’s parole was denied. Paul today lives in Millhaven Institution, where he should stay for the rest of his life. The lawyer speaking on behalf of his victims’ families noted that “There’s never been an apology by Paul Bernardo. There’s been never any indication whatsoever of remorse.
Now are you ready to get mad? Karla through her plea deal was only granted 12 years of prison, and still paints herself as a victim. Which she isn’t. She was released in 2005. She is said to have possibly had a relationship with Jean-Paul Gerbert who was a convicted murderer (she knows how to pick them)! According to this article, I found Karla went off the radar until 2007 When a journalist traced her to a small apartment in Guadeloupe. She was living with her husband and three children under the name Leanne Bordelais. Karla remained in the shadows until 2014. Her remaining sister Lori was called as a witness in the murder trial of Luka Magnotta. Magnotta was a Canadian murderer who had become obsessed with Karla, going so far as to mail Lori body parts. During the trial, Lori confirmed that Homolka was now living in Quebec, having married Thierry Bordelais, the brother of her former lawyer. Homolka was quick to distance herself from Magnotta and was later found to have no connection to the murderer.
Sources: thecanadaguide.com, allthatsintresting.com, Stephanie Harlow Youtube Channel, filmdaily.com, listverse.com, Killer Docs Youtube Channel, That Chapter Youtube Channel, CBC, lesoleil.com
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