Episode 59 | KARLA AND PAUL - THE BEAUTIFUL SERIAL KILLER COUPLE

In this podcast we're going to dig in to the disturbing story of Karla Homolka and her then husband Paul Bernardo. Back in the early '90s the two met, married and then went on a spree of abduction, rape and murder of teenage girls, one of whom was Homolka's own sister. The depravity of their crimes is simply bone-chilling. ★Enjoy!

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Transcript

THE DEVIL IS BLONDE

INTRODUCTION

Centennial Park School was under siege. Parents milling around the building, network vans parked all around the block, reporters conducting interviews on distraught parents who had just found out the news. Most were disappointed that a school they had trusted to keep their kids safe would expose them to such a danger. 

“My daughter is friends with her kids, I almost let her go play at their house,” a woman says near tears.

It had all started in April 2016. A man was going door to door in the Chateauguay area of Montreal, Canada. He was not a salesman and he had not run out of butter. He didn’t even live in the area. All he had was one question: “do you know Karla Homolka lives in this area? Do you know she volunteers to supervise field trips and brings her dog to classrooms to play with your children?”

That was all it took.

That’s because Karla Homolka was not your run-of-the-mill soccer mom. She was the notorious school-girl killer and had gotten a brand new name to hide from her past.

Karla Homolka grew up the first of three daughters. She was bright, beautiful, studious, blonde, and loved animals. and when she was sixteen, she took a job as a veterinary assistant. After graduation, she got a job as a full-time veterinary technician. 

One day, at a pet-food convention in a Scarborough restaurant, Homolka was approached by a handsome, 23-year old man. His name was Paul Bernardo. The two were very attracted to each other. By the end of the night, Bernardo was in her hotel room where they got down to business. This is so refreshing to hear. If you’re into one another get down to business. 

Bernardo became a common fixture in the Homolka family home. And they welcomed his spending his weekends in there. He had a good job as a junior accountant, came from a financially well-off family, and was soon to graduate from the University of Toronto.

After two years of dating, they got engaged. But tragedy soon befell the family when Homolka’s 15-year sister Tammy had a little too much to drink partying with them one night, and choked to death on her vomit, Jimi Hendrix style. It was a tough time for the family. 

A year later, on the 29th of June, 1991, Bernardo and Homolka were married in a lavish fairy-tale ceremony at Niagara-on-the-lake. The couple was taken to church in a horse-drawn carriage. Meanwhile, on the same day, 23 kilometers away, a young boy and his father out fishing would make a horrific discovery at lake Gibson; They called the police, who would recover 10 blocks of concrete containing dismembered body parts. It was only with dental records they would identify the body as that of 14-year old Leslie Mahaffy. 

Mahaffy had gone missing two weeks earlier. She had lost four friends in a car accident and had gone to the wake. That was the last time her parents would see her alive. Friends said they had dropped her off by 2 am, long after her curfew. She would not be the only one to go missing.

15-year old Kristen French had been kidnapped in broad daylight as she made the 15-minute walk home from school. When she didn’t turn up, her parents called the police. But while numerous people had witnessed the abduction, the only evidence they found was her right shoe in the parking lot. There was nothing else to go on. She would be found two weeks later, naked, her hair cut and body discarded in a ditch. Police surmised that her hair had been cut by the murderer so he could keep it… as a disturbing memento.

Scarborough was not safe for teenage girls and it hadn’t been for a long time. Four years earlier, in 1987, a relentless spree of rapes had rocked the area. The victims all had similar scenarios; it was night, they had been grabbed, beaten, and threatened violently. Some were able to fight off their attacker and get away, but those that weren’t got raped. Investigators realized they were dealing with a serial rapist. The newspapers tagged him: “The Scarborough Rapist” and girls between 14 and 21 were his prime target.

