Friday night, June 14, 1991, and Leslie Mahaffy went out for the evening with a few friends. Ever since chilling reports of a mad rapist appeared in the press, her parents had imposed a strict curfew of 10 p.m. But Leslie ignored the ground rules set up by her parents, and was having too much fun with other girls from school to care when 10.00pm
came and went.
Leslie's parents anticipated that she would stay out until after curfew, and they decided to teach her a lesson. When she arrived home at after 2 a.m., she found she had been locked out. Wondering what to do, she called a friend and asked if she could sleep there for the night, but the girl's mother told her to go home and face the consequences. With nowhere else to go, Leslie decided to return to her house and see if there was a way of breaking in, without arousing her family.
Unbeknownst to her the Scarborough Rapist was prowling the streets looking for lhis next victim. Within a two-year period, the number of sexual assaults had numbered over twleve and after several months of quiet in 1988, the attacks on women began again. Women were terrified to be out after dark.
The rapist now was crouched behind a car when Leslie came strolling by. Carrying a hunting knife, he forced her into his car. He drove her to his house, undressed her, blindfolded her, and videotaped her naked. He was going to have vaginal intercourse with Leslie but he ejaculated prematurely.
When his girlfriend woke up, he gave her instructions on how he wanted her to have sex with Leslie while he videotaped the act. This done, he instructed his obedient wife to film him while he sodomized Leslie. The brute force of his anal penetration caused Leslie to cry hysterically.
In the late evening of June 29, 1991, a middle-aged couple were canoeing down Lake Gibson when they spotted a concrete block with bits of animal flesh protruding from several cracks. With the help of some fishermen who were standing on the bank, the block was retrieved. Using a tire iron as a crowbar, they split the concrete, but they were hardly prepared for the sight that met their eyes -- the calf and foot of a young female -- crawling with maggots.
At the same time, almost in another world to this horror a young couple were exchanging vows, and led to the reception in a brilliant horse-drawn carriage. The guest believed that Karla and Paul were the perfect couple.
A hasty call was placed to detectives and other homicide probers who immediately began searching the murky waters for additional parts of the victim. They found a total of five concrete blocks that contained body parts. But the really valuable evidence was the distinctive braces that provided positive clues to Leslie's identity.
Kristen French was a beautiful girl with deep brown hair and a georgous smile. On April 16, 1992, she was abducted the parking lot of a church she was attending. A woman lured the lovely brunette over to her car on the pretense of asking directions. A man brandishing a knife approached Kristen from behind and she forced to accompany the kidnapper team.
Throughout the night, the dispatcher relayed information about the missing woman to all patrol units.
The rapist and his wife had no intention of letting Kristen live because she knew them, knew where they lived, and knew their dog by name. Regardless, the rapist didn't want Kristen to realize this, specially since she was bigger and stronger than his wife and could have easily overpowered her in a fight. Knowing her life was in danger, Kristen kept her wits about her and went along with anything they suggested, even pretending to enjoy perverted sex with both her male and female captors. The more she pretended to enjoy it, the more perverse her captors became.
Kristen did not even resist when the man urinated on her. "Don't make me mad. Don't make me hurt you," he said as he rubbed his groin into her face. "Don't worry, I won't piss in your face."
Finally, he stood over her and urinated. Then he moved. Turning his buttocks into her face, he squatted over her face and tried to defecate on her without success.
"You're a fucking piece of shit. But I like you," he told her.
"You look good covered in piss."
The indignities went on for a day or two, all meticulously captured on video for the future enjoyment of the newlyweds. Kristen's sexual assault was all but intolerable. Yet throughout her ordeal she continued to be polite and answered questions with please and thank you. Even having her teeth knocked out one at a time and being fed her own chopped off hair failed to stop her will to live. Then came the final and worst indignity of all for Kristen French, but her death was not captured on film.
On April 30, 1992, Kristen's body was found in a ditch. Her naked body had not been dismembered like Leslie's, leading the investigators to erroneously conclude that the murders of the two teenagers were not connected.
