Latest / Weeknight Mysteries Podcast / Ep. 125 | Creepy Folklore - The Owlman Of Mawnan & The Disturbing Case Of The Łódź Skinhunt
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: It was April 1979. The Melling family were spending their
- 0:04Speaker 1: Easter holiday in Mornan Smith, a picturesque village in Cornwall, England.
- 0:10Speaker 1: On Saturday the 17th, the two children of the family,
- 0:13Speaker 1: 12-year-old June and 9-year-old Vicky, had headed out on their
- 0:17Speaker 1: own to explore the area. They were passing by St.
- 0:21Speaker 1: Mornan and St. Stephen's Church when all of a sudden
- 0:24Speaker 1: in the sky above the bell tower, there appeared a
- 0:26Speaker 1: huge creature. It looked like a man but it had
- 0:30Speaker 1: the wings of a bird. The girls ran back to
- 0:33Speaker 1: their parents and they were so disturbed by what they'd
- 0:35Speaker 1: seen that their father cut the holiday short. Those girls,
- 0:39Speaker 1: it seems, had had an encounter with the Alman of Mornin.
- 0:44Speaker 1: The origins of the Alman are unclear. A lot of
- 0:47Speaker 1: websites they read whilst researching this reference are a 1926
- 0:51Speaker 1: article in the Cornish Echo about two boys that were
- 0:54Speaker 1: chased by some sort of a large and ferocious bird.
- 0:57Speaker 1: The problem is no website seems to provide any pictures
- 1:00Speaker 1: of the article so you can read it for yourself.
- 1:03Speaker 1: I had to go to the book The Alman and
- 1:05Speaker 1: Others by Jonathan Downs to find the article and read
- 1:08Speaker 1: it for myself. The bird was described as being about
- 1:12Speaker 1: three feet long with a body like a duck, cream
- 1:15Speaker 1: and brown colored plumage with black on the tips of
- 1:17Speaker 1: the wings. Now that doesn't sound anything like an Alman
- 1:21Speaker 1: to me but there's so many websites that are talking
- 1:23Speaker 1: about this article and linking it to the Alman story
- 1:26Speaker 1: that I had to put that in it seems more
- 1:28Speaker 1: likely that the boys were chased by an angry goose
- 1:30Speaker 1: rather than some sort of owl-headed cryptid. The first clue
- 1:34Speaker 1: we might have to the Alman's origins is when the
- 1:36Speaker 1: surrealist artist Max Ernst visited Cornwall in 1937 with a
- 1:40Speaker 1: group of other artists. Apparently this group put into all
- 1:45Speaker 1: sorts of weird stuff including occultism. The story goes that
- 1:49Speaker 1: Ernst and his cohorts went off into some Cornish woods
- 1:52Speaker 1: one night and performed strange rituals in an attempt to
- 1:55Speaker 1: summon animal-human hybrid entities. Max Ernst himself had a weird
- 1:59Speaker 1: obsession with birds and he often painted an alter ego
- 2:02Speaker 1: called Lop-Lop a shape-shifting part-man part-bird creature. He also painted
- 2:08Speaker 1: scenes that looking back on them now seem to mirror
- 2:10Speaker 1: future encounters with the Almond. And take a look at
- 2:13Speaker 1: this one it was painted in 1924 and it's titled
- 2:16Speaker 1: Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale. The weird thing
- 2:20Speaker 1: about this is there are two children and a nightingale
- 2:23Speaker 1: but it's also this eerie human figure hovering above the
- 2:26Speaker 1: building carrying away another child in its arms. Apparently the
- 2:30Speaker 1: painting was inspired by a fever-induced hallucination that Ernst had
- 2:34Speaker 1: as a child but to me it reminds me of
- 2:36Speaker 1: June and Vicky Melling seeing that humanoid creature hovering over
- 2:39Speaker 1: the morning church. So did Ernst and Co. summon the Alman?
- 2:44Speaker 1: Maybe it's some sort of surrealist Edgar something that stepped
- 2:47Speaker 1: out from the picture frame and took on a life
- 2:49Speaker 1: of its own. Or perhaps the Alman is the spirit
- 2:53Speaker 1: of Ernst himself. It might just be a coincidence but
- 2:56Speaker 1: Max Ernst died on the 1st of April, 1976. This
- 3:01Speaker 1: was just two weeks before the Mellon girls had their encounter.
- 3:05Speaker 1: And three months after the girls' encounter the Alman was
- 3:08Speaker 1: seen again. Behind the morning church the land slops down
- 3:12Speaker 1: through a wooded area until it reaches a beach. It
- 3:16Speaker 1: was in this wooded area that two 14-year-old girls were camping,
- 3:20Speaker 1: Miss Sally Chapman and Barbara Perry. At around 10 p.m.
- 3:24Speaker 1: on the 3rd of July, 1976 the girls were awoken
- 3:28Speaker 1: by a strange hissing noise. They looked around outside their
- 3:32Speaker 1: tents and saw a weird figure standing among the pine trees.
- 3:36Speaker 1: He was described as being as tall as a man
- 3:38Speaker 1: but had the face of an owl and was covered
- 3:40Speaker 1: in grey feathers. His eyes were large and glowed red
- 3:44Speaker 1: and it had big pointed ears. On its feet were
- 3:48Speaker 1: large black pints like claws. At first the girls thought
- 3:52Speaker 1: it was someone in a costume but then the creature
- 3:54Speaker 1: flew up into the air and disappeared into the trees.
- 3:58Speaker 1: The following day another two girls had an encounter with
- 4:00Speaker 1: the owlman in the same area. A letter was sent
- 4:04Speaker 1: to a local paper from a girl saying that on
- 4:06Speaker 1: the 4th of July, 1976 she and her sister were
- 4:09Speaker 1: playing it in the wood behind the morning church when
- 4:12Speaker 1: they saw a large creature up in a tree. It
- 4:15Speaker 1: was described as being as big as a man but
- 4:17Speaker 1: it had legs bent backwards like a bird's. Its eyes
- 4:21Speaker 1: were red and its feet looked like sharp black crab claws.
