Latest / Luke's English Podcast / I Reconstructed the Paul Bernardo Case _ Who Is Actually to Blame

Transcript

I Reconstructed the Paul Bernardo Case _ Who Is Actually to Blame · Luke's English Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: This case hits home. When I was fifteen years old
0:07
Speaker 1: growing up in Canada, the name Paul Bernardo was everywhere,
0:11
Speaker 1: front page headlines, lead stories on the news. People were
0:15
Speaker 1: talking about it in kitchens in school hallways like something
0:20
Speaker 1: had broken in the country.
0:22
Speaker 2: Paul Carlajmocha case was easily the worst case that I
0:26
Speaker 2: ever covered.
0:27
Speaker 1: Between nineteen eighty seven and nineteen ninety three, Paul Bernardo
0:31
Speaker 1: targeted women in the suburbs outside of Toronto, committing a
0:35
Speaker 1: series of assaults before escalating to the abduction and murder
0:40
Speaker 1: of at least three victims. The crimes shock the country
0:46
Speaker 1: not just because of what was done, but because it
0:49
Speaker 1: was documented, recorded by the killers themselves, and because Bernardo's accomplice,
0:56
Speaker 1: his wife, Carlamulka, made a deal with secuters that decades
1:01
Speaker 1: later is still debated.
1:04
Speaker 3: I really don't think that she would have done the
1:07
Speaker 3: thing she did without him.
1:09
Speaker 1: This isn't just the story of the crimes. It's the
1:13
Speaker 1: story of how someone like Bernardo continued to get away
1:17
Speaker 1: with it.
1:18
Speaker 4: There was a massive backlog.
1:20
Speaker 3: If he had have been arrested earlier on those lives
1:23
Speaker 3: could have been saved.
1:24
Speaker 1: This case didn't just happen it was allowed to happen,
1:29
Speaker 1: and this episode is about why, the shock of how
1:33
Speaker 1: can there be these Canadian serial killers? I think that
1:36
Speaker 1: these two people coming out of the Toronto area that
1:38
Speaker 1: was shocking to Canada and the world. Even I'm James
1:42
Speaker 1: Buddy Day, this is unmarked. If you're outside of Canada,
1:52
Speaker 1: you've probably heard this case referred to as the Kennon
1:56
Speaker 1: Barbie murders. Now I'm going to push back on that
2:00
Speaker 1: has never sat well with me because it misses the
2:03
Speaker 1: point of what actually happened. When you frame Paul Bernardo
2:08
Speaker 1: and Carla Hamoka as some sort of Bonnie and Clyde,
2:11
Speaker 1: you flatten the story and you ignore everything that was
2:15
Speaker 1: already in motion before they ever met. So I'm going
2:19
Speaker 1: to ask you to set that aside. As we unpack
2:22
Speaker 1: this case. You can decide for yourself whether accountability was correct, misjudged,
2:29
Speaker 1: or something else Entirely, before we go too far, let
2:34
Speaker 1: me catch you up. Paul Bernardo was arrested on February seventeenth,
2:39
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, in connection with a series of sexual
2:43
Speaker 1: assaults in a suburb of Toronto, later convicted and sentenced
2:47
Speaker 1: for crimes related to three murders. While many of his
2:52
Speaker 1: crimes were committed alone, the murders were carried out with
2:56
Speaker 1: an accomplice, his fiance and later wife, Carlaa. She completed
3:02
Speaker 1: her sentence and was released in two thousand and five.
3:05
Speaker 1: She's now living in Canada under an assumed name.
3:09
Speaker 3: Paul Bernardo was the mastermind, and I still to this
3:14
Speaker 3: day hear people say that she's the evil one, that
3:18
Speaker 3: she is the worst one out of the two of them.
3:23
Speaker 3: But I wonder would she have done what she did
3:25
Speaker 3: without Paul Bernardo.
3:26
Speaker 4: I don't think so.
3:27
Speaker 1: We'll get to that, but first there's a piece of
3:31
Speaker 1: evidence you need to understand. Throughout this episode you're going
3:35
Speaker 1: to hear about the videotapes. Bernardo and Hamoka recorded their
3:40
Speaker 1: crimes on a camcorder. Now Canada is not the United States.
3:46
Speaker 1: Evidence is handled much differently here. Not everything is considered
3:50
Speaker 1: appropriate for public release. So in two thousand and one,
3:54
Speaker 1: those tapes, along with a large volume of case evidence,
3:58
Speaker 1: was destroyed by police. But before that they were played
4:03
Speaker 1: in court and we tracked down the journalists who were there.
4:07
Speaker 2: We didn't see the videos, but the judge allowed us
4:09
Speaker 2: to hear them, and it was stuff like that just
4:13
Speaker 2: stays with you forever.
4:16
Speaker 1: That's Nick pron a respected Canadian print journalist who covered
4:20
Speaker 1: the case in real time for the Toronto Star.
4:24
Speaker 2: I mean, you cover murder cases, they're all all hard
4:28
Speaker 2: to do, but this one just stuck with me and
4:33
Speaker 2: other reporters as well.
4:35
Speaker 1: And this is Kathy Canzora, who also covered the case
4:39
Speaker 1: in real time for a Toronto radio station.
4:42
Speaker 3: Probably the worst part of the trial for me was
4:47
Speaker 3: when the tapes were played. It was devastating for everybody
4:50
Speaker 3: that listened to it, and the jurors had to watch it,
4:54
Speaker 3: which is hard to imagine.
4:56
Speaker 1: I should also note, before the tapes were destroyed, a
4:59
Speaker 1: brief portion about two and a half minutes, were released
5:03
Speaker 1: to the media. Now there's nothing depicting the crimes themselves.
5:08
Speaker 1: These are more candid moments between Bernardo and Homoca, and
5:13
Speaker 1: if you're watching on YouTube, we will show you portions
5:17
Speaker 1: of that footage throughout this episode. But before we get
5:21
Speaker 1: to how Bernardo at Homoca meet and what was said
5:24
Speaker 1: between them, we start with Paul Bernardo himself, because that's
5:28
Speaker 1: where the myth begins. When a case reaches this level
5:38
Speaker 1: of national attention, the story begins to simplify case In point.
5:43
Speaker 1: It's often reported that Paul Bernardo was a normal child
5:48
Speaker 1: raised in a happy home. Here's journalist Nick Prawn summarizing
5:53
Speaker 1: that version of the story.