Shrewd detective work took investigators back to a 1987 rape case where the young victim had given a very definite description of her attacker. He was handsome, six-feet tall, smooth-skinned and had round face and "Creepy-eyes." An identi-kit drawing made by a police artist, oddly enough, was never made public.
The inspector went into the file and read a complaint from one of this man's former girlfriends who accused him of raping, sodomizing, and physically assaulting her. There were coincidences in the rape case that raised an eyebrow on the detective. The man accused of raping her in the backseat of his white Capri was named Paul Bernardo. Several of the rape victims said their attacker drove off in a white Capri. Paul lived in the same area where the rapes were committed. Irwin noticed that the girl's complaint was never followed up.
In the wake of this information, police lead investigator Irwin contacted the media and had them publish the Identi-kit drawing of the rapist after several of his victims had agreed that the drawing resembled their attacker. To lure him out, a $150,000 reward was offered. These wild cards were enough to win all the chips.
Some former colleagues of Paul, having an after lunch drink at a country inn couldn't get over how much the newspaper picture resembled him. One of these men contacted the police. A cashier at the bank where Paul had an account, also noticed that how much her customer looked like the picture in the newspaper.
However, the reward had ignited an endless stream of tips and busy police didn't have the manpower to check either of these tips out.
The more police pondered the old 1988 file, the more they became convinced that someone should have a talk with Paul Bernardo. Detective Irwin found Paul very cooperative and Bernardo didn't strike him as the kind who could be a serial rapist. But detectives are a suspicious lot, and Irwin nevertheless took blood, saliva and hair samples from Paul before he left the house. In the morning, he carried them to Kim Johnston, at the forensic laboratory.
Paul's semen samples were matched with 230 samples from other suspects. Only 5 of the 230 samples fit the blood factors of the Scarborough Rapist. Paul Bernardo was one of those five. The noose was tightening.
Descriptions of the murderer and the semen samples left little doubt in the mind of Irwin that Paul was his man, however, his superiors pulled him off the case and assigned him to cases with more urgency. The rapes by now had mysteriously stopped, and the Scarborough Rapist case was put in the "cold" file.
Paul and Karla Homolka had decided to move their modus operandi to St. Catherine, in the Niagara Falls area. Following the death of Kristen French, authorities in Ontario formed the Green Ribbon Task Force with Superintendent Vincent Bevan as lead investigator. Base of operations were established in St. Catherine. American FBI forensic scientists worked in conjunction with the Canadian government in an effort to ferret out the rapist and quell near hysteria that had many citizens barricading themselves in their houses.
With the composite sketch of the rapist in every post office and frequently flashed on television, police began receiving more and more calls about a man named Paul Bernardo who resembled the picture. Detectives who interviewed him at his 57 Bayview home noticed he was clean-cut, handsome, and very polite and cooperative. Yes, he said, it was rather inconvenient and embarrassing that he looked like the Identi-kit drawing. They noticed the car in his driveway was a Nissan, which looked nothing like a Capri.
Consequently, Paul was not pursued as a suspect.
By February of 1993, the Scarborough Rapist had raped more women and had murdered several teen girls. Police were no closer to catching him.
Karla Delivers Paul To Police
The physical abuse had been going on for years, but this time he blacked both her eyes, knocked out several teeth, and kicked her ribs in. Using Karla as a punching bag proved to be Paul's fatal mistake. The Niagara police investigated the matter and took Karla to the hospital. Toronto detectives interviewed her at length. From there, more and more the pieces of the rapidly materializing jigsaw puzzle depicting Paul Bernardo as the serial killer were falling into place.
When Karla's favorite uncle arrived at the hospital she whispered to him that Paul was the Scarborough Rapist who had killed Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French.
Karla's uncle suggested she get herself a good lawyer. As a veterinary assistant, Karla had taken care of Lawyer George Walker's Dalmation. With an unobstructed view of Karla's connection in the murder horror, Walker told her frankly that he didn't know what negotiations could be made for her cooperation in view of her involvement. Karla balked. She wanted some kind of immunity if she was to tell all she knew.