- 4:25Speaker 1: Unlike the last encounter the creature then flew upwards and
- 4:28Speaker 1: disappeared above the treetops. The first two encounters were reported
- 4:33Speaker 1: by a man named Doc Shields. Now Doc Shields is
- 4:37Speaker 1: an eccentric character to say the least, an artist, stage
- 4:40Speaker 1: magician and monster hunter with an interest in the occult.
- 4:44Speaker 1: At around the time of the Almond sightings he was
- 4:46Speaker 1: taking part in a hunt for the Morgra. This is
- 4:49Speaker 1: a sea monster that supposedly lived in the waters around Cornwall.
- 4:54Speaker 1: In March of 1976 two photos of the Morgra were
- 4:57Speaker 1: sent to a local paper from someone named Mary F.
- 5:00Speaker 1: Doc Shields came on a scene and D.N. Needance that
- 5:02Speaker 1: he was going to try and summon the Morgara to appear.
- 5:06Speaker 1: Morgara Morgara Morgara Morgara Morgara he then orchestrated an elaborate
- 5:10Speaker 1: magical ritual on the beach in Cornwall involving naked witches
- 5:13Speaker 1: which were his own daughters dancing around. As you can
- 5:17Speaker 1: imagine this brought a lot of press attention for Doc Shields.
- 5:21Speaker 1: It was because of his reputation for hunting monsters that
- 5:24Speaker 1: he was approached first by a June and Vicki Milling's
- 5:26Speaker 1: father and later by Sally Chapman and Barbara Perry and
- 5:29Speaker 1: they both provided him with eyewitness accounts and drawings of
- 5:32Speaker 1: the Alman. Now there is a problem here. Doc Shields
- 5:37Speaker 1: does have a reputation for being a bit of a prankster.
- 5:41Speaker 1: Over the years he's written numerous books about how to
- 5:43Speaker 1: fake paranormal phenomena for stage magicians and he has books
- 5:46Speaker 1: like The Shields Effect, How to Become a Psychic Superstar.
- 5:51Speaker 1: It teaches you how to create a sort of mythos
- 5:53Speaker 1: around yourself which you can leverage for publicity and fame.
- 5:57Speaker 1: Many people suspect that Mary F., that mysterious woman that
- 6:00Speaker 1: sent the photos of the Morgara to the newspaper was
- 6:03Speaker 1: actually Doc Shields sowing the seeds for an elaborate hoax.
- 6:07Speaker 1: Some also suspect that Doc Shields invented the story of
- 6:10Speaker 1: the Alman. As far as I can tell nobody else
- 6:14Speaker 1: has ever been able to track down the Melling family
- 6:16Speaker 1: or the two girls saw the creature in the woods.
- 6:19Speaker 1: It's very possible that they never existed at all. Similarities
- 6:24Speaker 1: between the eyewitness drawings suggest that they might have been
- 6:27Speaker 1: drawn by the same person although it does say that
- 6:29Speaker 1: the drawings are based on eyewitness sketches so Shields might
- 6:32Speaker 1: have redrawn them himself from the children's drawings. Some people
- 6:36Speaker 1: have also analyzed the handwriting between these two accounts and
- 6:39Speaker 1: they think they might have been written by one person.
- 6:43Speaker 1: I don't know much about handwriting analysis so I can't
- 6:45Speaker 1: really say for sure but there's something about how the
- 6:48Speaker 1: doctor both the eyes drift slightly to the right in
- 6:50Speaker 1: both the accounts. But as I say I don't know
- 6:53Speaker 1: much about the subject so I can't really comment on
- 6:56Speaker 1: it myself. There's no real proof that Doc Shields invented
- 7:00Speaker 1: the Alman. It could be as he says he had
- 7:03Speaker 1: a reputation as a monster hunter so he was genuinely
- 7:06Speaker 1: approached by people that had seen something strange. Shields seems
- 7:10Speaker 1: to be a chaotic neutral sort of character. a true
- 7:13Speaker 1: surrealist who deliberately soars the seeds of confusion and doubt
- 7:16Speaker 1: around all that he does. It doesn't necessarily mean that
- 7:20Speaker 1: everything that he's involved in is a hoax but it
- 7:23Speaker 1: does mean that we should take it all with a
- 7:25Speaker 1: hefty pinch of salt. After the Alman flap of 1976
- 7:29Speaker 1: there were sporadic sightings. According to the book Alien Animals
- 7:34Speaker 1: by Janet and Colin Board, there were two more sightings
- 7:37Speaker 1: of the Alman in 1978. Once by a 16-year-old girl
- 7:42Speaker 1: and a few months later by three young French girls
- 7:44Speaker 1: but looking into these cases a bit more Doc Shields'
- 7:47Speaker 1: name crops up yet again as the source of these stories.
- 7:51Speaker 1: It doesn't necessarily mean that they're fake. I suspect at
- 7:55Speaker 1: that time anyone who had an encounter with the Almond
- 7:57Speaker 1: would think of contacting Doc Shields. 11 years later in
- 8:02Speaker 1: 1989 there was another encounter and this time it seems
- 8:05Speaker 1: that Shields had nothing to do with it, at least
- 8:07Speaker 1: not directly. There was a young couple known as Gavin
- 8:10Speaker 1: and Sally, although that's not their real names. They'd heard
- 8:15Speaker 1: the legend of the Alman and decided to go into
- 8:17Speaker 1: the woods behind Morning Church to investigate. Gavin later contacted
- 8:22Speaker 1: the paranormal researcher Jonathan Downs, author of the book The
- 8:25Speaker 1: Alman and others I mentioned earlier. He related his story
- 8:29Speaker 1: about what happened that night in the woods. He said,
- 8:33Speaker 1: we had to torch and I was shining its beam
- 8:35Speaker 1: across the trucks about 15 feet off the ground. Every
- 8:39Speaker 1: couple of hours we would walk along the fringe of
- 8:41Speaker 1: the woods and this was the third time that evening
- 8:44Speaker 1: and it was beginning to get dark. From a distance
- 8:47Speaker 1: the trees looked black but close up to branches and
- 8:50Speaker 1: shrunks could be seen. We saw the animal at about
- 8:53Speaker 1: 9 30 p.m. It was standing on a thick branch
- 8:57Speaker 1: with its wings sort of held up at the arms.