5:55
Speaker 2: As a young boy, he was a boy scout. He was,
5:57
Speaker 2: you know, blonde haired, blue eyed, happy little kid, and
6:02
Speaker 2: the neighbors loved them. And when he walked around in
6:04
Speaker 2: his boy scout uniform the way he sort of sort
6:08
Speaker 2: of pinched his cheek. He was just very sweet. And
6:12
Speaker 2: he played ball hockey with us, with friends, and he's
6:15
Speaker 2: you know, he's seeming like nothing was really wrong with him.
6:20
Speaker 1: Now, when you go back through the reporting, that version
6:23
Speaker 1: doesn't hold.
6:24
Speaker 4: By all accounts.
6:25
Speaker 3: From the outside, seem like a normal family. You know,
6:29
Speaker 3: later we would learn that there were some other issues
6:32
Speaker 3: going on in the house.
6:33
Speaker 1: Paul Bernardo is born on August twenty seventh, nineteen sixty four,
6:38
Speaker 1: to Kenneth and Marilyn Bernardo, the first of three children,
6:43
Speaker 1: and it's his father, Kenneth Bernardo, where the story starts
6:47
Speaker 1: to shift. Long before his son becomes known for his crimes,
6:51
Speaker 1: Kenneth Bernardo is modeling behavior Paul Bernardo will later repeat.
6:57
Speaker 2: On the surface, it looked like a nice, happy family,
6:59
Speaker 2: but inside it was a very unhappy family.
7:04
Speaker 1: Paul Bernardo's father will later be convicted of predatory behavior
7:09
Speaker 1: towards miners. According to reports, Kenneth is already grooming and
7:14
Speaker 1: assaulting victims around the time Paul is born. There's no
7:19
Speaker 1: concrete evidence Paul is directly victimized, but none of this
7:24
Speaker 1: comes to light until nineteen ninety three meeting. Paul grows
7:27
Speaker 1: up in the environment. While this is happening. By nineteen
7:32
Speaker 1: sixty nine, Kenneth Bernardo is working as an accountant, another
7:36
Speaker 1: path Paul will later attempt to follow. There are anecdotes
7:41
Speaker 1: of verbal abuse directed at women in the household, and
7:45
Speaker 1: more serious allegations involving the abuse of Paul's sister. At
7:51
Speaker 1: one point, after being charged in a voyeurism related incident
7:55
Speaker 1: involving neighbors, Kenneth Bernardo begins living in the base of
8:00
Speaker 1: the family home while Paul's mother remains upstairs.
8:05
Speaker 2: It didn't sleep in the same room, and there was
8:09
Speaker 2: really no warmth between the two of them. As Paul
8:12
Speaker 2: got older, there was just there was nothing there. He
8:14
Speaker 2: didn't have a strong relationship with his dad or his mom.
8:19
Speaker 1: What you start to see through interviews through reporting is
8:22
Speaker 1: a pattern a strained household, instability, anger directed inward. I'm
8:30
Speaker 1: not going to reduce this to a single cause, but
8:33
Speaker 1: there are indicators here that come up again and again
8:37
Speaker 1: in cases like this, early exposure to violence and perceived
8:42
Speaker 1: childhood trauma. And studies, especially twin and adoption research consistently
8:48
Speaker 1: find that traits associated with psychopathy, callousness, lack of empathy, impulsivity,
8:55
Speaker 1: they're moderately heredable, roughly forty to sixty percent. In plain
9:01
Speaker 1: terms Paul's genetics and environment, they translate to a lower
9:06
Speaker 1: emotional response. He doesn't feel fear, guilt, or attachment the
9:11
Speaker 1: same way as others, and this is often expressed towards
9:16
Speaker 1: his mother.
9:17
Speaker 2: He developed a strong anger towards her, and maybe towards
9:21
Speaker 2: women in general life, but it was towards her, obviously,
9:23
Speaker 2: and he yelled at her a lot, and she used
9:27
Speaker 2: to yell at him a fair a bit.
9:29
Speaker 1: It's been widely reported that when Paul is sixteen, his
9:33
Speaker 1: mother tells him he's illegitimate, the result of an affair.
9:39
Speaker 1: According to Bernardo's own account, the news devastates him. The
9:43
Speaker 1: weather that claim is true or an attempt by his
9:47
Speaker 1: mother to distance herself from his predatory father remains unclear.
9:52
Speaker 3: He was very angry at his mom, had a very
9:56
Speaker 3: strained relationship with his mom.
9:58
Speaker 4: After finding out about.
9:59
Speaker 1: That, neighbors we spoke with said no one was ever
10:03
Speaker 1: invited inside the Bernardo home. The shame doesn't just disappear,
10:08
Speaker 1: it gets redirected.
10:11
Speaker 2: Paul always had these sexual fantasies that he wanted to,
10:16
Speaker 2: you know, sexually abused women. He always sort of had
10:19
Speaker 2: the fantasies when he as he was growing up.
10:22
Speaker 1: There are documented reports of voyeurism at this time, Paul
10:26
Speaker 1: watching people through windows, mimicking behavior seen in his father.
10:32
Speaker 1: At one point, he's confronted by a neighbor. Paul himself
10:36
Speaker 1: is assaulted. Police are called, but nothing comes of it.
10:41
Speaker 1: And this is where things start to consolidate. The anger,
10:45
Speaker 1: the instability in the home, what he's witnessed, and what
10:49
Speaker 1: he's internalizing.
10:51
Speaker 3: That sort of translated into other relationships he had with women.
10:55
Speaker 3: He didn't trust them, he didn't like them. He just
11:00
Speaker 3: didn't have any respect for women.
11:01
Speaker 4: They were objects.
11:04
Speaker 3: They weren't humans to him, they were just objects.
11:08
Speaker 1: By high school, that pattern sharpens. He becomes fixated on control,
11:14
Speaker 1: particularly over young women, and the idea of dominance tied
11:19
Speaker 1: to it. Later, a psychiatrist from the prosecution will diagnose
11:24
Speaker 1: him with multiple paraphilic disorders, including sexual sadism, voyeurism, and
11:30
Speaker 1: other related conditions.
11:32
Speaker 5: I met Paul in high school.
11:35
Speaker 1: That's Joanne Gillen, who grew up down the street from
11:38
Speaker 1: the Bernardo family in Scarborough.
11:41
Speaker 5: He was a good looking guy and he was charismatic.
11:47
Speaker 5: As a female, I myself, I thought he lacked confidence
11:52
Speaker 5: and that's why he was so pushy. Maybe, but he
12:00
Speaker 5: had a following of girls that wanted to date them.
12:07
Speaker 1: At his trial, it will later be revealed that Paul
12:11
Speaker 1: Bernardo pressures girlfriends to make his developing fantasies tangible.