With Paul's arrest on February 10, the case picked up renewed momentum. He was charged with the Scarborough rapes and the murders of Mahaffy and French, labeling him as a homicidal maniac. As police doggedness continued, Karla became afraid. She sat watching television bulletins about the murders, and, in complete confusion, gulped enough anxiety pills and alcohol to knock out a horse.
On February 19, police obtained a search warrant. For 71 days they combed the couple's Port Dalhousie home. They were flabbergasted to find a complete directory of all the rapes and murders written in Paul's own handwriting. As if this wasn't damning enough, the indefatigable Inspector Irwin found books on perverted sex and magazine stories on serial killers. What they didn't find were perverted videotapes that were not surrendered to police until Paul's lawyer, Murray withdrew from the case.
The videotapes showed Karla heavily involved in lascivious sex acts with two captives. The evidence of his own eyes assured Karla's lawyer that she was an enthusiastic partner in the crimes. It was barely a week later that lawyers on both sides came to terms. Karla would get twelve years in penal servitude for each of the two victims. The sentences would served concurrently.
It had to be done, prosecutors said. Without Karla's testimony the true story might never be known. As part of the plea-bargain, the attorney general agreed to use his influence to see that Karla served her time in a psychiatric hospital instead of a maximum security penitentiary. An unimpressed newspaper editor said it was probably the worst deal that the Canadian government had ever made with a criminal witness.
Karla agreed unconditionally to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the Scarborough rape and murder spree.
Karla's trial began admix a carnival atmosphere on June 28, 1993. The junior miss tartan kilt and blazer she wore clashed heavily with the sluttish ruby-red lipstick and false eyelashes. To set the scene for a plea-bargain deal, the defense called a psychiatrist, who told the court Karla knew what was happening but felt helpless and unable to act in her own defense or the defense of the victims. "She was in my opinion paralyzed with fear and in that state became obedient and self-serving," he told the court.
Her guilty plea, her age, her lack of criminal record were probably the mitigating factors that helped her escaped the maxim punishment allowed by law and readied herself for what was sure to be a nightmare -- the trial of her husband Paul Bernardo.
The delay of the trial for two years not only stirred the deepest wrath among the victim's families and friends but also upset the keenest senses of officers involved in the case. For one thing, Bernardo had given his lawyer, Ken Murray, the videotapes showing a curious episode of sex attacks filmed by Paul and Kara. He believed, by doing so, he would keep the films out of the hands of the prosecution. But prosecutors wiretapped conversations between Bernardo and Murray, and the lawyer was forced to turn the tapes over. He excused himself from the case and John Rosen became Paul's mouthpiece.
During the one-year delay since the start of the trial, newspapers gathered and published an interesting dossier on Paul Bernardo.
Paul Bernardo
marriage was doomed from the start, Kenneth abused his wife and prowled the streets at night, peeping into windows of neighborhood women. When Marilyn caught her husband fondling their infant daughter she seeked harborage in the arms of a former lover. Paul was conceived illegitimately.
As Paul matured he became enthralled with scouting and looked "cute" in his uniform. He worked summer vacations as a counselor and became very popular with the girls in his neighborhood. He was described as well-mannered, polite, and an excellent student. He was voted the most popular boy in school. Girls who had sex with him in high school said he was a gentle and thoughtful lover. The dossier also reflected his good head for figures and a predicted future as a successful businessman.
The Devil stepped into Paul's life when he became sixteen. He and his mother got into an argument and she told him he was a bastard child with no ligament name. Since that day, when she wanted him she would call, "come here, bastard. Or "breakfast is ready, bastard." In turn he called her a "fat slob" and a "whore." The house of cards collapsed under the strain. Paul moved out and took to the streets. He began hanging out with gang boys and developed a macho attitude.
Women in particular, became the target of his animosity.
As Paul grew into manhood he continued to use his Valentino looks and persuasive ways to seduce girls he met in bars. To him, getting a girl into bed was as easy as pie. By the time he enrolled at the University of Toronto regular sex had become a bore. Forceful anal sex became his sexual fantasy and he found plenty of submissive women. Detectives pushing deeper into his background discovered that Paul enjoyed humiliating women: after having sex with them he urinated on them and beat them up.