- 9:00Speaker 1: I'd say it was about five feet tall. The legs
- 9:04Speaker 1: had high angles and their feet were large and black
- 9:06Speaker 1: with two huge toes on the visible side. The creature
- 9:10Speaker 1: was gray with brown and the eyes definitely glowed. Unseeing
- 9:15Speaker 1: as its head jerked down and forwards its wings lifted
- 9:17Speaker 1: and it just jumped backwards. As it did its legs
- 9:21Speaker 1: folded up we ran away. Six years later in 1995
- 9:25Speaker 1: a letter was sent to a local paper. It claimed
- 9:29Speaker 1: to be from a student of marine biology from Chicago.
- 9:33Speaker 1: She'd been on holiday in Mornin' Smith and was walking
- 9:35Speaker 1: through the woods behind a church at around 9.15 when
- 9:39Speaker 1: she saw in a tree a creature described as the
- 9:41Speaker 1: size of a man with a ghastly face, a wide
- 9:44Speaker 1: mouth glowing eyes and pointed ears. It had huge clawed
- 9:48Speaker 1: wings and was covered in feathers of silver-gray color. The
- 9:52Speaker 1: thing had long bird legs which terminated in large black claws.
- 9:57Speaker 1: All attempts to track down this Chicagoan witness have failed.
- 10:01Speaker 1: Many suspect the letter to be another of Doc Shields'
- 10:04Speaker 1: pranks although there's no real proof either way. Sightings continued
- 10:08Speaker 1: up until the present day but most don't seem to
- 10:10Speaker 1: have much more information about them. So instead let's look
- 10:14Speaker 1: at some unusual footage and this was captured via the
- 10:17Speaker 1: internet channel called Ghost Adventures of Cornwall. Thank you very
- 10:22Speaker 1: much to Mark for letting me use your footage in
- 10:24Speaker 1: my video or put a link to the original video
- 10:26Speaker 1: in the description. They've decided one night to investigate St.
- 10:30Speaker 1: Mornin and St. Stephen's Church but there's one bit where
- 10:33Speaker 1: the camera pans across the graveyard and this figure is
- 10:36Speaker 1: standing in the background. There was two people in the graveyard.
- 10:40Speaker 1: the guy holding the camera and his friend who was
- 10:42Speaker 1: stood behind him at the time. They didn't notice this
- 10:46Speaker 1: strange horned man until they played the footage back frame
- 10:49Speaker 1: by frame. Could this be the almond finally caught on camera?
- 10:54Speaker 1: I don't know if the almond is a hoax. That
- 10:57Speaker 1: could very well be the case. However, I am a
- 11:00Speaker 1: strong believer in the idea that a fictional story can
- 11:03Speaker 1: take on a life of its own if enough people
- 11:05Speaker 1: can be convinced that it's real. I talked about this
- 11:09Speaker 1: in my ghost watch video how the fictional ghost of
- 11:11Speaker 1: pipes managed to possess the minds of many of its
- 11:13Speaker 1: younger viewers, giving some of them psychological effects that lasted
- 11:17Speaker 1: longer after the program had finished one person even took
- 11:20Speaker 1: their own life. There's also the case of the slender man.
- 11:25Speaker 1: It started out as a photoshop contest and ended up
- 11:28Speaker 1: with two girls dragging their friend into the woods and
- 11:30Speaker 1: stabbing her 19 times because they thought they were receiving
- 11:33Speaker 1: instructions from the slender man himself. Maybe something like this
- 11:38Speaker 1: could have happened with the almond. You could look at
- 11:41Speaker 1: it from a purely psychological perspective. You convince people that
- 11:45Speaker 1: the almond exists and next time someone hears a strange
- 11:48Speaker 1: noise or sees a dark shape in the woods behind
- 11:50Speaker 1: morning church, they might believe that they had an encounter
- 11:53Speaker 1: with the almond itself. Oh, you could get a bit
- 11:57Speaker 1: more out there. You could look at the almond as
- 12:00Speaker 1: a kind of topper, a thought form made flesh. Could
- 12:04Speaker 1: the strange rituals performed by shields and urns really have
- 12:07Speaker 1: conjured something more solid up? Maybe hoaxing it was a
- 12:11Speaker 1: method for willing the almond into existence, getting enough people
- 12:14Speaker 1: to believe in it that it actually becomes a reality.
- 12:18Speaker 1: A decades-long prank and a genuine work of magic at
- 12:20Speaker 1: the same time. That might go a bit far for
- 12:24Speaker 1: some viewers, but I've been interested in the interaction between
- 12:27Speaker 1: the mind and physical reality ever since I read the
- 12:29Speaker 1: holographic universe when I was younger. I'm not sure if
- 12:33Speaker 1: I totally believe that the mind can create an all-man
- 12:36Speaker 1: out of nothing, but it's the sort of thing that
- 12:38Speaker 1: I like to speculate on and hey, it's nearly Halloween
- 12:41Speaker 1: so I'm allowed to indulge in some spooky speculation. The Almond,
- 12:46Speaker 1: he might be real, he might be a prank, he
- 12:48Speaker 1: might be in a elaborate work of surrealist art, or
- 12:51Speaker 1: maybe he's all those things at the same time. So
- 12:55Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this typically conclusionless video. I don't
- 12:59Speaker 1: really like telling people what they should think. but I
- 13:01Speaker 1: like giving them something to think about so hopefully you
- 13:04Speaker 1: found this interesting. October always puts me in the mood
- 13:08Speaker 1: for a good spooky story so I hope you guys
- 13:10Speaker 1: are enjoying the content. Here's some more recordings you might enjoy.