12:16
Speaker 2: He had girlfriends and maybe you know, he's a very
12:18
Speaker 2: attractive guy and girls really liked them. But after a
12:22
Speaker 2: few dates he would start to get abusive with them.
12:25
Speaker 3: He started acting out some of his sexual desires early
12:30
Speaker 3: on in those relationships that often scared the women away,
12:33
Speaker 3: like he wanted to put literatures around their neck and
12:38
Speaker 3: tie them up, and things that they just weren't comfortable with.
12:41
Speaker 1: In the early nineteen eighties, Bernardo attends the University of Toronto, Scarborough,
12:46
Speaker 1: studying accounting.
12:48
Speaker 2: His dad was an accountant, and he wanted to be
12:50
Speaker 2: an accountant like his dad, and he eventually went to
12:54
Speaker 2: university and studied accounting.
12:57
Speaker 1: Despite the change in circumstance, I can see his behavior
13:01
Speaker 1: continuing to escalate. During this time, two women obtain peace
13:06
Speaker 1: bonds against him. Those are like restraining orders in Canada.
13:10
Speaker 1: It comes after a series of obscene phone calls by
13:13
Speaker 1: Bernardo and at night something else.
13:17
Speaker 4: He was living two lives.
13:18
Speaker 3: He was living the life of a university student with
13:21
Speaker 3: girlfriends in a social life, while at the same time
13:24
Speaker 3: he was going out late at night and attacking women.
13:27
Speaker 1: Sometime around nineteen eighty six, Bernardo begins a series of
13:32
Speaker 1: sexual assaults in Scarborough, crimes that would later lead to
13:36
Speaker 1: him being identified in the media as quote the Scarborough rapist.
13:42
Speaker 1: Exactly when this begins remains unclear. What we do know
13:47
Speaker 1: is that by nineteen eighty seven he's working as a
13:50
Speaker 1: junior accountant at Price Waterhouse and in May of that year,
13:55
Speaker 1: he attacks a woman walking alone.
13:58
Speaker 2: At the time, women if they were working late at
14:02
Speaker 2: night taking the bus home. The bus had the only
14:04
Speaker 2: stop at bus stops and some of the bus stops
14:08
Speaker 2: were dark, and what Bernardo would do he would follow
14:11
Speaker 2: the late night buses and look for ones where there
14:14
Speaker 2: was you could see there was just a lone woman.
14:18
Speaker 1: What's reported to police is only part of the picture.
14:21
Speaker 1: Over the next three years, fourteen incidents are officially connected,
14:26
Speaker 1: but again that's not the full number. In nineteen ninety five,
14:32
Speaker 1: the Toronto Star reports that calls to crisis lines increase
14:36
Speaker 1: by thirty percent during that period, and Bernardo himself later
14:41
Speaker 1: admits to additional victims, possibly as many as thirty, some
14:47
Speaker 1: occurring outside of Canada.
14:49
Speaker 2: On the side, what he was doing was he was
14:52
Speaker 2: going into the States and smuggling cigarettes and booze and
14:57
Speaker 2: bringing it back over the border and selling it to
15:01
Speaker 2: a gang that we're based in Saint Catherine's.
15:04
Speaker 1: It's important to understand the context here. Sexual violence is
15:08
Speaker 1: significantly underreported. Studies conducted by Justice Canada suggests that a
15:14
Speaker 1: majority of assaults are never reported to police.
15:18
Speaker 2: They'd start about ten thirty or eleven or so on,
15:20
Speaker 2: just go for a couple hours, just following buses, looking
15:25
Speaker 2: for looking for his next victim.
15:27
Speaker 1: In some cases, victims report being threatened, personal information taken,
15:32
Speaker 1: fear extended beyond the attack itself. And as this is happening.
15:38
Speaker 1: The police are searching for a suspect. They even form
15:42
Speaker 1: a task force working with the FBI. According to one report,
15:47
Speaker 1: more than sixty officers are involved. At the same time.
15:51
Speaker 1: In October of nineteen eighty seven, Paul Bernardo meets Carla Hamoka.
16:03
Speaker 2: Carla Haimolca grew up in Saint Catharine's, which is, you know,
16:08
Speaker 2: near the very pleasant city near the American border. Family
16:12
Speaker 2: of three girls, mother and father. Middle class, very well
16:16
Speaker 2: liked family. They always had sleep bowarers at her house.
16:22
Speaker 3: Carla was a typical teenage girl in some respects. She
16:27
Speaker 3: had close girlfriends, She did fairly good at school, was
16:32
Speaker 3: involved in school activities. She had a part time job
16:36
Speaker 3: at a pet store and then out of that clinic.
16:39
Speaker 1: Now, before we go any further, it's worth pausing on
16:43
Speaker 1: the dynamic between Bernardo and Hamolca. At this point, he's
16:48
Speaker 1: twenty three, already the subject of a police task force,
16:52
Speaker 1: and she's seventeen. Whatever conclusions you draw out her later involvement,
16:58
Speaker 1: this is where it begins. But from a developmental standpoint,
17:03
Speaker 1: Carla Hamolka is still years away from full neurological maturity.
17:08
Speaker 1: That doesn't remove responsibility, but it does matter when you're
17:12
Speaker 1: trying to understand how this relationship forms.
17:16
Speaker 3: Carla and a colleague from work went down to the
17:20
Speaker 3: lobby restaurant late at night to grab a bite to eat.
17:24
Speaker 3: They were in their pajama pants. It was just a
17:26
Speaker 3: casual thing.
17:27
Speaker 2: Purely by chance. Bernardo went into the restaurant and he
17:31
Speaker 2: saw the Carla with her friends, and he came over
17:34
Speaker 2: and Paul did, as usual, see who you can hit
17:37
Speaker 2: on maybe, and the two of them, Paul and Carla,
17:41
Speaker 2: they just something just clicked.
17:43
Speaker 1: The first meeting happens very quickly.
17:46
Speaker 3: Immediately, Carla and her friend invited Paul and his friend
17:51
Speaker 3: up to the hotel room where they were watching movies,
17:55
Speaker 3: and Carla and Paul ended up sleeping together that night
17:58
Speaker 3: for the first time with the friends in the room,
18:01
Speaker 3: so kind of setting the tone for the type of
18:03
Speaker 3: relationship that they would have.
18:05
Speaker 1: The relationship continues to escalate fast. Bernardo begins introducing elements
18:11
Speaker 1: of control.
18:13
Speaker 3: Bernardo asked Carla to do the things that he asked
18:16
Speaker 3: other girlfriends, and she went along.
18:18
Speaker 4: With it, but things progressed from there.