His appetite for kinky sex could not be supported by a normal job. He started trafficking in stolen goods while still in college. After he graduated he obtained a position as a junior accountant for the prestigious firm of Price Waterhouse. By now his reputation as a sicko-lover had spread among his female associates. They crossed the street when they saw him coming.
Desperate for sex, he scoured neighborhood bars until he met the girl of his dreams in October of 1987. Karla Homolka was a pretty blonde with an hour-glass figure and an open mind for sex.
Whereas his former lovers found his sadistic sexual behavior unpleasant, Karla got off on it. Karla, handcuffed and on her knees begged to be humiliated and the degradation knew no bounds. He placed a dog's choke collar around her neck and rammed a wire bottle into her vagina. To further satisfy his sexual fantasies, he strangled her with a cord until her face turned blue and she passed out. His pet names for her were slut, bitch, whore and cunt.
They played games; he pretended to be a rapist sneaking into her bedroom and forcing her to have anal and oral sex with him. Over pillow talk one night he suggested that they really commit a rape. "Cool," she said.
Karla's testimony was the ammunition the prosecution needed to shoot Paul down in flames during his May 1995 trial in Judge Patrick LeSage's Toronto courtroom. The accused man faced two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of aggravated sexual assault, two counts of forcible confinement, two counts of kidnapping, and one count of performing an indignity on a human body.
He plead not guilty.
There were gasps of astonishment, disgust, even outrage when prosecutor Ray Houlahan rolled a videotape of Karla naked in bed, masturbating with a bullet-shaped end of a flashlight inserted into her vagina. Few people were expecting to see a pornography tape of the country's most infamous women involved in various sex acts and positions even the most experienced prostitute couldn't have dreamed up. It was Houlahan's way of showing the court how Bernardo forced his will on a woman who would do anything for him -- even kill her own sister.
Karla's testimony portrayed her apparently consensual demeanor on the tapes as an act meant to appease her violent and dangerous husband out of fear for her own life. You could hear a pin drop in the courtroom as she told how she helped drug and rape her 15-year-old sister, Tammy. It happened in December of 1990.
came and went.
Leslie's parents anticipated that she would stay out until after curfew, and they decided to teach her a lesson. When she arrived home at after 2 a.m., she found she had been locked out. Wondering what to do, she called a friend and asked if she could sleep there for the night, but the girl's mother told her to go home and face the consequences. With nowhere else to go, Leslie decided to return to her house and see if there was a way of breaking in, without arousing her family.
Unbeknownst to her the Scarborough Rapist was prowling the streets looking for lhis next victim. Within a two-year period, the number of sexual assaults had numbered over twleve and after several months of quiet in 1988, the attacks on women began again. Women were terrified to be out after dark.
The rapist now was crouched behind a car when Leslie came strolling by. Carrying a hunting knife, he forced her into his car. He drove her to his house, undressed her, blindfolded her, and videotaped her naked. He was going to have vaginal intercourse with Leslie but he ejaculated prematurely.
When his girlfriend woke up, he gave her instructions on how he wanted her to have sex with Leslie while he videotaped the act. This done, he instructed his obedient wife to film him while he sodomized Leslie. The brute force of his anal penetration caused Leslie to cry hysterically.
In the late evening of June 29, 1991, a middle-aged couple were canoeing down Lake Gibson when they spotted a concrete block with bits of animal flesh protruding from several cracks. With the help of some fishermen who were standing on the bank, the block was retrieved. Using a tire iron as a crowbar, they split the concrete, but they were hardly prepared for the sight that met their eyes -- the calf and foot of a young female -- crawling with maggots.
At the same time, almost in another world to this horror a young couple were exchanging vows, and led to the reception in a brilliant horse-drawn carriage. The guest believed that Karla and Paul were the perfect couple.
A hasty call was placed to detectives and other homicide probers who immediately began searching the murky waters for additional parts of the victim. They found a total of five concrete blocks that contained body parts. But the really valuable evidence was the distinctive braces that provided positive clues to Leslie's identity.