- 13:15Speaker 1: Check out the creepy folklore playlist if you like this
- 13:18Speaker 1: sort of thing. Today's investigation is about two of Canada's
- 13:22Speaker 1: sickest serial killers, Paul Bernardo and Carla Holmunker. Paul Bernardo
- 13:28Speaker 1: grew up in Scarborough, Ontario. His upbringing is typical of
- 13:32Speaker 1: a lot of serial killers. His father was extremely abusive.
- 13:38Speaker 1: Paul grew up watching his mother receive regular beatings and
- 13:41Speaker 1: his sister being sexually assaulted by her own dad. His
- 13:45Speaker 1: father also had a habit of prowling around in neighborhood
- 13:48Speaker 1: at night and peeping into young girls' windows, a habit
- 13:51Speaker 1: which later seemed to rub off on Paul. Outwardly though
- 13:55Speaker 1: is a child that didn't seem to affect him much.
- 13:58Speaker 1: Paul Bernardo was confident and outgoing. He joined the scouts
- 14:02Speaker 1: and as he got older he went on to become
- 14:04Speaker 1: a scout counselor where he was very popular with the
- 14:07Speaker 1: young children. At the age of 16 he discovered that
- 14:11Speaker 1: the man who had raised him was not actually his
- 14:13Speaker 1: biological father. His mother had had an affair with another
- 14:17Speaker 1: man and gotten pregnant with Paul. This revelation that he
- 14:21Speaker 1: was the bastard child of infidelity triggered a deep hatred
- 14:24Speaker 1: of women within Paul Bernardo. Fueled by the abuse he
- 14:28Speaker 1: had witnessed growing up he developed dark, misogynistic, sadistic sexual fantasies.
- 14:34Speaker 1: His first job was working for the Amway multi-level marketing company,
- 14:38Speaker 1: essentially a pyramid scheme. Through his work he learned useful
- 14:42Speaker 1: psychological sales techniques. He studied books on motivational speaking, the
- 14:48Speaker 1: art of selling and pick-up artistry. He didn't just use
- 14:52Speaker 1: these skills on the job though. He also used them
- 14:55Speaker 1: to manipulate the girls he was dating. He liked submissive girls.
- 15:01Speaker 1: Ones that he could abuse emotionally and humiliate in public.
- 15:05Speaker 1: Ones that went along with his rough sex games. Over
- 15:09Speaker 1: the years he learned a lot about how to control women.
- 15:12Speaker 1: His sexual sadism increased in severity until in July of 1987,
- 15:17Speaker 1: aged just 22, Paul Bernardo committed his first known rape attack.
- 15:22Speaker 1: A 21-year-old woman was walking home from work at 1 a.m.
- 15:26Speaker 1: when Paul snuck up behind her and dragged her to
- 15:28Speaker 1: the ground. She was right outside her house at the time.
- 15:33Speaker 1: Over the course of about 30 minutes he repeatedly beat
- 15:36Speaker 1: the woman whilst vaginally and aimlessly penetrating her. A few
- 15:40Speaker 1: days later he committed a very similar attack on a
- 15:44Speaker 1: 19-year-old woman. Again she was walking home in the early
- 15:47Speaker 1: hours of the morning and was outside her house when
- 15:50Speaker 1: he attacked. Paul pushed her to the ground and dragged
- 15:53Speaker 1: her into her backyard. There he held a knife to
- 15:57Speaker 1: her throat and threatened to slit it if she made
- 15:59Speaker 1: a sound. He then tied a rope around her neck
- 16:02Speaker 1: and started to beat and molest her. Anytime she moved
- 16:06Speaker 1: he would tighten the rope and strangle her. The attack
- 16:10Speaker 1: lasted over an hour. When he was done he bound
- 16:13Speaker 1: her wrists and tied her by the neck to a
- 16:15Speaker 1: fence then he left. A couple of months later Paul
- 16:19Speaker 1: met Carla Hermalka. Carla's childhood probably didn't involve as much
- 16:23Speaker 1: abuse as Paul's but she does recall many occasions where
- 16:27Speaker 1: her drunken father would fight with her mother. During these
- 16:30Speaker 1: outbursts her and her sisters would huddle together for safety.
- 16:34Speaker 1: In her teenage years she began to display strange behavior.
- 16:38Speaker 1: She became obsessed with crime stories and subjects of death
- 16:42Speaker 1: and occultism. She would hold strange spiritual assances for her friends.
- 16:48Speaker 1: On one occasion she threw her friend's hamster out a
- 16:50Speaker 1: window killing it. One of her high school boyfriend recalls
- 16:54Speaker 1: how she was preoccupied with the thought of dying. wanting
- 16:57Speaker 1: to know how it felt to be killed even cutting
- 16:59Speaker 1: herself with a knife. Of course none of these things
- 17:03Speaker 1: in isolation would be too strange as far as teenage
- 17:06Speaker 1: behavior goes but given what we know about Carla today
- 17:09Speaker 1: they were probably warning signs of a deepest psychological problem.
- 17:13Speaker 1: There was something different about Carla compared to the other
- 17:16Speaker 1: girls that Paul Bernardo had dated. Instead of running away
- 17:20Speaker 1: from his sadistic urges she seemed to encourage it becoming
- 17:23Speaker 1: a willing and submissive participant in his increasingly violent sex games.