18:21
Speaker 1: Research on coercive control shows that this kind of behavior
18:25
Speaker 1: is rarely immediate it's introduced gradually. What you're seeing here
18:30
Speaker 1: is grooming, love bombing at the start, then pushing boundaries,
18:35
Speaker 1: seeing what holds, and over time what once felt unacceptable
18:40
Speaker 1: becomes normal.
18:41
Speaker 4: Bernardo had a camcorder.
18:43
Speaker 3: Campquorders in nineteen ninety were a big deal and he
18:48
Speaker 3: filmed everything is Karla.
18:51
Speaker 1: What's important here is that this isn't enough for Paul Bernardo.
18:58
Speaker 1: Even as the relationship inten hensifies, he continues attacking women
19:03
Speaker 1: in Scarborough over the next two years. Multiple attacks are
19:07
Speaker 1: linked to him. Victims describe a consistent approach control, intimidation,
19:13
Speaker 1: and language that echoes what he grew up around. At
19:18
Speaker 1: this point, Bernardo has largely disengaged from work. He quits
19:22
Speaker 1: his job, begins living on credit, which is something he
19:25
Speaker 1: continues up until his arrest, and on May twenty fourth,
19:29
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, he declares bankruptcy. Two days later, he
19:34
Speaker 1: attacks again. This time he makes a key mistake.
19:44
Speaker 2: The thirteenth victum I believe he was walking down the
19:47
Speaker 2: street and he bumped into her, and they struck up
19:50
Speaker 2: a conversation as they were walking on the street together
19:52
Speaker 2: and she had no idea woman, and when they got
19:57
Speaker 2: to a dark area, dragged her in some bushes and
19:59
Speaker 2: she was ab to give the police very good sketch
20:02
Speaker 2: of him.
20:03
Speaker 1: This is Joe Anne Gillen, who grew up in the
20:05
Speaker 1: same neighborhood and went to high school with Bernardo. She
20:09
Speaker 1: recalls mutual friends recognizing the sketch widely publicized in local media.
20:15
Speaker 5: Both saw the composite sketch and they both said they
20:21
Speaker 5: believed it was Paul Bernardo and.
20:26
Speaker 1: They had reported it. Reporter Kathy Canzora, who covered the
20:31
Speaker 1: case in real time, recalls the same thing.
20:34
Speaker 3: People started calling the police, identifying him as a possible suspect.
20:38
Speaker 4: Police even went to his house and took his DNA.
20:43
Speaker 1: In November of nineteen ninety. Bernardo provides saliva, hair and
20:47
Speaker 1: blood samples for DNA analysis.
20:50
Speaker 2: He readily gave them a DNA sample and they took
20:54
Speaker 2: his DNA. They just kept it and sat on the
20:56
Speaker 2: shelf for over two years.
20:59
Speaker 1: That sample actually sits for twenty six months. The results
21:03
Speaker 1: don't come back until January of nineteen ninety three, and
21:07
Speaker 1: during that time the murders are committed. The question is
21:11
Speaker 1: why lack of resources. Certainly it experienced with serial offenders likely,
21:18
Speaker 1: but there's something else. From what I found. DNA testing
21:23
Speaker 1: was prioritized based on perceived likelihood, and the task force
21:27
Speaker 1: was relying on an offender profile provided by the FBI,
21:32
Speaker 1: a profile that didn't match Bernardo, and because of that,
21:37
Speaker 1: he's deprioritized not once, but twice, and even to this day,
21:43
Speaker 1: we still don't understand the true cost of those decisions.
21:48
Speaker 6: Reading, I remember the bankruptcies that happened around a couple.
21:54
Speaker 1: Days before.
21:56
Speaker 6: The sexual assault, that the composite Chino that was.
22:01
Speaker 1: That's Paul Bernardo speaking with investigators while incarcerated in two
22:05
Speaker 1: thousand and seven. The reason for this interview traces back
22:10
Speaker 1: to another case. On June nineteenth, nineteen ninety, twenty two
22:15
Speaker 1: year old University of Toronto student Elizabeth Bain disappears in Scarborough.
22:21
Speaker 1: Three days later, her car is found signs of foul play,
22:25
Speaker 1: her body is never recovered.
22:29
Speaker 2: Did you kill Elizabeth Bain on June nineteenth, nineteen ninety.
22:34
Speaker 6: Well, it's a load of question. I mean, are we
22:37
Speaker 6: going to go back and go through the time sequence
22:40
Speaker 6: of what happened in la I mean, I could just
22:42
Speaker 6: give a yes and no answer, but you know, there's
22:44
Speaker 6: a lot of issues about that, right, you know, the
22:46
Speaker 6: Carlo Zamier roll, who did what where?
22:48
Speaker 2: When?
22:49
Speaker 6: This is why I said, did you guys, you know,
22:50
Speaker 6: go down there to get a polygraph to get to
22:52
Speaker 6: see if she was telling the truth, Like why didn't
22:54
Speaker 6: Devin do it in the first place.
22:57
Speaker 1: To this day, it remains unclear if Elizabeth Baine is
23:01
Speaker 1: a victim of Paul Bernardo. Her boyfriend, Robert Baltovich, was
23:05
Speaker 1: convicted of her murder at the time, but later exonerated.
23:10
Speaker 1: He has long maintained that Bernardo is responsible. And then
23:15
Speaker 1: there's this Karla Homolka speaking to investigators about the same victim.
23:21
Speaker 7: I think the only thing that he ever said what
23:24
Speaker 7: about her was that her boyfriend did it or something
23:27
Speaker 7: like that. But there wasn't any real extensive discussion. But
23:31
Speaker 7: he talked about like all all of the women that
23:34
Speaker 7: were just bearing.
23:36
Speaker 1: Like many of these cases, the line isn't clear. When
23:41
Speaker 1: does escalation become homicide, When does fantasy become action. This
23:47
Speaker 1: is roughly six months before the first confirmed murder, and
23:51
Speaker 1: that uncertainty is the part that still lingers.
23:55
Speaker 3: Bernardo knew that the police were on his case, so
23:59
Speaker 3: he he moved from Scarborough to Saint Catherine's.
24:04
Speaker 1: By nineteen ninety, Bernardo proposes to Carla Hamolka, who has
24:08
Speaker 1: just graduated high school. Together, they move in with her
24:13
Speaker 1: family in Saint Catharine's, just outside of Toronto.
24:17
Speaker 3: Once Paul Bernardo moved in with the Homolka family, he
24:21
Speaker 3: became obsessed with Carla's younger sister, Tammy Hamulka.