Police conducted investigations, collected DNA samples from at least 130 men in the area, got tips but no suspects were named. However, with the new disappearances and murders, Investigators soon made the connection between the Scarborough rapists and the school-girl murders. The realization that the rapes had escalated to murders was the fire the investigators needed and 2 whole years after collecting DNA samples from suspects, they finally sent them for testing. Six months later, in December of 1992, police finally had a match and began surveilling their prime suspect. Just a few days later, police received a call from a hospital. There was a patient who had been assaulted by her husband and wanted to press charges. Investigators were called in and met Karla Homolka. 

18 months after their ‘I do’s” Paul Bernardo had attacked her with a flashlght and left her with a black eye, broken arm, and bruised. She revealed that she had been beaten almost daily during their marriage and now wanted to press charges. 

This was a huge coincidence. The prime suspect in the Scarborough rapes was also Paul Bernardo! His DNA had come back as a match to the rapes. Now here was his wife, Karla Homolka attesting to his violent tendencies. 

So who was Paul Bernardo? On the outside, The Bernardo family seemed like your average wealthy family. But behind the façade was an abusive father who was also a known peeping tom in the area. Eventually, the father would get was arrested for sexually abusing Bernardo’s sister.  

After the arrest, Bernardo’s mom withdrew from her children. But not before she told 15-year old Bernardo that he was the product of an affair with an ex-boyfriend. This didn’t sit well with  young Paul and relations with his mother soon soured. And the apple not falling far from the tree, by 18 he had developed a fixation for young girls. One of his disturbing fantasies was to build a farm where he could breed virgins to rape. 

Bernardo, attractive and charming, was never without a girlfriend. But the relationships followed a disturbing pattern of abuse and threats. At least two ex-girlfriends had restraining orders against him. He became known in the area for picking up women at bars, then hitting and humiliating them. Bernardo had been questioned several times about the Scarborough rapes but had managed to slip through the cracks each time. Two years before, one of his rape victims had been able to see his face. Police got a composite sketch. So what did they do with it? They sat on the sketch for two months before releasing it to the public. When they eventually did release it, a number of his friends and ex-girlfriends called in identifying Bernardo as the person in the sketch. But the police were so overwhelmed with tips that they never got around to checking Bernardo.

Another time, the wife of one of his best friends had told police that she suspected he was the Scarborough rapist. When investigators finally got around to interviewing him, he was crossed off as an unlikely suspect however, they did collect his DNA. They just never tested it. 

Yet another was when a former colleague of his had heard one of Bernardo’s detailed rape fantasies and reported it to the police. After a mere 35-minute conversation, they decided he wasn’t their man and let him go. Guy was invincible!

On a hunch, investigators pressed Homolka for what she knew about the murders of Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French. Homolka was distraught. She admitted that while she did know about the rapes and murders, Bernardo had forced her to participate and took videos of her with them. He had even threatened to kill her if she ever talked! She mentioned that his favorite book to read was American psycho; a novel about a guy, who by day was a handsome professional and by night was a demented killer. It’s such a vile piece of literature that the original publisher of the book and the jacket designer both backed out, adding that he “felt disgusted with himself for reading it”. 

“This book,” Homolka said, “Bernardo read like his bible”. Eventually, Homolka got a lawyer and asked for immunity in exchange for everything she knew. Investigators didn’t budge, they placed her on 24-hour surveillance.

Charges were filed against Bernardo and he was arrested. Investigators got search warrants for their house and started looking for the tapes; Finding it would be the nail in Bernardo’s coffin.  But because there was no actual link between Bernardo and the actual murders, the warrant was very restricted. It didn’t permit investigators to tear through the house in the search and only evidence that was stated in the warrant could be collected. Also, any videos they found could only be viewed in the house.

After 71 days of searching the entire home, the only tape investigators found was of Homolka performing oral sex on an unconscious girl, just like she had said. The tapes that contained the rapes were nowhere to be found. The warrant expired and they had to vacate the home. 

Authorities realized that to get Bernardo, they needed to make a deal with Homolka. Even though she was a victim of domestic violence, and from a good Christian home. Investigators felt there was something more under the surface. They brokered a deal with her; a manslaughter charge for the two murders, a 12-year sentence, and testifying against Bernardo at trial for whatever she knew. She was given a week to take the deal or face first-degree charges. Homolka took the deal. All of Canada would come to know this as the deal with the devil. 