- 17:28Speaker 1: Over time Paul became more and more controlling. He began
- 17:32Speaker 1: telling her how to dress, how to style her hair
- 17:35Speaker 1: and what kind of makeup to wear. He began undermining
- 17:39Speaker 1: her confidence and isolating her from her friends. Slowly he
- 17:43Speaker 1: was turning her into his sleeve. This new relationship didn't
- 17:47Speaker 1: stop Paul from prowling the streets at night and attacking
- 17:50Speaker 1: innocent women though. Over the course of three years he
- 17:53Speaker 1: attacked at least 16 different women and those are only
- 17:56Speaker 1: the ones that are definitely linked to Paul Bernardo. The
- 18:00Speaker 1: figure is more likely around 25 women. To describe each
- 18:04Speaker 1: attack could be a long and repetitive process. Each attack
- 18:09Speaker 1: followed a very similar pattern but with each one the
- 18:11Speaker 1: level of violence and cruelty increased. He would pick a
- 18:15Speaker 1: young girl walking alone at night. Fourteen or fifteen-year-olds were
- 18:20Speaker 1: his favorite. Some were older in their early twenties but
- 18:24Speaker 1: they looked young and clearly he had a type. He
- 18:27Speaker 1: would lurk at a bus stop till they went past
- 18:29Speaker 1: and then he would pounce on them from behind and
- 18:31Speaker 1: drag them to the ground. Usually subduing them with a
- 18:35Speaker 1: few blows to the head. He would then drag them
- 18:38Speaker 1: to a more secluded location and tie them up often
- 18:41Speaker 1: with a rope around their neck so that he could
- 18:43Speaker 1: strangle them. If they struggled he would hold a knife
- 18:46Speaker 1: to their neck and threaten to slit their throats. He
- 18:49Speaker 1: lacked to punch them a lot in the back, in
- 18:52Speaker 1: the head, in the legs. On one occasion he twisted
- 18:56Speaker 1: the woman's arm so hard that he fractured the bone.
- 18:59Speaker 1: The rapes all followed a similar pattern, first sodomy then
- 19:03Speaker 1: vaginal penetration. While he was doing this he would push
- 19:07Speaker 1: the girl's face into the ground and run his knife
- 19:09Speaker 1: up and down her back. After that he would force
- 19:12Speaker 1: ed a perform fellatio on him. Sometimes he would insert
- 19:16Speaker 1: foreign objects into the victims' vagina or anus, usually sticks
- 19:20Speaker 1: and twigs. One time he raped a woman with his
- 19:24Speaker 1: knife blade, lacerating her uterus. Making the victim talk was
- 19:29Speaker 1: also a big part of the attacks. He would force
- 19:32Speaker 1: Etta call herself a bitch in a slut. He would
- 19:35Speaker 1: make her say that she loved what he was doing
- 19:37Speaker 1: to her, that he was the best she ever had.
- 19:41Speaker 1: These attacks usually lasted between 30 minutes and 2 hours.
- 19:46Speaker 1: Sometimes he would get up and leave so that the
- 19:48Speaker 1: victim thought that the ordeal was over. only to return
- 19:51Speaker 1: moments later and continue assaulting her when he was finally
- 19:55Speaker 1: done he usually stole some sort of memento a driver's
- 19:58Speaker 1: license or id card something with a photograph to remember
- 20:01Speaker 1: them by as time went on police noticed the similarities
- 20:06Speaker 1: between his attacks and realized they were the work of
- 20:08Speaker 1: a serial rapist Unfortunately because he always struck in the
- 20:12Speaker 1: middle of the night and made his victims face the
- 20:15Speaker 1: floor it was very hard to get a clear identification
- 20:17Speaker 1: of the attacker. Pretty soon news articles were appearing in
- 20:21Speaker 1: the local papers warning people to be vigilance. They even
- 20:25Speaker 1: gave him a nickname, the Scarborough Rapist. On May 26,
- 20:30Speaker 1: 1990 Paul struck again attacking a 19-year-old woman behind a school.
- 20:36Speaker 1: After an hour of torture and sexual abuse he turned
- 20:38Speaker 1: around and yanked out a fistful of a pubic hair
- 20:41Speaker 1: as something to remember her by. This enabled her to
- 20:44Speaker 1: get a good look at her attacker, so much so
- 20:47Speaker 1: that the police were able to compile a very accurate
- 20:49Speaker 1: composite image of the Scarborough rapist. The police received two
- 20:54Speaker 1: tip-offs from people who believed that Paul Bernardo was the attacker.
- 20:58Speaker 1: One was from a bank teller who thought that he
- 21:00Speaker 1: looked a lot like the composite image. Another report was
- 21:04Speaker 1: from Tina Smirnis, the wife of one of Paul's best friends.
- 21:09Speaker 1: The police brought Paul in for questioning and he willingly
- 21:12Speaker 1: gave them a DNA sample. He also admitted that he
- 21:15Speaker 1: did look a lot like the composite image, but here's
- 21:18Speaker 1: the crazy thing. He was so charming and likable that
- 21:22Speaker 1: they decided that there was no way such a well-adjusted
- 21:24Speaker 1: young man could be the attacker. They assumed Tina Smirnis
- 21:29Speaker 1: must just have been trying to claim the reward money
- 21:31Speaker 1: and so they let Paul go and they didn't send
- 21:33Speaker 1: his DNA for testing. By this point in their lives
- 21:37Speaker 1: Paul and Carla were engaged and Carla had got a
- 21:39Speaker 1: job at a veterinary clinic. Paul was spending a lot
- 21:43Speaker 1: of time with Carla's family at her house and he'd
- 21:46Speaker 1: taken a particular liking to Carla's 15-year-old sister, Tammy. On
- 21:51Speaker 1: nights when he stayed over he would sneak outside and
- 21:53Speaker 1: peer in on Tammy through her bedroom window. Carla even
- 21:57Speaker 1: helped Paul out by breaking the locks on Tammy's window
- 22:00Speaker 1: so he could sneak in while she was sleeping and masturbate.
- 22:04Speaker 1: He told Carla how much he wanted to sleep with
- 22:06Speaker 1: her sister and with a little bit of persuasion she
- 22:09Speaker 1: agreed to let him. So one night they crushed up
- 22:12Speaker 1: several sleeping tablets and served them up to Tammy mixed
- 22:15Speaker 1: into spaghetti sauce. Pretty soon she'd fallen asleep and while
- 22:19Speaker 1: she was unconscious Paul had sex with her while Carla watched.
- 22:24Speaker 1: This wasn't enough to satiate Paul's urges. Five months later
- 22:28Speaker 1: he told Carla that he wanted to do it again.