24:25
Speaker 1: At the time, Tammy Homolka is fifteen, there are reports
24:30
Speaker 1: of Bernardo focusing obsessive attention on Carla's younger sister. Bernardo's
24:36
Speaker 1: sadism is hardening around power and objectification, a fixation on
24:42
Speaker 1: virginity that makes grim psychological sense given his upbringing. It
24:48
Speaker 1: is an intimacy he's after. It's a domination over something
24:52
Speaker 1: he sees as pure. This manifests on December twenty third,
24:57
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, when Carla allters Tammy's drinks.
25:02
Speaker 3: There is video from that night that shows Tammy slurring
25:07
Speaker 3: her words seeing She's saying that she's seeing double.
25:11
Speaker 4: She's clearly under the influence.
25:13
Speaker 1: Because of sensitivities on these platforms. I have to be
25:17
Speaker 1: careful in how I describe what follows, But what matters
25:21
Speaker 1: is that we understand the roles Tammy is deliberately incapacitated,
25:26
Speaker 1: and while she's in that state, she is assaulted. Both
25:30
Speaker 1: Homocha and Bernardo participate and it's recorded. Afterwards Tammy goes
25:38
Speaker 1: into medical distress.
25:40
Speaker 2: What they did after she started choking. They put all
25:42
Speaker 2: her clothes back on, took her to her bedroom and
25:46
Speaker 2: then called nine one one. They said, you know, she's
25:50
Speaker 2: having trouble breathing, and they called nine one one and
25:53
Speaker 2: ambulance came took her, but she was dead on arrival
25:55
Speaker 2: at hospital. It was just passed off as an accidental death.
26:00
Speaker 1: Bernardo and Hamoka are interviewed together, and their account to
26:04
Speaker 1: authorities would later be described as quote scripted. Yet the
26:09
Speaker 1: event is not investigated thoroughly.
26:12
Speaker 2: The red flags weren't really followed up at that time.
26:16
Speaker 1: In the aftermath, the relationship between Bernardo and Homolka shifts again.
26:22
Speaker 3: At that point, Carla and Paul were already engaged, and
26:26
Speaker 3: Carla says that Paul used the death of her sister
26:34
Speaker 3: to force her to carry on with the marriage, because
26:39
Speaker 3: at that point she didn't want to get married, but
26:41
Speaker 3: he said, you have to marry me, or ald tell
26:46
Speaker 3: your parents what happened to your sister, And she says
26:50
Speaker 3: that he also used that moving forward for every other
26:54
Speaker 3: criminal act they committed.
26:56
Speaker 1: This is where the debate begins.
27:00
Speaker 2: He was definitely an abused woman, but I mean she
27:04
Speaker 2: could have just left him.
27:07
Speaker 1: That sentiment is common, but the research it complicates things.
27:13
Speaker 1: In coercive relationships, leaving isn't always a simple decision. Control
27:18
Speaker 1: is reinforced over time through pressure, fear, and leverage. Victims
27:24
Speaker 1: can become psychologically bound to the relationship, especially when there's
27:29
Speaker 1: manipulation or shared wrongdoing involved, and in this case, that's
27:34
Speaker 1: what we see. After Tammy's death, they move into their
27:44
Speaker 1: own home. On paper, it looks like a reset, a
27:48
Speaker 1: grieving couple starting over, but that's not what this is.
27:53
Speaker 1: Bernardo has already begun to detach from ordinary life. He's
27:57
Speaker 1: not working, he's living on credit, and he leans on
28:00
Speaker 1: Homolka's income to rent a house, drive a sports car,
28:04
Speaker 1: and carry a cell phone status symbolist at the time.
28:08
Speaker 1: At night, he drinks heavily, he takes sedatives. Homolka steals
28:12
Speaker 1: from her job. The fantasy life is no longer something
28:16
Speaker 1: he visits in secret.
28:18
Speaker 3: He wanted to try again, and this time he wanted
28:23
Speaker 3: to have this person as a sex slave, as someone
28:26
Speaker 3: he could control and sexually assault over a period of time,
28:32
Speaker 3: not just a one time event.
28:35
Speaker 1: Remember this is nineteen ninety one and one of the
28:38
Speaker 1: biggest cultural touchstones in North America is silence of the lands.
28:43
Speaker 1: Bernardo sees in it something he already wants. Control, captivity,
28:48
Speaker 1: dominations sustained over time. This again is Bernardo during a
28:55
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven interrogation.
28:57
Speaker 6: The attention, but the profile is a serial killer, pays
29:00
Speaker 6: attention to all the news media is a narcissistic personal
29:04
Speaker 6: blah blah blis all that crap.
29:06
Speaker 1: This interview with Bernardo is deeply fascinating because for most
29:12
Speaker 1: of it he's complaining about how he's being portrayed, about
29:17
Speaker 1: the police labeling him in the media as a liar
29:20
Speaker 1: despite admitting to multiple murders and acknowledging more assaults than
29:25
Speaker 1: he can even recall. I will post the full interview
29:30
Speaker 1: for you inside Unmarked Case Files, a research portal. But
29:36
Speaker 1: back in nineteen ninety one, what matters psychologically is that
29:40
Speaker 1: he's no longer satisfied by opportunistic attacks alone. The fantasy
29:46
Speaker 1: has to become more elaborate, more immersive, more total. This
29:51
Speaker 1: is no longer just about chasing risk in the dark
29:55
Speaker 1: and disappearing into the night. On June fifteenth, ninety one,
30:00
Speaker 1: Bernardo is driving in Burlington alone, it's late at night
30:06
Speaker 1: when he comes across Leslie Mahaffey.
30:09
Speaker 3: Leslie Mahaffey lived in Burlington with her mom and dad
30:13
Speaker 3: and her little brother. Burlington is about halfway between Toronto
30:16
Speaker 3: and Saint Catherines, where Bernardo was now living.
30:20
Speaker 4: And she had been out that night.
30:23
Speaker 3: At a memorial for some kids at her school and
30:27
Speaker 3: another high school who had died in a car accident
30:30
Speaker 3: just the week before.
30:32
Speaker 1: And this is important. By all accounts, he's not looking
30:35
Speaker 1: for Leslie specifically.
30:37
Speaker 3: There's no indication that he had seen lest In Mahaffee
30:40
Speaker 3: ever before that night.
30:42
Speaker 4: It was just.
30:44
Speaker 1: Opportunity.
30:45
Speaker 2: She was walking home with friends and they walked her
30:48
Speaker 2: to her house and she went to the side door,
30:51
Speaker 2: which she's always been in, but it was locked, so
30:54
Speaker 2: it was like, was your fourteen year old girls? Two
30:57
Speaker 2: o'clock in the morning. So she went to a nearby
30:59
Speaker 2: store down the street, used the phone and called up
31:02
Speaker 2: on her friends and said, I can't get into the house.