Homolka caved and revealed that Bernardo had boasted that he had raped at least 30 women. Two months later, Homolka’s trial begins. As per her deal, she pleads guilty to two counts of manslaughter and walks away with a 12- year sentence. 

A year and a half later, the case broke wide open when Homolka’s new lawyer walks into the police station with the videotapes they had spent 71 days looking for! Where in the world had he found them? 

Turns out, a year and a half before, after the home had been searched, Bernardo had told his lawyer, Murray to remove the tapes from their hiding place - In the ceiling, just above a bathroom light fixture. There were six tapes in all. Murray claims Bernardo instructed him to hold on to the tapes and never watch them.

It wasn’t till a year later when a new lawyer was brought on board to replace him that Murray finally considered handing over the tapes to the court. The new lawyer was worried about what the consequences of what was on the tape would do to Bernardo’s case. 

AHA! SO THEY DID KNOW WHAT WAS ON THE TAPE! 

Murray said he hadn’t taken the tapes to help Homolka, they were supposed to be a defense strategy when Homolka was put on the stand since they raised a lot of questions about her battered wife image – his ace in the hole. Or so he thought. Until he viewed the contents against  Paul Bernardo’s wishes.

Eventually, the new lawyer would go ahead and turn the tapes over to the courts, and Murray would later be charged with obstruction of justice, possession of child pornography, and suppression of evidence. To this day, he is haunted by what he saw in those tapes. He said “those tapes are caustic and corrosive, there is a look of feral joy on her (Karla) face, she is an initiator and she is in control. 

When investigators slid in the tapes, they realized exactly why he had hidden it. The tapes were hugely incriminating … as the lawyer had said, but not just for Bernardo.

In the videos, battered wife Homolka was an active, willing participant in the rape and assault of the girls. In a clip where Bernardo told her about sexual assaults he’d carried out without her, Homolka’s reply was she wanted him to do it again. “I’ll even go in the car with you to help you find virgins,”. Turns out Paul Bernardo had never hidden his dark tendencies from Homolka. 

And that was just the beginning. When Homolka told investigators details about Bernardo murdering 14-year old Leslie Mahaffy and 15-year old Kristen French, they started to suspect there was another teenager who had died in Bernardo’s orbit that had not been investigated: Karla Homolka’s own sister, 15-year old Tammy Homolka. 

In one of the videos, they would see Homolka roleplay as Tammy and wear her clothes. In one clip, Bernardo asked her if she had enjoyed getting assaulted and she (as Tammy) coyly said, “you know I liked it”. Did their depravity have no end? In another video, also wearing Tammy’s clothes and holding the camera, she says, “Tell me you love me.” Bernardo replies, “I love you, Tammy.” Yet another video sees Bernardo and Homolka engaged in foreplay as they go over the details of what they did to Tammy the night she died. They titled it ‘the fireside chat’. It was a revolting discovery!

They questioned Homolka and found out that in the early years of their relationship when Bernardo had started spending a lot more time in the Homolka home, one of his favorite places to be was Tammy’s room. One day, Homolka walked in on him masturbating over her sleeping sister. But where most women would turn away in disgust and break off the engagement, Homolka got excited. She wanted to be the one to bring Bernardo the depravities he craved. When she noticed Bernardo peeping into Tammy’s bedroom window from the outside, Homolka broke her sister’s blind so he could see her more clearly. 

But this was not enough for the devilish duo, they decided to take it a step further. One night, Homolka prepared dinner for her sister; Spaghetti laced with valium she had stolen from work. Once Tammy was unconscious, Bernardo attempted to sexually assault her while Homolka watched. Damn. Their ‘fun’ was cut short when Tammy woke up lightheaded and unsure of what had happened.

Homolka wanted them to try it again. So she decided she would give Bernardo her own sister’s virginity, and I’m not making this up… as a gift for Christmas. Man these two were absolutely twisted like a pretzel.