- 22:31Speaker 1: By this point he'd moved in with Carla and was
- 22:34Speaker 1: living with her and her family. He persuaded Carla to
- 22:38Speaker 1: steal some hollow thing from her job at the veterinary practice.
- 22:42Speaker 1: Halothane is a very powerful anesthetic. They use it to
- 22:46Speaker 1: knock animals out when they're undergoing surgery. It's very dangerous
- 22:50Speaker 1: if it's not administered by a professional. On Christmas Eve
- 22:55Speaker 1: 1990 whilst her parents slept upstairs, Carla served Tammy an
- 22:58Speaker 1: alcoholic cocktail at least with sleeping pills. Once she'd fallen
- 23:03Speaker 1: asleep they dragged it into the basement and set up
- 23:05Speaker 1: the recording camera. Paul liked making whole movies. Most of
- 23:11Speaker 1: them were innocent family snaps, short glimpses into everyday life
- 23:14Speaker 1: with Carla and her family. He did however like making
- 23:18Speaker 1: another type of movie and Tammy Hamalka was about to
- 23:21Speaker 1: have a starring role. Carla took a cloth and soaked
- 23:25Speaker 1: it in the halothane and then she held it over
- 23:27Speaker 1: Tammy's face to make sure she was really unconscious. Then
- 23:31Speaker 1: while the camera was rolling, Paul and Carla took turns
- 23:34Speaker 1: having sex with Tammy's unconscious body. At one point Paul
- 23:39Speaker 1: forces Carla to soak her sister's menstrual blood from her fingers.
- 23:43Speaker 1: She complains that it tastes disgusting and Paul beats her
- 23:46Speaker 1: for not showing enough enthusiasm. In the early hours of
- 23:51Speaker 1: the morning whilst Paul was sodomizing Tammy, She choked on
- 23:54Speaker 1: her own vomit and stopped breathing. By the time they
- 23:58Speaker 1: noticed her face had turned blue and there was no
- 24:00Speaker 1: pulse whatsoever. In a panic they attempted to resuscitate her
- 24:04Speaker 1: with CPR but they failed. Paramedics were called and she
- 24:08Speaker 1: was rushed to hospital but by that point there was
- 24:11Speaker 1: nothing they could do. On Christmas Day 1990, Tammy Hamalka
- 24:16Speaker 1: was pronounced dead. Carla and Paul were questioned about Tammy's death.
- 24:22Speaker 1: They told police that she simply had passed out from
- 24:24Speaker 1: drinking too much and must have been vomiting in her sleep.
- 24:28Speaker 1: The problem with this story is the halothane-soaked rag had
- 24:31Speaker 1: caused a massive chemical burn on the side of Tammy's
- 24:34Speaker 1: face and around her mouth and nose. For some reason,
- 24:38Speaker 1: despite this, the authorities accepted Paul and Carla's version of
- 24:42Speaker 1: events and ruled Tammy's death to be accidental. After that
- 24:46Speaker 1: Paul started making Carla dress up in a dead sister's
- 24:49Speaker 1: clothes and they would have sex on Tammy's bed among
- 24:51Speaker 1: her collection of teddy bears. One detail I find particularly
- 24:56Speaker 1: sick is that at Tammy's funeral they placed a photograph
- 24:59Speaker 1: of themselves in her coffin. This was the image they
- 25:02Speaker 1: picked to put inside the coffin alongside Tammy's corpse. A
- 25:06Speaker 1: little girl emerged on Christmas Day. Something about it just
- 25:10Speaker 1: comes across as incredibly twisted. The mocking greens in the
- 25:15Speaker 1: photo seem to be saying, we know what we did
- 25:17Speaker 1: and we think it's funny. By June of 1991, Carla
- 25:21Speaker 1: and Paul were married and had moved into their own place.
- 25:25Speaker 1: As a wedding gift to Paul, Carla brought home the
- 25:28Speaker 1: drug-done unconscious body of her 15-year-old girl she'd befriended years before.
- 25:34Speaker 1: She'd taken her out for a girl-he's-shopping trip before playing
- 25:37Speaker 1: with spiked cocktails. They filmed themselves sexually abusing the girl
- 25:42Speaker 1: while she slept. The next morning that girl, known only
- 25:46Speaker 1: as Jane Doe, had no recollection of what had happened
- 25:49Speaker 1: and assumed she just had too much to drink. A
- 25:52Speaker 1: month later they invited Jane Doe back to their place
- 25:55Speaker 1: and spiked her again with sleeping pills. Once more they
- 25:59Speaker 1: videotaped themselves raping the girl but this time she stopped
- 26:03Speaker 1: breathing halfway through. They formed for an ambulance but Jane
- 26:07Speaker 1: Doe started breathing again shortly afterwards so they rang the
- 26:10Speaker 1: emergency services back again and told them that everything was
- 26:13Speaker 1: alright now. The ambulance was recalled and Jane Doe went
- 26:17Speaker 1: home once more without realizing the terrible things that they'd
- 26:20Speaker 1: done to her. On June 15, 1991, 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffey
- 26:26Speaker 1: was returning home. She was supposed to be home by
- 26:30Speaker 1: 11 p.m. but she'd stayed out drinking with her friends
- 26:33Speaker 1: into the early hours of the morning. As punishment her
- 26:36Speaker 1: mother had bolted the doors locking Leslie out of the house.
- 26:40Speaker 1: Unfortunately for Leslie that night Paul Bernardo was also under prom.
- 26:45Speaker 1: He spotted the young girl alone outside her house and
- 26:48Speaker 1: struck up a conversation with her. Apparently she was unfazed
- 26:52Speaker 1: by a strange man prowling around a property at 2 a.m.
- 26:57Speaker 1: He invited her back to his car for a cigarette
- 26:59Speaker 1: then produced a knife and forced her into the vehicle.