31:05
Speaker 1: Police reports indicate Mahafi speaks to friends and hesitates to
31:09
Speaker 1: wake her parents. After that brief call, she returns home,
31:14
Speaker 1: and so she.
31:14
Speaker 2: Went back to her house. She was sort of in
31:17
Speaker 2: the backyard trying to get the courage to knock on
31:19
Speaker 2: the door and who should pop up with Bernardo.
31:23
Speaker 1: According to the prosecution at trial, Bernardo lures Leslie into
31:27
Speaker 1: his car with the promise of cigarettes, abducts her and
31:31
Speaker 1: takes her back to the house where he wakes Hamulka.
31:35
Speaker 2: Arla was sleeping, and you know, haul brought her in said,
31:38
Speaker 2: look what I've about. You know, we've got a suck
31:40
Speaker 2: slave for us.
31:42
Speaker 1: What happens next is meticulously documented, and I'm going to
31:46
Speaker 1: be careful in how I describe it. What matters is
31:50
Speaker 1: that the victim is held in the home for two days,
31:53
Speaker 1: and what she endures is recorded, and the accounts over
31:58
Speaker 1: Homolka's role begin to split Carla.
32:02
Speaker 2: As she said later, she was afraid to do anything.
32:05
Speaker 1: That becomes central to everything that follows, because if you're
32:09
Speaker 1: trying to understand Homolka psychologically, this is where the easy
32:14
Speaker 1: answers break down.
32:16
Speaker 3: When Carla Homolka first saw that Leslie Mahaffe was in
32:20
Speaker 3: her house, she also noticed that there were two champagne
32:24
Speaker 3: flutes on the dining room table that Paul had used
32:28
Speaker 3: to give a beverage of some kind to Leslie, and
32:34
Speaker 3: Carla was probably more upset about the fact that the
32:38
Speaker 3: champagne flutes had been used as opposed to that her
32:42
Speaker 3: husband had abducted a young girl and had her in
32:47
Speaker 3: their home. She was very angry at Paul because these
32:50
Speaker 3: were special champagne flutes that they had received as a
32:53
Speaker 3: wedding gift.
32:54
Speaker 1: That detail is chilling because of what it suggests about normalization.
33:00
Speaker 1: Bernardo is constantly testing boundaries and then expanding them. But
33:05
Speaker 1: there's something else happening here as well. By this point,
33:09
Speaker 1: Homolka is not only being controlled, she's also being implicated.
33:14
Speaker 3: Leslie was strangled with an electrical cord by Paul Bernardo
33:20
Speaker 3: with Carla Homolka watching. Paul was able to hold this
33:24
Speaker 3: over Carla Homolke's head and say, listen, if you don't
33:29
Speaker 3: do what I tell you to do, I will tell
33:32
Speaker 3: your parents. I will show them the videotape, because there
33:35
Speaker 3: is videotape of it.
33:37
Speaker 1: This is how abusers keep people, not just through fear
33:40
Speaker 1: of injury, but through shame, incrimination, and the destruction of
33:45
Speaker 1: every safe exit. And after the murder. This is personified
33:50
Speaker 1: by family obligations.
33:51
Speaker 3: They put her body down in the basement while the
33:55
Speaker 3: family came over for dinner.
33:57
Speaker 2: Father's they supper. I believe it wasn't and they're there
34:01
Speaker 2: the dinner table with them and in the basement here's
34:03
Speaker 2: a body.
34:04
Speaker 1: This is worth sitting with for a minute, not because
34:08
Speaker 1: it's sensational, but because it shows how fully compartmentalized Bernardo
34:13
Speaker 1: and Homolka have become. Afterwards, they take steps to conceal
34:19
Speaker 1: what happened, but they need materials, they make purchases, and
34:23
Speaker 1: that creates a trail.
34:25
Speaker 4: Paul Bernardo.
34:28
Speaker 3: Dismembered her body with a saw with an electric saw,
34:31
Speaker 3: and then put the body parts in concrete blocks, which
34:36
Speaker 3: he took with the help of Karla Hamolka, to a
34:39
Speaker 3: nearby lake and dropped in the lake.
34:42
Speaker 1: That would later matter because those concrete blocks are dropped
34:46
Speaker 1: into Lake Gibson, where shifting water reveals them only two
34:50
Speaker 1: weeks later, on June twenty ninth, nineteen ninety one.
34:54
Speaker 2: You'd think that maybe they would check around who's been
34:57
Speaker 2: buying some cement lately, but that avenue was never investigated.
35:03
Speaker 1: That is the entire Bernardo case in miniature again and again.
35:08
Speaker 1: There are points where the common sense follow up is absent.
35:13
Speaker 1: And while this is happening, Bernardo and Homolka are moving
35:17
Speaker 1: forward on their honeymoon. Bernardo tells Homolka he is responsible
35:22
Speaker 1: for the Scarborough assaults. He claims there are thirty victims,
35:27
Speaker 1: some in Buffalo, New York, and they videotape each other
35:31
Speaker 1: bragging about the murders.
35:33
Speaker 4: Not far away, Leslie's body was being discovered.
35:38
Speaker 1: And this is where people start reaching for explanations that
35:42
Speaker 1: don't quite fit. Is Homolka delusional? Is this some kind
35:47
Speaker 1: of shared madness. I don't think that's the right frame.
35:51
Speaker 1: A person can be controlled and still act, a person
35:55
Speaker 1: can be terrorized and still become complicit. That's what makes
35:59
Speaker 1: this case so hard to sit with.
36:02
Speaker 2: You know, it was after Tammy's death, so she wasn't
36:06
Speaker 2: going to notify the police or anything, because she always
36:09
Speaker 2: was afraid that she would go to jail and forever,
36:12
Speaker 2: so she she just accepted it.
36:17
Speaker 1: After Leslie's murder, Bernardo becomes even more erratic. The control
36:23
Speaker 1: over Hamulka sharpens with increasing domestic abuse. Nick pron recalls
36:28
Speaker 1: a story that captures just how unstable things have become
36:32
Speaker 1: in the Bernardo household.
36:33
Speaker 2: Carlo loved animals. She had an iguana in her house
36:36
Speaker 2: and I think one time it bit Paul. He got
36:39
Speaker 2: really pissed off and he he took it and he
36:43
Speaker 2: cut the head, cut its head off, and then he
36:46
Speaker 2: cooked it up, cut into pieces and cooked it up
36:50
Speaker 2: and made her eat eat pieces of it.