After hosting a holiday party, Homolka’s parents had gone off to bed. Homolka, like a thief in the night, began skulking around the house, making her move. She spiked a cup of eggnog for Tammy using an animal tranquilizer she had again stolen from work. She took the tantalizing holiday cocktail to Tammy’s room and gave her to drink. Then she cajoled Tammy to follow her down to the basement where Bernardo was waiting. Once Tammy passed out, Bernardo undressed her and Homolka placed a Halothane-soaked rag to her sister’s nose and mouth. They then proceeded to videotape themselves raping her. At one point, Homolka even performed a sex act on her 15-year old sister! How sick is that?!

Things took a turn when Tammy started to vomit. Instead of calling the police, they spent valuable minutes hiding the evidence of their depravity; redressing Tammy, carrying her to her room… By the time an ambulance arrived and took Tammy away, she was too far gone and would never gain consciousness. She died some hours later. 

Even though there was a large, red un-explained chemical burn the size of a fist on Tammy’s cheek, the hospital didn’t see anything suspicious. Even when police went to the house and found Homolka and Bernardo vacuuming and tossing bedsheets in the washer… at midnight, this also failed to raise suspicion. They were brought in for questioning but with no immediate damning evidence, the two were released. There was no investigation or autopsy and the death was ruled an accident. That’s suspect in itself!

Investigators decided to exhume Tammy’s body to test it for the tranquilizer. When they opened the casket, they were shocked by the first things they saw: an invitation to Homolka and Bernardo’s wedding, apology notes from both Bernardo and Homolka, and a picture where they both are smiling. Homolka’s parents were horrified, they had no idea how it got there and demanded that all the items be destroyed. They remembered that someone had caught Bernardo stroking Tammy’s hair in the open casket at the funeral.

But there were more tapes. In one of them, Bernardo and Homolka took turns raping an unknown girl. Homolka said she had befriended the girl at a pet shop two years before inviting her for a girl’s night out. That night, she took the 15-year old shopping and dining. When they got back to Homolka’s home, she plied the girl with a glass of alcohol. The unsuspecting teen drank it without realizing it was laced with Halcion. When the girl passed out, Homolka called Bernardo and told him she had gotten him a surprise wedding gift. They took turns videotaping each other as they assaulted the unconscious girl. 

The girl would wake up in the morning nauseous and vomiting but attributed it to the alcohol. A month later, Homolka invited her over again. But this time, something went wrong and the girl stopped breathing during their lascivious acts. Homolka dialed 911 to report the girl had stopped breathing only to call back shortly after to confirm all was OK. Again, they took them at their word with no follow-up by the authorities. Fortunately, she survived. Their next victim would not be so lucky.

Bernardo had driven into Burlington, looking for license plates to steal, when he saw 14-year old, Leslie Mahaffy locked out for missing curfew. He lured her to his car. When she was close enough, he threw a sweater around her head forced her into the car, and held a knife on her as he took her to his home.

Homolka and Bernardo tied up Mahaffy and videotaped themselves torturing and sexually abusing her over songs by Bob Marley and David Bowie. The terrified 14-year-old was fearful but she thought if she did everything they wanted she would be allowed to see family again. When her blindfold slipped, she innocently told them, and may have been what sealed her fate. How she died is anyone’s guess, in a he said she said, Bernardo claims Homolka gave her a lethal dose of Halcion, Homolka asserts Bernardo strangled her with an electrical cord. 

That same night, they hosted Homolka’s mum and dad for a father’s day dinner, as Mahaffy’s body lay in the basement.

The next day, the murdering duo decided the best way to get rid of Mahaffy’s body was to dismember and sink her body in the lake by encasing it in cement. While Homolka went to work, Bernardo would dismember the 14-year old into 10 pieces. Put the pieces in nylons and encase them in concrete. He made multiple trips to lake Gibson to dump the blocks. Damn.