- 27:03Speaker 1: He took her back to his place and led her
- 27:05Speaker 1: blindfolded into the front room. There he made a needle
- 27:08Speaker 1: on the ground and state her name and age whilst
- 27:11Speaker 1: he recorded her with the camera. He then led her
- 27:14Speaker 1: into the bathroom and made her urinate whilst he filmed
- 27:17Speaker 1: between her legs. After that he took her to the
- 27:20Speaker 1: spare bedroom and tied her by the wrists to the headboard.
- 27:24Speaker 1: He told her to stop crying when she didn't he
- 27:26Speaker 1: punched her in the face, splitting her lip over her
- 27:29Speaker 1: metal braces. That night Leslie was subjected to multiple rapes,
- 27:33Speaker 1: beatings and humiliations. She was forced to masturbate for the camera.
- 27:39Speaker 1: He made her say how much she loved it. how
- 27:42Speaker 1: he was the best she ever had. He made a
- 27:45Speaker 1: drink champagne list with sleeping pills to make her more compliant.
- 27:49Speaker 1: When Carla awoke later that morning she saw Leslie and
- 27:52Speaker 1: Paul in bed together and she was infuriated. Not because
- 27:56Speaker 1: he'd kidnapped and sexually assaulted the child but because he'd
- 27:59Speaker 1: used their best champagne flutes. Over the following several hours
- 28:04Speaker 1: Carla and Paul subjected Leslie to various sexual humiliations whilst
- 28:08Speaker 1: they recorded the whole thing on their camcorder. At one
- 28:12Speaker 1: point on the recording tape whilst Leslie is forced to
- 28:14Speaker 1: stick a tongue into Paul's anus he says to her,
- 28:17Speaker 1: I'm judging you right now. The next two hours are
- 28:20Speaker 1: going to determine what I do to you okay. Right
- 28:24Speaker 1: now you're scoring perfect. Sometime after midnight they were finally
- 28:28Speaker 1: done with her. By this point they'd been torturing her
- 28:32Speaker 1: for around 24 hours. She lay in a fetal position
- 28:36Speaker 1: on the floor, bruised and broken wreck bleeding from every orifice.
- 28:40Speaker 1: They knew there was no way they could let Leslie go.
- 28:44Speaker 1: Although they kept her blindfolded she might still be able
- 28:47Speaker 1: to identify them to the police. In a hushed conversation
- 28:51Speaker 1: in another room Carla and Paul decided that they had
- 28:53Speaker 1: to kill her. Whilst Paul went to fetch what he
- 28:57Speaker 1: needed Carla returned to Leslie and put a blanket over her.
- 29:01Speaker 1: She gave her a teddy bear to hug and told
- 29:03Speaker 1: her to swallow some sleeping pills. As Leslie drifted off
- 29:07Speaker 1: to sleep Paul returned with a length of electrical cord.
- 29:11Speaker 1: He wrapped it around her neck and strangled her. It
- 29:14Speaker 1: took two attempts before she was finally dead. They dumped
- 29:18Speaker 1: her body in the basement and covered her with a sheet.
- 29:22Speaker 1: Whilst Leslie's corpse grew cold, Carla's parents paid a visit
- 29:26Speaker 1: to the house and they enjoyed a family meal together
- 29:28Speaker 1: in the room right above her head. The next day
- 29:31Speaker 1: Paul visited the hardware store and bought 12 bags of
- 29:34Speaker 1: cement powder. Back at the house they laid out Leslie's
- 29:38Speaker 1: body on an old top hole in sheet and cut
- 29:40Speaker 1: her into pieces. They encased each piece in a lump
- 29:44Speaker 1: of cement and then over the course of a few
- 29:46Speaker 1: days they made numerous trips to Lake Gibson 18 miles
- 29:49Speaker 1: away from their home and dumped the pieces into the water.
- 29:53Speaker 1: One particularly large block of cement containing Leslie's torso and
- 29:57Speaker 1: head was too heavy to carry to the lake so
- 29:59Speaker 1: they just left it by the water's edge. It would
- 30:02Speaker 1: later be found by a father and son out on
- 30:04Speaker 1: a fishing trip. The third and last known kidnapping occurred
- 30:08Speaker 1: on April 16, 1992. Carla and Paul were driving around
- 30:14Speaker 1: looking for a suitable victim. Sadly for 15-year-old Kristen French
- 30:19Speaker 1: she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
- 30:22Speaker 1: They spotted her walking home from school so they parked
- 30:25Speaker 1: up in a nearby church parking lot and waited for
- 30:27Speaker 1: her to walk by. Carla approached holding a map and
- 30:31Speaker 1: asked her for directions. Whilst Kristen was distracted looking at
- 30:35Speaker 1: the map, Paul approached from behind held a knife to
- 30:38Speaker 1: a neck and forced it into the car. Back at
- 30:41Speaker 1: the house her treatment was very much the same as
- 30:43Speaker 1: what they'd done to Leslie Mahaffey. She was drugged with
- 30:47Speaker 1: alcohol and tranquilizers, repeatedly beaten and raped, urinated on and
- 30:52Speaker 1: forced to perform humiliating acts for the camera. She was
- 30:56Speaker 1: violated with a wine bottle and made to tell them
- 30:58Speaker 1: how much she loved it and how amazing Paul Bernardo was.
- 31:02Speaker 1: Unlike Leslie Mahaffey, they didn't bother to blindfold her because
- 31:06Speaker 1: this time they knew beforehand that they were going to
- 31:08Speaker 1: murder her. Pretty soon after her disappearance her parents filed
- 31:12Speaker 1: a missing persons report. When police found one of Kristen's
- 31:16Speaker 1: shoes in the church parking lot they suspected that foul
- 31:19Speaker 1: play was involved. One of the cruel things that Paul
- 31:23Speaker 1: did was to make Kristen watch news reports of her
- 31:26Speaker 1: father pleading for a safe return. Between torture sessions they
- 31:30Speaker 1: would lock Kristen in a cupboard. Sometimes Paul would leave
- 31:34Speaker 1: to get food and during those moments Kristen would plead
- 31:37Speaker 1: with Carla to let her go. Of course this fell
- 31:40Speaker 1: on deaf ears. After three days of torture with Kristen
- 31:44Speaker 1: on the bed with her hands bound behind her back
- 31:46Speaker 1: Paul mounted her from behind and wrapped an electrical cord
- 31:49Speaker 1: tightly around her throat. He bent down and whispered something
- 31:53Speaker 1: into it here. Carla didn't catch all of it but
- 31:57Speaker 1: she heard him say, what do you know about dying?