Kristen French was a beautiful girl with deep brown hair and a georgous smile. On April 16, 1992, she was abducted the parking lot of a church she was attending. A woman lured the lovely brunette over to her car on the pretense of asking directions. A man brandishing a knife approached Kristen from behind and she forced to accompany the kidnapper team.
Throughout the night, the dispatcher relayed information about the missing woman to all patrol units.
The rapist and his wife had no intention of letting Kristen live because she knew them, knew where they lived, and knew their dog by name. Regardless, the rapist didn't want Kristen to realize this, specially since she was bigger and stronger than his wife and could have easily overpowered her in a fight. Knowing her life was in danger, Kristen kept her wits about her and went along with anything they suggested, even pretending to enjoy perverted sex with both her male and female captors. The more she pretended to enjoy it, the more perverse her captors became.
Kristen did not even resist when the man urinated on her. "Don't make me mad. Don't make me hurt you," he said as he rubbed his groin into her face. "Don't worry, I won't piss in your face."
Finally, he stood over her and urinated. Then he moved. Turning his buttocks into her face, he squatted over her face and tried to defecate on her without success.
"You're a fucking piece of shit. But I like you," he told her.
"You look good covered in piss."
The indignities went on for a day or two, all meticulously captured on video for the future enjoyment of the newlyweds. Kristen's sexual assault was all but intolerable. Yet throughout her ordeal she continued to be polite and answered questions with please and thank you. Even having her teeth knocked out one at a time and being fed her own chopped off hair failed to stop her will to live. Then came the final and worst indignity of all for Kristen French, but her death was not captured on film.
On April 30, 1992, Kristen's body was found in a ditch. Her naked body had not been dismembered like Leslie's, leading the investigators to erroneously conclude that the murders of the two teenagers were not connected.
Shrewd detective work took investigators back to a 1987 rape case where the young victim had given a very definite description of her attacker. He was handsome, six-feet tall, smooth-skinned and had round face and "Creepy-eyes." An identi-kit drawing made by a police artist, oddly enough, was never made public.
The inspector went into the file and read a complaint from one of this man's former girlfriends who accused him of raping, sodomizing, and physically assaulting her. There were coincidences in the rape case that raised an eyebrow on the detective. The man accused of raping her in the backseat of his white Capri was named Paul Bernardo. Several of the rape victims said their attacker drove off in a white Capri. Paul lived in the same area where the rapes were committed. Irwin noticed that the girl's complaint was never followed up.
In the wake of this information, police lead investigator Irwin contacted the media and had them publish the Identi-kit drawing of the rapist after several of his victims had agreed that the drawing resembled their attacker. To lure him out, a $150,000 reward was offered. These wild cards were enough to win all the chips.
Some former colleagues of Paul, having an after lunch drink at a country inn couldn't get over how much the newspaper picture resembled him. One of these men contacted the police. A cashier at the bank where Paul had an account, also noticed that how much her customer looked like the picture in the newspaper.
However, the reward had ignited an endless stream of tips and busy police didn't have the manpower to check either of these tips out.
The more police pondered the old 1988 file, the more they became convinced that someone should have a talk with Paul Bernardo. Detective Irwin found Paul very cooperative and Bernardo didn't strike him as the kind who could be a serial rapist. But detectives are a suspicious lot, and Irwin nevertheless took blood, saliva and hair samples from Paul before he left the house. In the morning, he carried them to Kim Johnston, at the forensic laboratory.
Paul's semen samples were matched with 230 samples from other suspects. Only 5 of the 230 samples fit the blood factors of the Scarborough Rapist. Paul Bernardo was one of those five. The noose was tightening.
Descriptions of the murderer and the semen samples left little doubt in the mind of Irwin that Paul was his man, however, his superiors pulled him off the case and assigned him to cases with more urgency. The rapes by now had mysteriously stopped, and the Scarborough Rapist case was put in the "cold" file.