36:52
Speaker 3: It was.
36:54
Speaker 2: It was just bizarre.
37:03
Speaker 1: By nineteen ninety two, the public record begins to thin,
37:07
Speaker 1: partially because Canadian publication bands limited what could be reported
37:12
Speaker 1: at the time, but from trial records we know this.
37:17
Speaker 1: Bernardo and Homoka attempt to recreate what happened with Tammy,
37:22
Speaker 1: this time with an adult woman. She's never publicly identified,
37:27
Speaker 1: but in court she's referred to as Jane Doe.
37:31
Speaker 3: Carla befriended her because Paul, she says, had told her
37:34
Speaker 3: to find someone that they could use as a sex
37:39
Speaker 3: slave in their house, so she befriended her, had over
37:44
Speaker 3: for sleepovers.
37:46
Speaker 1: Trial records indicate the victim is given medication, again taken
37:50
Speaker 1: from Homoka's workplace, and while she's incapacitated, she's assaulted. Both
37:56
Speaker 1: participate and it's recorded.
38:00
Speaker 4: Jane Doe.
38:02
Speaker 3: Was never aware that she'd been assaulted until years later
38:05
Speaker 3: when the videotapes were found and she was seen on
38:09
Speaker 3: the video.
38:10
Speaker 1: Less than a month later, April sixteenth, nineteen ninety two,
38:14
Speaker 1: they act again, but this time it's different, more coordinated.
38:20
Speaker 1: Bernardo and Homolka are driving past Holy Cross Secondary School
38:25
Speaker 1: when they see fifteen year old Kristin French, and this
38:28
Speaker 1: time it's Carla who makes the approach.
38:32
Speaker 2: Carla got out of the car and she had a
38:34
Speaker 2: map in her hands and she put it on there
38:36
Speaker 2: and she acted all dumb and you know, I'm I'm
38:38
Speaker 2: not from here, I'm trying to find this. Can you
38:40
Speaker 2: help me? And so she came over to help her.
38:43
Speaker 3: Paul got out of the car, came around and pushed
38:46
Speaker 3: Kristin into the car, and Carla hopped in the back
38:49
Speaker 3: seat and reached in and grabbed Kristin and held her
38:51
Speaker 3: by the hair to hold her down.
38:53
Speaker 1: Unlike earlier attacks, this is a clear plan. Kristin French
38:58
Speaker 1: is kept alive for two weeks and at times Carla
39:03
Speaker 1: is alone with her.
39:05
Speaker 2: Carla was alone with Kristen. Bernardo went out to get
39:08
Speaker 2: some food and Kristen suggested this restaurant that she knew
39:11
Speaker 2: would take him a half hour and she was alone
39:15
Speaker 2: with Kristin and Carla could have saved her life. She
39:17
Speaker 2: could have just called the police. She would have saved
39:19
Speaker 2: her life. And she didn't remember. When we heard this
39:22
Speaker 2: in court, we were just we're gobsmacked. We just couldn't believe.
39:27
Speaker 2: I mean, there was a massive police manhunt underway and
39:32
Speaker 2: there were cruisers all over the place. They would be
39:33
Speaker 2: in that house in about three seconds if she'd called
39:35
Speaker 2: the police.
39:37
Speaker 1: This is another key moment in the debate because it
39:40
Speaker 1: forces a question that doesn't have a clear answer. When
39:45
Speaker 1: does a person stop being a victim and become a
39:48
Speaker 1: perpetrator And when there is a moment, clear, uninterrupted where
39:53
Speaker 1: action is possible, what does it mean if nothing happens
39:59
Speaker 1: Eventually Kristin French is killed and her body is left
40:03
Speaker 1: in a location that feels intentional.
40:06
Speaker 3: Leslie was buried in Burlington, near her home. Kristin was
40:13
Speaker 3: abducted at twenty thirty minutes away from there, and her
40:19
Speaker 3: body was purposely dumped right beside Leslie's grave.
40:24
Speaker 1: After the abduction of Kristin French police launch a large
40:28
Speaker 1: scale search. Witnesses report seeing a teenage girl forced into
40:33
Speaker 1: a vehicle in broad daylight, several witnesses are able to
40:38
Speaker 1: provide a description a light colored car Camaro style driven
40:43
Speaker 1: by a man. Investigators begin canvassing the area looking for
40:48
Speaker 1: vehicles that match. That's how Paul Bernardo comes onto their radar.
40:54
Speaker 1: He owns a light colored sports car. He lives within
40:57
Speaker 1: driving distance. He fits the general description, and two days
41:01
Speaker 1: after the abduction police go to his home.
41:05
Speaker 2: When they went to his house, they saw the car again.
41:08
Speaker 2: Like as Garber and the police, he was very outgoing
41:11
Speaker 2: and openly and come on into the hog invited. The
41:13
Speaker 2: man wasn't nervous or anything, and so they said, no,
41:17
Speaker 2: this ain't the guy, let's move on.
41:20
Speaker 3: He was very proud of himself after because he believed
41:22
Speaker 3: that he had fooled them and he had remained cool
41:25
Speaker 3: as a cucumber and had tricked them into thinking he
41:28
Speaker 3: had nothing to do.
41:30
Speaker 4: With any criminal activity.
41:31
Speaker 1: And this is where the system fails again. They don't
41:35
Speaker 1: see what's right in front of them. But after this,
41:38
Speaker 1: despite no police intervention, things begin to fracture. Hamoka becomes
41:44
Speaker 1: increasingly unstable under the pressure as media coverage intensifies. This
41:50
Speaker 1: culminates in early nineteen ninety three, when Bernardo violently assaults
41:56
Speaker 1: Hmolka during an argument. Medical records indicate she is assaulted
42:01
Speaker 1: with a flashlight, leaving her with severe facial injuries. She's hospitalized.
42:07
Speaker 2: He beat her with the flashlight and gave her the
42:09
Speaker 2: two black eyes. I think they called it raccoon eyes
42:12
Speaker 2: were That's when she went to the hospital.
42:15
Speaker 3: After that, her parents and her sister stage sort of
42:18
Speaker 3: an intervention to try to convince her to come home,
42:21
Speaker 3: which eventually she finally did leave Bernardo after that.
42:25
Speaker 1: Last beating And now finally the system begins to catch up.
42:31
Speaker 1: The DNA results taken twenty six months earlier come back
42:36
Speaker 1: identifying Paul Bernardo as the Scarborough rapist.
42:41
Speaker 3: At the same time, Karla Hamolka had started talking to
42:45
Speaker 3: the police about Paul Bernardo.
42:49
Speaker 1: On February seventeenth, nineteen ninety three, Paul Bernardo is arrested.