- 32:00Speaker 1: He then tightened the cord and Kristen began to choke.
- 32:04Speaker 1: He timed himself on the bedside clock, strangling their airways
- 32:08Speaker 1: for a full seven minutes to ensure she was dead.
- 32:11Speaker 1: When they were done they stashed her corpse in the
- 32:13Speaker 1: basement and went to Carla's parents' house for another family meal.
- 32:18Speaker 1: On April 30th Kristen's body was found dumped in a
- 32:20Speaker 1: ditch 45 minutes away from where Paul and Carla lived.
- 32:25Speaker 1: The corpse had been thoroughly washed and all her hair
- 32:27Speaker 1: had been removed. One weird detail here is that Carla
- 32:32Speaker 1: Homolka started to become convinced that her home was haunted.
- 32:36Speaker 1: She would hear weird knocks and bangs coming from the
- 32:38Speaker 1: basement and sometimes she'd hear someone calling her name even
- 32:41Speaker 1: when nobody else was home. She even consulted a medium
- 32:45Speaker 1: to try and cleanse the house of its evil spirits.
- 32:49Speaker 1: Much like Poe's tale of the telltale heart, these haunting
- 32:52Speaker 1: noises were probably a sign of the guilt plaguing Carla's mind,
- 32:55Speaker 1: slowly unraveling her last shreds of mental stability. Paul Bernardo's
- 33:00Speaker 1: mental state was also becoming increasingly unstable. He became even
- 33:05Speaker 1: more abusive towards Carla. One 90 biter so badly that
- 33:10Speaker 1: he left her with two extremely swollen black eyes. This
- 33:14Speaker 1: was the final straw for Carla. She fled the house
- 33:18Speaker 1: and went to stay with her family friend whose husband
- 33:20Speaker 1: was a police officer. Upon seeing their injuries they took
- 33:24Speaker 1: her to a hospital and the police were called in.
- 33:27Speaker 1: This is when police started to seriously investigate Paul Bernardo.
- 33:32Speaker 1: By now it was February 1993 and they finally decided
- 33:36Speaker 1: to test the DNA samples that he provided three years
- 33:39Speaker 1: earlier and they found out that he was in fact
- 33:41Speaker 1: the Scarborough rapist. Upon further questioning Carla realized that they
- 33:46Speaker 1: tied her and Paul to the murdered girls. She got
- 33:49Speaker 1: herself a good lawyer and agreed to fully cooperate in
- 33:52Speaker 1: the investigation in return for leniency. Paul was arrested and
- 33:57Speaker 1: the house was searched. Police found a detailed diary written
- 34:01Speaker 1: by Paul describing each of his rapes and murders. Eventually
- 34:05Speaker 1: the recording recordings were recovered too. The recording tapes were
- 34:09Speaker 1: instrumental in the court proceedings. Obviously Paul Bernardo had very
- 34:14Speaker 1: little defense. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with the
- 34:18Speaker 1: possibility of parole after 25 years. Carla's defense was a
- 34:23Speaker 1: little more complicated. It really depends on how much of
- 34:27Speaker 1: a story you believe. She was clearly the victim of
- 34:31Speaker 1: abuse and she painted herself as a completely unwilling participant
- 34:34Speaker 1: in the crimes. She said that Paul threatened to murder
- 34:38Speaker 1: her family if she didn't comply. Some believe that she
- 34:42Speaker 1: was completely brainwashed. On the other hand she had multiple
- 34:46Speaker 1: chances to get away, especially why she was still living
- 34:49Speaker 1: in her parents' house. The recording tapes played in court
- 34:53Speaker 1: showed that instead of being an unwilling victim she was
- 34:55Speaker 1: an enthusiastic and eager participant in the crimes. Unfortunately her
- 35:00Speaker 1: plea for leniency had already been accepted before the recording
- 35:04Speaker 1: tapes had been seen. She was given just a 12-year
- 35:07Speaker 1: prison sentence. A number of photographs surfaced whilst Carla was incarcerated.
- 35:14Speaker 1: These ones I find particularly interesting. A convicted pedophile and
- 35:19Speaker 1: child murderer happily playing on a rocking horse and in
- 35:22Speaker 1: a child's playhouse. It's as if she's taunting the victim's
- 35:25Speaker 1: families from inside jail. In 2005 she was granted parole.
- 35:31Speaker 1: Since leaving prison she's married again and she's had three children.
- 35:36Speaker 1: In 2017 it was reported that she was volunteering at
- 35:39Speaker 1: an elementary school, although the media's dumbness generated means she
- 35:43Speaker 1: stopped volunteering shortly after it was discovered. As for Paul
- 35:47Speaker 1: Bernardo he still languishes in prison. He was up for
- 35:51Speaker 1: parole in 2018 but it was denied because of his
- 35:54Speaker 1: high likelihood of re-offending. As with most incarcerated child masterists
- 35:59Speaker 1: he probably regularly received the kind of treatment he dished
- 36:02Speaker 1: out to his victims. If you're new here and you
- 36:06Speaker 1: found this interesting then please consider subscribing. I know I'm
- 36:10Speaker 1: beginning to sound like a stuck record at this point
- 36:12Speaker 1: but I really couldn't make these recordings without your help
- 36:15Speaker 1: so thank you very much. In the archive now there
- 36:18Speaker 1: should be some more recordings if you're in the mood
- 36:20Speaker 1: for something else. Thanks once again for watching. Until next
- 36:26Speaker 1: time goodbye.