Paul and Karla Homolka had decided to move their modus operandi to St. Catherine, in the Niagara Falls area. Following the death of Kristen French, authorities in Ontario formed the Green Ribbon Task Force with Superintendent Vincent Bevan as lead investigator. Base of operations were established in St. Catherine. American FBI forensic scientists worked in conjunction with the Canadian government in an effort to ferret out the rapist and quell near hysteria that had many citizens barricading themselves in their houses.
With the composite sketch of the rapist in every post office and frequently flashed on television, police began receiving more and more calls about a man named Paul Bernardo who resembled the picture. Detectives who interviewed him at his 57 Bayview home noticed he was clean-cut, handsome, and very polite and cooperative. Yes, he said, it was rather inconvenient and embarrassing that he looked like the Identi-kit drawing. They noticed the car in his driveway was a Nissan, which looked nothing like a Capri.
Consequently, Paul was not pursued as a suspect.
By February of 1993, the Scarborough Rapist had raped more women and had murdered several teen girls. Police were no closer to catching him.
Karla Delivers Paul To Police
The physical abuse had been going on for years, but this time he blacked both her eyes, knocked out several teeth, and kicked her ribs in. Using Karla as a punching bag proved to be Paul's fatal mistake. The Niagara police investigated the matter and took Karla to the hospital. Toronto detectives interviewed her at length. From there, more and more the pieces of the rapidly materializing jigsaw puzzle depicting Paul Bernardo as the serial killer were falling into place.
When Karla's favorite uncle arrived at the hospital she whispered to him that Paul was the Scarborough Rapist who had killed Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French.
Karla's uncle suggested she get herself a good lawyer. As a veterinary assistant, Karla had taken care of Lawyer George Walker's Dalmation. With an unobstructed view of Karla's connection in the murder horror, Walker told her frankly that he didn't know what negotiations could be made for her cooperation in view of her involvement. Karla balked. She wanted some kind of immunity if she was to tell all she knew.
With Paul's arrest on February 10, the case picked up renewed momentum. He was charged with the Scarborough rapes and the murders of Mahaffy and French, labeling him as a homicidal maniac. As police doggedness continued, Karla became afraid. She sat watching television bulletins about the murders, and, in complete confusion, gulped enough anxiety pills and alcohol to knock out a horse.
On February 19, police obtained a search warrant. For 71 days they combed the couple's Port Dalhousie home. They were flabbergasted to find a complete directory of all the rapes and murders written in Paul's own handwriting. As if this wasn't damning enough, the indefatigable Inspector Irwin found books on perverted sex and magazine stories on serial killers. What they didn't find were perverted videotapes that were not surrendered to police until Paul's lawyer, Murray withdrew from the case.
The videotapes showed Karla heavily involved in lascivious sex acts with two captives. The evidence of his own eyes assured Karla's lawyer that she was an enthusiastic partner in the crimes. It was barely a week later that lawyers on both sides came to terms. Karla would get twelve years in penal servitude for each of the two victims. The sentences would served concurrently.
It had to be done, prosecutors said. Without Karla's testimony the true story might never be known. As part of the plea-bargain, the attorney general agreed to use his influence to see that Karla served her time in a psychiatric hospital instead of a maximum security penitentiary. An unimpressed newspaper editor said it was probably the worst deal that the Canadian government had ever made with a criminal witness.
Karla agreed unconditionally to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the Scarborough rape and murder spree.
Karla's trial began admix a carnival atmosphere on June 28, 1993. The junior miss tartan kilt and blazer she wore clashed heavily with the sluttish ruby-red lipstick and false eyelashes. To set the scene for a plea-bargain deal, the defense called a psychiatrist, who told the court Karla knew what was happening but felt helpless and unable to act in her own defense or the defense of the victims. "She was in my opinion paralyzed with fear and in that state became obedient and self-serving," he told the court.
Her guilty plea, her age, her lack of criminal record were probably the mitigating factors that helped her escaped the maxim punishment allowed by law and readied herself for what was sure to be a nightmare -- the trial of her husband Paul Bernardo.
