When a handsome man from
Canada met an equally attractive, albeit younger teen girl in 1987, no
one, including their closest friends, could have predicted they would
one day be known worldwide as the “Ken and Barbie Killers.” Paul
Bernardo was an intelligent and popular 23-year-old from the Scarborough
area of Toronto, and appeared to be on the path to success. After
graduating from the Sir Wilfrid Laurier Collegiate Institute, he
attended the University of Toronto Scarborough while working as an Amway
consultant. Yet behind his blonde locks, deep dimples, and
charming personality, Bernardo was dabbling in dark fantasies of rape
and torture. He began to indulge these sadistic urges by humiliating
women in public and hitting his dates, but when his desires weren’t
satiated, he began prowling at night, searching for girls walking alone.
He would eventually rape at least 13 women, yet his thirst for dark
perversion was never quenched. Scarborough detectives began
looking for someone who became known as the Scarborough Rapist, and
although Paul was an almost identical match to the sketch police made
from victims’s accounts of the assaults, he wasn’t arrested when
initially questioned. He cleverly talked his way out of an
interrogation, even voluntarily giving a DNA sample to police.
Meanwhile,
Karla Homolka was a 17-year-old living in Châteauguay. As the eldest of
her parent’s three children, Karla set a good example for her younger
sisters by working part-time at an animal hospital, volunteering, and
maintaining good grades. She came from a seemingly normal background
that included pool parties, dances, and other typical suburban
activities. Everything in Homolka’s life changed when she spotted
Bernardo at a restaurant in Scarborough. The two immediately hit it off.
Friends said that the chemistry between Karla and Paul was so fierce
that they couldn’t keep their hands off of each other, often making
others in the room uncomfortable with their aggressive public displays
of affection.It wasn’t long before Bernardo began sharing his
twisted fantasies with Homolka, and, to his surprise, not only did she
permit him to indulge his sick obsessions, but she wholeheartedly
encouraged them. As the relationship progressed, Bernardo began
teasing Homolka about being “used goods,” since he wasn’t her first
sexual relationship. Frantic that she would lose him to someone more
innocent, she offered him something he couldn’t refuse: her own little
sister’s virginity as a Christmas present. Bernardo readily accepted
Homolka’s “gift.” In December 1990, the couple outlined plans to
get 14-year-old Tammy Homolka so drunk that she wouldn’t realize what
was happening to her. When nighttime arrived, Tammy was indeed drinking,
but remained coherent. Knowing that she wouldn’t consent to sleeping
with Bernardo, the couple slipped Valium into the young teen’s drink. Eventually,
Tammy wanted to lie down after complaining of dizziness, but when she
failed to pass out, Bernardo and Homolka put Halothane – a chemical that
Homolka stole from her job at the animal hospital – over her mouth and
nose until she passed out. Once she was unconscious,
Bernardo began filming Tammy and demanded that Homolka molest her
younger sister. Bernardo then began to rape Tammy himself, but after a
minute or so, the teen woke up. Tammy began violently throwing up
and choking. As she gasped for breath, the couple called 911 in a panic;
they scrambled to cover their tracks, hiding evidence, dressing Tammy
and putting the girl back in her bed before paramedics and police
arrived. But it was too late for the teenager – Tammy died after choking
on her vomit. No foul play was suspected. Bernardo seemed to take
Tammy’s death to heart, often playing a video of her for friends while
crying. But at Bernardo’s insistence, Homolka later dressed up in her
sister’s clothes, and they had sex on the dead girl’s bed. Reeling
from the fact that he got away with murder, Bernardo’s dark fantasies
increased. Feeling the need for more stimulation, he kidnapped
14-year-old Leslie Mahaffy in June 1991, just days before he married
Homolka. He forced the petrified, blindfolded young girl into his home,
where Homolka waited. Homolka watched while Bernardo raped the
teen for hours on end, before she was choked to death, though who
actually did the killing remains a mystery. Bernardo insists that
Homolka killed Mahaffy out of jealousy, while Homolka said Bernardo
squeezed the girl’s throat so tight that she eventually expired from
lack of air. They eventually chopped the girl into pieces and buried her
in cement. Mahaffy’s remains were found a few weeks later in
Ontario’s Lake Gibson, weighed down by concrete blocks. Bernardo
realized that investigators didn’t suspect him, at least on the surface,
which boosted his confidence and convinced him he was invincible. His
bizarre sense of bravado led to the kidnapping of 15-year-old Kristen
French in April 1992. While Bernardo brought Mahaffy into his home by
his own doing, it was Homolka that lured French into Bernardo’s car.
Homolka asked the Catholic schoolgirl to come closer to give directions,
and then Bernardo grabbed her from behind and forced into the vehicle. A
series of rapes and beatings came next, and as she had with her sister
Tammy, Homolka participated in sexually assaulting French before the
girl was brutally killed. Twelve days later, detectives found
French’s naked body in a ditch in North Burlington, Ontario. This time,
however, an acquaintance gave Bernardo’s name to detectives as a
possible murder suspect. He was questioned in his home, but nothing came
of it.The couple’s killing spree came to an end on January 5,
1993, when Homolka, severely beaten by Bernardo, moved in with
relatives. After confessing the crimes to her family, they turned to the
police. When detectives interviewed Homolka, she was reluctant to open
up until they offered her a plea deal that would have her out of prison
within 12 years.Bernardo was charged and convicted of numerous
counts of rape (including the Scarborough assaults, for which DNA
testing had finally implicated him) and two counts of murder. Homolka,
on the other hand, was charged and convicted of manslaughter in
exchange for testifying against Bernardo.While some people agreed
that Homolka deserved a lesser sentence, believing she was scared for
her life and had been beaten into submission by Bernardo, the
overwhelming majority of Canadians who followed the case were appalled
that she got off so easy. Needless to say, when she was released from
prison in 2005, the public erupted in protest.
