I remember the trial of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. They were both pretty – he was boyish and she was girlish. When we talked about them around the water cooler, we called them Paul and Karla, like they were the couple who had a locker across the hall from you by math class.
To put it all into perspective, we should compile their crimes, their known crimes anyway. Karla drugged her own sister with veterinary tranquilizers so her husband could have a sexual plaything. She helped lure schoolgirls Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French, and then she took part in their videotaped sexual torture. There was at least one other kidnap and rape victim escaped with her life. Bernardo also had a separate career of sexual assault, in which he earned the moniker ‘The Scarborough Rapist.’ And although we all knew him as an accountant, I heard – through ‘Everybody Knows Everyone in Canada’ Grapevine – that Paul made his money through cigarette smuggling, which is big business in Southern Ontario and Quebec.
To secure Paul’s right to a fair trial, the judge imposed a publication ban. I remember American friends complaining that that was ‘communism.’ According to rumours within the press, the videotapes they were forbidden from discussing were full of genuine gore and horror. When the ban disappeared, the press was allowed to describe them: they were disgusting – hours of the cute husband and wife raping and taunting their underage victims. The murders occurred off-camera. During Paul’s trial, when the tapes were played, he grinned, chuckled, and even blushed when it was revealed that he had lost his erection during one of the rapes.
Karla and her prison girlfriend.
Karla cut a deal and testified against him before the tapes came to light, and this became one of Canada’s most famous legal mistakes. She was an enthusiastic participant in the rape and torture, and throughout the ordeals used her feminine presence to keep the victims calm so Paul could better abuse them. A number of columnists (Christy Blatchford in particular) have since suggested that Karla may have killed, or told Paul to kill, at least one girl because her parents were coming over for dinner. During the trial, a TV station aired home video of the couple entertaining her parents while a body was known to be in the basement. Also, her IQ was revealed to be 140 or over. The justice system got gamed.
Karla did twelve years in a comfy prison where she wore regular clothes and lived in a cottage. She moved to Quebec, and learned French so well that she was able to do an interview entirely in that language. She moved away, because even the anonymity and Laissez-Faire of Quebec has its limits: she was hounded by reporters, and when she had her first child, several nurses refused to care for her.
And at long last, she has been again discovered. A reporter has tracked her to the tiny island nation Guadeloupe, where she now lives with her husband, Thierry Bordelais, who also happens to be her lawyer’s brother. She goes by the name Leanne and has three children. Even though a reporter is nothing but bad news to someone like Karla Homolka, she invited one to her apartment for an hour to speak until her husband appeared and stopped the interview. Apparently, we have to be satisfied with her living a life that is isolated and boring. The hunter and murder of three children now has three children.
Whenever I’ve discussed the case with anyone, I’ve noticed that women seem to be the most upset. To men, she’s just another killer, but to women she’s the bogeywoman, the monster who hid behind good looks and the good assumptions most people make about women to get away with unspeakable, unexplainable crimes. All the way through her incarceration she advocated for herself, bristled at any suggestion that she bore moral culpability for her crimes, and never formally apologized to her victims’ families. The final insult, for many women, is that she has three children. The bearing of children means, for many, that you can start over with a blank slate- life isn’t about you and what you’ve done in the past anymore: you’re raising humans who won’t be making your mistakes. It’s disgusting that she has used legal technicalities, and now, a moral technicality, to somehow absolve herself for things unforgiveable.
Perhaps that’s the simple core of Karla Homolka. Maybe she things mathematically, not morally, like a true psychopath. Perhaps she thinks it’s pointless to try to make up for her crimes when her crimes can’t be undone, and perhaps she just thinks of herself as a being who has done bad things, and has now moved on, and why can’t the world realize that and leave her alone. What she doesn’t get is what the world would be like for her and her children if everyone on Earth acted just like Karla Homolka.
If you find this case interesting, you must read ‘A Venom in the Blood’ by Eric Van Hoffmann. Many, many similarities. Paul and Karla are amateurs compared to these two.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/partners/gallego/charlene_2.html
Thank, Terri. The similarities are eerie!
I hang my head in shame as I tell you that the book I mentioned above is my favorite true crime book. You must read it. It was 21/22 year old Charlene’s idea for them to kidnap ‘disposal love slaves’. My second favorite true crime book is one you’ve probably read; Deadly Innocence by Scott Burnside and Alan Cairns, which is about Paul and Karla. I have all the others but that one is my favorite and is the one I’ve read the most.