The delay of the trial for two years not only stirred the deepest wrath among the victim's families and friends but also upset the keenest senses of officers involved in the case. For one thing, Bernardo had given his lawyer, Ken Murray, the videotapes showing a curious episode of sex attacks filmed by Paul and Kara. He believed, by doing so, he would keep the films out of the hands of the prosecution. But prosecutors wiretapped conversations between Bernardo and Murray, and the lawyer was forced to turn the tapes over. He excused himself from the case and John Rosen became Paul's mouthpiece.
During the one-year delay since the start of the trial, newspapers gathered and published an interesting dossier on Paul Bernardo.
Paul Bernardo
marriage was doomed from the start, Kenneth abused his wife and prowled the streets at night, peeping into windows of neighborhood women. When Marilyn caught her husband fondling their infant daughter she seeked harborage in the arms of a former lover. Paul was conceived illegitimately.
As Paul matured he became enthralled with scouting and looked "cute" in his uniform. He worked summer vacations as a counselor and became very popular with the girls in his neighborhood. He was described as well-mannered, polite, and an excellent student. He was voted the most popular boy in school. Girls who had sex with him in high school said he was a gentle and thoughtful lover. The dossier also reflected his good head for figures and a predicted future as a successful businessman.
The Devil stepped into Paul's life when he became sixteen. He and his mother got into an argument and she told him he was a bastard child with no ligament name. Since that day, when she wanted him she would call, "come here, bastard. Or "breakfast is ready, bastard." In turn he called her a "fat slob" and a "whore." The house of cards collapsed under the strain. Paul moved out and took to the streets. He began hanging out with gang boys and developed a macho attitude.
Women in particular, became the target of his animosity.
As Paul grew into manhood he continued to use his Valentino looks and persuasive ways to seduce girls he met in bars. To him, getting a girl into bed was as easy as pie. By the time he enrolled at the University of Toronto regular sex had become a bore. Forceful anal sex became his sexual fantasy and he found plenty of submissive women. Detectives pushing deeper into his background discovered that Paul enjoyed humiliating women: after having sex with them he urinated on them and beat them up.
His appetite for kinky sex could not be supported by a normal job. He started trafficking in stolen goods while still in college. After he graduated he obtained a position as a junior accountant for the prestigious firm of Price Waterhouse. By now his reputation as a sicko-lover had spread among his female associates. They crossed the street when they saw him coming.
Desperate for sex, he scoured neighborhood bars until he met the girl of his dreams in October of 1987. Karla Homolka was a pretty blonde with an hour-glass figure and an open mind for sex.
Whereas his former lovers found his sadistic sexual behavior unpleasant, Karla got off on it. Karla, handcuffed and on her knees begged to be humiliated and the degradation knew no bounds. He placed a dog's choke collar around her neck and rammed a wire bottle into her vagina. To further satisfy his sexual fantasies, he strangled her with a cord until her face turned blue and she passed out. His pet names for her were slut, bitch, whore and cunt.
They played games; he pretended to be a rapist sneaking into her bedroom and forcing her to have anal and oral sex with him. Over pillow talk one night he suggested that they really commit a rape. "Cool," she said.
Karla's testimony was the ammunition the prosecution needed to shoot Paul down in flames during his May 1995 trial in Judge Patrick LeSage's Toronto courtroom. The accused man faced two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of aggravated sexual assault, two counts of forcible confinement, two counts of kidnapping, and one count of performing an indignity on a human body.
He plead not guilty.
There were gasps of astonishment, disgust, even outrage when prosecutor Ray Houlahan rolled a videotape of Karla naked in bed, masturbating with a bullet-shaped end of a flashlight inserted into her vagina. Few people were expecting to see a pornography tape of the country's most infamous women involved in various sex acts and positions even the most experienced prostitute couldn't have dreamed up. It was Houlahan's way of showing the court how Bernardo forced his will on a woman who would do anything for him -- even kill her own sister.
Karla's testimony portrayed her apparently consensual demeanor on the tapes as an act meant to appease her violent and dangerous husband out of fear for her own life. You could hear a pin drop in the courtroom as she told how she helped drug and rape her 15-year-old sister, Tammy. It happened in December of 1990.
