NOTE: Our True Crime Tuesday series will highlight the stories of serial killers and other criminals, with potentially triggering and offensive detail discussed. Proceed with caution.
If you're anything like the team at Female First, you'll be more than a little familiar with the world of true crime. Whether you're an avid watcher of documentaries detailing some of the most shocking and emotional real-life stories; somebody who gets their true crime fix from the flurry of podcasts available; or you do it old school and read detailed accounts of specific cases in critically-acclaimed books, you're a part of a community that simply cannot get enough of this fascinating genre.
To help scratch that itch, we will today kick off a series that will come to you every Tuesday, delving into some of the world's most infamous criminal cases, as well as some that should have been given a bigger spotlight. You may think you know everything there is to know about these cases, but we're going to do our best to ensure you go away having learned something new. You may even leave our features with an entirely new perspective.
Welcome to True Crime Tuesday.
An introduction to our very first case
There have been a flurry of serial killer duos throughout criminal history, but one pair that have evaded many worldwide headlines (likely due to their Canadian heritage rather than being American or British), are a married couple known as The Ken and Barbie Killers.
Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, born on August 27, 1964 and May 4, 1970 in Toronto, Canada and Port Credit, Canada respectively, are a deadly married pair who lured adolescent girls to their deaths. Upon attracting the youngsters via various means, they would go on to kidnap, torture and sexually abuse them, before killing them to evade prosecution. They videotaped many of the sessions.
Victims were given alcohol, before being attacked and murdered. Lethal doses of Halcion were used in the killings, as well as strangulation or asphyxiation. Four murder victims were confirmed, with Karla aiding in the slayings of at least three.
Bernardo was also found to be responsible for a number of rapes in the eastern Metropolitan Toronto city of Scarborough.
Because of their stereotypical good looks, they were given the name of The Ken and Barbie Killers following their criminal activity coming to light.
Paul Bernardo's criminal history as the Scarborough Rapist before marrying Karla Homolka
Paul Bernardo led what seemed to be a privileged life from a young age, growing up in a wealthy and suburban area. The father figure he was growing up alongside, however, paved the way for a life of crime. Physically and sexually abusive to Paul's sister Debbie, as well as a string of other young girls, some say Bernardo learned hateful behaviour to females from a young age.
Bernardo would commit a series of sexual assaults, escalating the violence as his confidence grew with each.
The first-known incident took place on May 4, 1987 after Bernardo followed a 21-year-old woman home. He would go on to rape her in front of her parents' house. Just 10 days later, he'd do the same to a 19-year-old woman in the garden of her parents' home.
Over the next few years, Bernardo would rape, or attempt to rape, a total of 16 girls (note that the figure could be higher, and that this is simply the number of known cases). He was almost caught in the midst of his criminal addiction (May 25, 1988), after being chased on foot by a uniformed Metro Toronto investigator who found him stalking out a bus shelter. Unfortunately, Bernardo was able to escape.
Just over two years later, in November 1990, Bernardo was brought in for an interview by police, after a number of tips put him in the frame. Though he closely resembled the composite sketch, and admitted as much, detectives let him go after finding him "far more credible" than one of the tipsters. He was released the day after his interview.
Karla Homolka's involvement in the death of her sister
By the time 1990 came around, Bernardo would spend a lot of time with Karla Homolka and within the Homolka family home. Despite being engaged to Karla, he became utterly obsessed with her younger sister Tammy, and would pleasure himself in her room when she slept. Karla knew all about this, even breaking the windows in her sisters' room to allow him access.
His dark obsession quickly led to the rape of Tammy, with Karla watching on, having served laced spaghetti sauce with crushed valium to her younger sibling.
Six months before their wedding, Karla would steal halothane from the clinic in which she worked. She and Bernardo administered sleeping pills to 15-year-old Tammy, and when she lost consciousness, a Halothane-soaked cloth was applied to her nose and mouth. She was undressed by the pair, who then videotaped their sexual assault of the girl. Beginning to vomit, they tried to revive her, even calling 911 to report the incident (after hiding evidence), before dressing Tammy and moving her to her bedroom. Hours later, in St. Catharines General Hospital, Tammy was pronounced dead. The Regional Municipality of Niagara coroner and the Homolka family accepted the killers' version of events, with the official cause of death marked as 'accidental: choking on vomit after consumption of alcohol'.
Leslie Mahaffy
Bernardo would continue a career of petty crime, riding through Burlington on the early morning of June 15, 1991 to steal licence plates. Whilst he was there, he found 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffy, who had been locked out of her house after missing her curfew. When she asked Bernardo if he had any cigarettes, he led her to his car, where she was blindfolded, forced inside and driven back to his shared home with Homolka, in Port Dalhousie.
The pair would go on to film themselves torturing and sexually abusing Mahaffy, whilst listening to Bob Marley and David Bowie. Bernardo would say at one point during the assault: "You're doing a good job, Leslie, a damned good job," before adding: "The next two hours are going to determine what I do to you. Right now, you're scoring perfect."
Bernardo claims that the next day, Homolka fed the victim a lethal dose of Halcion; Homolka disputes this and says that Bernardo strangled her. Following her death, Bernardo used his grandfather's circular saw to dismember Mahaffy, before encasing each part of her remains in cement, and dumping them in Lake Gibson, 11 miles south of Port Dalhousie. Bernardo kept the receipts for the bags of cement, which would prove to be incredibly damning at his trial.
Kristen French
On April 16, 1992, Bernardo and Homolka would drive through St. Catharines in an attempt to find a new victim. With it being Maundy Thursday, the streets were pretty empty, but upon passing Holy Cross Secondary School, they spotted 15-year-old Kristen French. She was close to home, but stopped to aid Homolka who had pulled into the nearby Grace Lutheran Church, map in hand, feigning the need for assistance.