Another of their victims was 15-year-old, Kristen French. In the hours when schools closed, Bernardo and Homolka had driven through the streets searching for their next mark. That was when they saw French. Bernardo pulled into a parking lot ahead, while Homolka got down with a map in hand. She walked up to French and asked her to help her find a certain location in the area. Distracted, French didn’t realize Bernardo had crept up on her till it was too late. Holding a knife to her throat, he forced her into the car. Homolka hopped into the back seat. In the struggle, French lost one of her shoes. Bernardo threw her into the front seat while Homolka pulled her hair from the back to keep her from escaping. 

They spent the long Easter weekend torturing, raping, and sodomizing the 15-year old while forcing copious amounts of alcohol down her throat. They even played her the tapes they had recorded of raping Mahaffy.  She was never blindfolded, there were no attempts to pretend she was going to survive this. At a point, Bernardo went to get food and Homolka guarded French with a rubber mallet to keep from escaping.

On Sunday, French was strangled to death by Paul Bernardo while Karla Homolka did her hair, getting ready to go have Easter dinner at Homolka’s parent’s home. The next day, they discarded her naked body in a ditch and attempted to hide her identity by cutting her hair.  Kristen French’s body was not discovered for two weeks. 

There are rapes that Bernardo carried out alone or together with Homolka that weren’t recorded. They gave those girls nicknames and would go over the details of the assault like it was a podcast. January girl was one of them. A few weeks after they murdered Homolka’s sister Tammy. Bernardo had abducted her and brought her back to the Homolka family home. Homolka’s parents had left town after Tammy’s funeral to grieve so they had the whole murder mansion to themselves. He took the girl to Homolka’s bedroom and raped her in Homolka’s bed as Homolka watched. Then he left the girl on a deserted road. 

In court, Bernardo’s defense was simple: “It was an accident!” With Homolka as persecutor’s witnesses and hours of the audio of their amateur home videos to play (the courts wouldn’t allow the video as evidence). Bernardo was convicted of two first-degree murders, aggravated assaults, and just a whole shopping list of offenses. He is sentenced to life without parole for 25 years. 

Prison hasn’t been a cake walk for ole Paul Bernardo. Other convicts have attacked him multiple times, and has had to stay in the segregation unit for his safety. Oh that just breaks my little heart. He did publish a violent, fictional book on amazon that has since been removed. In 2010, he confessed to 10 more rapes that had happened the year before investigators had made a connection between the Scarborough rapes. Bernardo has tried to get on parole since he became eligible but the parents of Mahaffy and French have been unrelenting in ensuring he never does.

The same cannot be said for Karla Homolka. During her time in a segregated jail, she decorated her walls with Mickey Mouse posters, had bedsheets with Sesame street characters, adopted a kitten, and studied psychology and sociology. After her 12-year sentence, she went on to live a white picket life complete with husband and three children. If you’re asking who could marry someone like Homolka, the answer is her attorney’s brother. There’s a push by her brother-in-law (and attorney), for Homolka to be fully embraced by society since she has ‘paid her dues’. But society is adamant that it wants nothing to do with someone who should be rotting in jail like her ex-husband. Even her father wants nothing to do with her. For a short time, the family moved to the Caribbean, hoping that as time passed it would ease people’s memory. But when they returned to Quebec, they realized that society doesn’t welcome murderers and rapists with open arms.  

She once volunteered to chaperone a field trip and another time brought her dog to school for kids to pet. There was an uproar till the school issued a letter that no one with an ex-convict tag could volunteer in the school.  There are still questions about why she isn’t on the registered sexual offender list. She did rape a bunch of schoolgirls on tape!

Homolka now goes by the name ‘Leanne Bordelais’. Her third name change to try and distance herself from her horrific past claiming the name changes are to ‘safeguard her personal security’… which is kind of hilarious. You can change your name, but you can’t change your past sweetheart. 

Karla Homolka or any number of aliases created to hide her past, will forever be etched in the devastated families’ memories and etched on the graves of the three schoolgirls she brutally drugged, raped, tortured, and killed; including her own sister.