I got Karla’s Web by Frank Davey used at Amazon.com from a book seller in British Columbia in 2002…and they took a personal check! And speaking of BC, I don’t remember this but when I was about 5, my mom came into the room and saw me on the telephone with someone. She took the phone from me to see who I was talking to and I had dialed some random number in BC! But I digress………
Well, knowing BC, you probably dialled someone when he/she was high as a kite. We grow a strong product up here.
As for the books, I think it was ‘Invisible Darkness’ that I read. I was pretty morbidly fascinated with the idea of those awful videotapes, and that book and at least one other describes them in detail because the author was sitting in the courtroom during the evidentiary viewing.
Now the new rage is about Magnotta. I have hundreds of search terms on this blog, and they’re all by people searching to see that video. His trial will be soon, but I doubt it will be that sensational. He was pretty gross and pathetic to begin with, while Paul and Karla were (on the surface, at least) so wholesome looking.
I’ve read Invisible Darkness twice. I think in that one, Stephen said that neither victims Kristen nor Leslie were virgins, and that was left out of the other books. He also said that in the video, Paul tried to poo on Kristen but couldn’t so he peed on her instead. That too wasn’t mentioned in the others. I can’t stand when info like that is left out. Deadly Innocence is the most sexually graphic of them all. I can’t believe you haven’t read it.
Recently a ‘new’ true crime show premiered here on Investigation Discovery called Blood, Lies and Alibis. It’s a Canadian show. I just noticed on the on-screen program guide that tonight’s new episode is about Gerald and Charlene Gallego! So if you see the episode called The Love Slave Murders, watch it! While Gerald was raping a kidnapped girl on their bed, Charlene pulled up a chair and played the violin. Yep.
I’m sure Magnotta has been mentioned on the news here but I’ve never heard anything about him. I’ve only read about him online. When it goes to trial I wonder if cameras will be allowed in the courtroom.
Cameras are not allowed in Canadian courtrooms, which probably will kill Magnotta, who’s an aspiring celebrity The BC premier tried to get cameras into the trials of the Stanley Cup rioters, but that didn’t fly. Instead, courtroom sketch artists seat in the gallery and quickly hand-draw the accused as they’re by their lawyers or testifying.
I’ll see if I can’t check out that show. I’ve got a zillion channels and I probably have investigation Discovery.
It’s a shame cameras aren’t allowed. Look at all the gems you all could be missing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL8xIi3kyGE- my all-time favorite. Her t-shirt says ’100% Black”.
Sorry to bug you again but I finally found (after losing links to them before) the nude photos of Karla that Paul took when she was 18, http://mascaramurder.blogspot.com/2012/03/karla-homolka-and-devil_12.html
I saw a few of those photos while looking her up, and hemmed and hawed about posting them. Decided against it. And really, they’re not doing anything *that* unusual – lots of people like to get tied up and menaced a bit. I think the photo of her with those dead eyes is a lot worse.
Not *that* unusual when speaking about consenting adults, but Karla was only 17 when those photos were taken. Moreover, the handcuffs were hers — Paul Bernardo didn’t introduce his young girlfriend to bondage; she was already acquainted.
Feel free to delete the link I provided.
Great article; some of your points are so sharp, I nearly cried. Will be linking to this post from my own blog!
Thanks Kitty! Your blog is amazing. It really looks like you’ve found your life’s passion. And thanks for the heads up about Homolka’s age in those bondage photos (which I didn’t post anyway). The last thing I want is to unknowingly have illegal material on my blog.
Thank you for your kind words. I don’t know about “life’s passion,” but the psychology of violent criminals has always been a fascination of mine. As for Karla’s nudie bondage pics, I don’t think anybody cares that she was a minor when they were taken; she lost her right to ppl giving a shit! )
Keep up the good work!
Very strong and thoughtful piece. So nice that as a guy you’re not admitting to a — yawn — crush on karly curls as so many guys do. To get a sense of what KH is trying to be right now you must read Finding Karla. It’s a short report from a journalist called Paula Todd who found her and got inside her house so she could tell us how Karla is living now. It is short because it came out as breaking news in a Kindle Single (not sure exactly what it is.) It is really intersting and you need the extra info to see how Karla is now portraying herself in Guadeloupe. Gross
Thanks, and it’s not *that* hard to resist Karla, who makes Snookie and Paris Hilton look good by comparison. And yes, I gotta hand it to Paula Todd: that’s some crack investigative journalism. Long-range cameras and everything!