Bernardo attacked from behind following the distraction, forcing French into the front seat of their car whilst brandishing a knife. Homolka pulled the girls' hair to maintain control whilst the killers drove their next victim home. Meanwhile, French's parents quickly informed police that their daughter had gone missing, as she usually adhered to a strict routine. Within 24 hours, the Niagara Regional Police Service had assembled a team, and located several witnesses who had seen the abduction. With French's shoe left in the church's parking lot, the seriousness of the case was quickly identified.
French was sodomised by both Bernardo and Homolka on videotape over the Easter weekend, also being tortured and raped, with alcohol forced down her neck. She was never blindfolded; something which Crown Prosecutor Ray Houlahan says proves that Bernardo had always intended to kill the girl. She was murdered the day after the recording, before Bernardo and Homolka went to the latters' family home for Easter dinner.
Her body was found on April 30, 1992 in a Burlington ditch, nude, washed, and with her hair cut off.
Jane Doe
One unnamed victim who managed to survive her ordeal with the pair, was a 15-year-old befriended by Homolka during her time working at a pet store. On June 7, 1991, the youngster was invited for a "girls' night out" by Homolka, who instead was prepping the girl as a 'wedding gift' for Bernardo.
The survivor was plied with alcohol laced with Halcion, and upon losing consciousness, was raped by both Bernardo and Homolka. Unaware that she had been raped, and instead putting her vomiting down to the alcohol she had been drinking, 'Jane Doe' returned to the Port Dalhousie home in August to "spend the night". She was again drugged and raped, but stopped breathing in the middle of the assault. Fortunately, she survived the assault.
The police investigation and arrests
Both Bernardo and Homolka were questioned several times in connection with the Scarborough Rapist investigation. Though nothing came of these initial investigations, John Motile - an acquaintance of Bernardo - reported Bernardo to the authorities as a potential murder suspect.
Bernardo would be placed under 24-hour surveillance, a full 26 months after he submitted a DNA sample to the Centre of Forensic Sciences, who began testing on behalf of the Toronto police. Metro Toronto Sexual Assault Squad investigators took Homolka in for questioning on February 9, 1993. She said that she was being abused by Bernardo, and later that evening told family members that her husband was the Scarborough Rapist. She went on to admit to her aunt and uncle that both she and him were involved in the rape and murder of Mahaffy and French.
Homolka would go on to meet Niagara Falls lawyer George Walker, seeking legal immunity in exchange for her cooperation. She was then also placed under 24-hour surveillance. After learning that Homolka's involvement in the crimes was so extensive, however, Walker was told by the Crown Criminal Law Office director, Murray Segal, that full immunity would not be a possibility.
Bernardo was officially arrested by Metro Sexual Assault Squad and Green Ribbon Task Force detectives, on February 17, read several charges and told that a search warrant had been granted. Though it sounded like good news for the authorities, the search warrant was a weak one, because of the small link of Bernardo to the murders. No unexpected evidence could be removed from the premises, and any videotapes found had to be viewed within the house. The only tape found by police had a small segment of Homolka performing oral sex on 'Jane Doe', which the detectives could not rule as criminal. The search went on for 71 days total.
May 5 saw the government offer Homolka a plea bargain of 12 years incarcerated in exchange for her cooperation. She had a single week to accept. If she declined, she would be charged with two counts of first-degree murder, one count of second-degree murder and a string of other crimes. Homolka agreed to the offer, and upon its finalisation on May 14, Homolka began giving statements to police. She told of how her husband had boasted of raping as many as 30 women, even calling him "the happy rapist".
Detailed testimony from Homolka, as well as the videotapes of the rapes would be used in a trial against Bernardo for the murders of French and Mahaffy. He testified that the deaths of each girl was accidental, before later claiming his wife was the one who killed the two. He would be convicted of two first-degree murders and two aggravated sexual assaults, as well as a number of other offences, being sentenced to life in prison without parole for at least 25 years.
Homolka would be sentenced to the agreed 12 years in exchange for a guilty plea on the charge of manslaughter, serving her time before being unconditionally released on July 4, 2005. She would remarry upon settling in the province of Quebec, before moving briefly to the Antilles and Guadeloupe. By 2014, she was back living in Quebec, Canada.
Bernardo meanwhile, became eligible for parole just last year (February, 2018). On October 17, 2018, he was denied day and full parole by the Parole Board of California. It's unlikely he'll ever be released.
In conclusion
It's hard to imagine just how Bernardo got away with his crimes as the Scarborough Rapist for such a long time. It's even harder to understand exactly how he and Homolka evaded the authorities following the incredibly suspicious death of Homolka's younger sister. In a review by Ontario lieutenant governor-appointed investigator Archie Campbell, it was found that a lack of coordination, communication and cooperation by police, as well as other elements of the judicial system, meant that a serial predator had fallen "through the cracks".
What's also hard to stomach is that Homolka is now living what we imagine is a relatively peaceful life in Canada, with a new husband. Having had such a huge role in the assaults and murders of young girls, is she really somebody who can change for the better, for good? Should she even be given that opportunity, when she snuffed out the lives of others? That's a huge question, and one we don't expect to ever reach a conclusive answer for...
What's truly terrifying is that in May 2017, reports claimed Homolka was working as a volunteer at a grade school. She was being allowed access to children, despite helping assault and murder a series of kids in her earlier years. The school quickly moved to remove any association with the killer, and on June 1, 2017 said that she would be banned from volunteering there at any point in the future.
Tagged in True Crime