42:55
Speaker 1: That same night, Pamolka admits to her aunt and uncle
42:58
Speaker 1: that Bernardo is in fact the Scarborough rapist, that the
43:02
Speaker 1: couple were involved in the murder of Mahafi and French,
43:06
Speaker 1: and that the crimes had been videotaped.
43:10
Speaker 3: Carla Homolka had a lawyer who entered into discussions with
43:16
Speaker 3: the Crown Attorney to have her testify against Paul Bernardo.
43:21
Speaker 3: She agreed to tell them what she knew about the
43:24
Speaker 3: abduction and deaths of Leslie and Kristen in exchange for
43:27
Speaker 3: only being charged with manslaughter.
43:34
Speaker 1: The deal Carla Homolka makes with prosecutors is controversial even now.
43:40
Speaker 1: At first she presents as a victim. There are visible injuries,
43:45
Speaker 1: a documented pattern of abuse, and in cases like this,
43:49
Speaker 1: prosecutors are trained to recognize coercive control. They understand that
43:54
Speaker 1: victims don't always leave, don't always resist in ways that
43:58
Speaker 1: we expect.
44:00
Speaker 2: People were very sympathetic towards Carla. They saw the battered
44:04
Speaker 2: eyes and black eyes and realized that she was a
44:07
Speaker 2: battered wife and she was forced to do everything, so
44:10
Speaker 2: all the sympathy was towards her.
44:13
Speaker 3: After they ironed out that deal, which has been called
44:16
Speaker 3: the deal with the devil, she sat down with them
44:19
Speaker 3: for several days and told them everything that had happened
44:22
Speaker 3: in the house and also what had happened to her sister.
44:28
Speaker 1: And this is the trade. They offer her a reduced
44:32
Speaker 1: sentence in exchange for testimony because at this point they
44:36
Speaker 1: don't have the full picture.
44:37
Speaker 2: Carla said there was videos but they couldn't find them.
44:40
Speaker 2: Police were in there for days or weeks, they couldn't
44:44
Speaker 2: find the tapes.
44:45
Speaker 1: So the question becomes practical, do you risk losing the
44:48
Speaker 1: case against Bernardo or do you secure it using the
44:52
Speaker 1: only witness you have. Prosecutors choose certainty.
44:57
Speaker 2: They agreed to a twelve year sentence. They didn't have
45:00
Speaker 2: all the details at the time, and they didn't have
45:02
Speaker 2: the tapes, and so they agreed to a twelve year
45:05
Speaker 2: sentence for her trial was behind closed doors twelve years.
45:13
Speaker 1: This is where the system reveals something about itself, because
45:18
Speaker 1: this isn't a failure of law, it's a function of
45:21
Speaker 1: it plea. Deals are designed for exactly this scenario. But
45:25
Speaker 1: that system assumes something critical, that you have enough of
45:29
Speaker 1: the truth, and in this case they don't because at
45:33
Speaker 1: the same time this deal is being finalized, Bernardo knows
45:37
Speaker 1: exactly what the missing pieces are.
45:40
Speaker 2: Bernardo's lawyer at the time sending a crew and they
45:45
Speaker 2: chopped up the ceiling what a crops say. They call
45:48
Speaker 2: it plot lights for a reason, or where they where
45:51
Speaker 2: the drug addicts or drug dealers hide the plot and
45:53
Speaker 2: they found the tapes.
45:55
Speaker 1: The tapes were never gone, They were in the house
45:58
Speaker 1: the entire time.
46:00
Speaker 3: I have a feeling she thought those tapes might never
46:02
Speaker 3: be found because she couldn't find them, but she told
46:06
Speaker 3: them they existed. Because when the tapes were eventually found
46:11
Speaker 3: and watched, she doesn't look like a victim. Carla Homolka
46:14
Speaker 3: looks like she's a willing participant. She looks like she's
46:17
Speaker 3: enjoying it.
46:18
Speaker 1: And this is where the case fractures, because now there
46:22
Speaker 1: are two versions of Karla Homolka, the one prosecutors made
46:26
Speaker 1: a deal with and the one on tape.
46:29
Speaker 5: It disgusted me that they would make such a deal
46:33
Speaker 5: with her once. I mean, the deal was to me fine,
46:38
Speaker 5: but once they found the tapes, then the deal should
46:42
Speaker 5: have been off.
46:44
Speaker 1: On July sixth, nineteen ninety three, Homolchus conviction and plea
46:48
Speaker 1: deal are announced in court. She pleads guilty to two
46:53
Speaker 1: counts of manslaughter. Her twelve year sentence all but guarantees
46:58
Speaker 1: her future release.
46:59
Speaker 2: That's when we learned about Carla's involvement and her role,
47:04
Speaker 2: and it was it was shocking. You know that she
47:11
Speaker 2: had helped abduct Christian French. She set up her baby's
47:16
Speaker 2: sister and could have saved the life of Kristin by
47:18
Speaker 2: letting her go, and we heard all I remember the
47:21
Speaker 2: reporters were we're in courting and we heard that, and
47:24
Speaker 2: we went outside, had break and we were in a
47:28
Speaker 2: circle there and we were talking and we just couldn't
47:32
Speaker 2: believe it.
47:33
Speaker 1: Carla Amolka is released from prison in two thousand and five.
47:38
Speaker 1: She remains in Canada. Shortly after her release, Hamolka gave
47:42
Speaker 1: an interview in French to the CBC. It was controlled, measured,
47:47
Speaker 1: and ultimately brought us no closer to the truth. In
47:51
Speaker 1: the years since the public has done something, the system
47:54
Speaker 1: no longer can. They've tracked her, followed her name, changes movements.
48:01
Speaker 1: It's an ongoing informal surveillance, driven less by curiosity and
48:06
Speaker 1: more by something unresolved. Paul Bernardo remains incarcerated, serving a
48:12
Speaker 1: sentence that all but guarantees he will die there, and
48:16
Speaker 1: in the end were left to sort through the details ourselves,
48:20
Speaker 1: because this story was never just about what happened. It's
48:24
Speaker 1: about how it was allowed to happen. A system that
48:28
Speaker 1: missed warning signs, that moved too slowly, that made decisions
48:33
Speaker 1: without all the facts.
48:36
Speaker 4: Paul Bernardo was the mastermind.
48:38
Speaker 3: And I still to this day, hear people say that
48:43
Speaker 3: she's the evil one, that she is the worst one
48:48
Speaker 3: out of the two of them, because she killed her sister.
48:51
Speaker 4: But I wonder would she have done what she did
48:53
Speaker 4: without Paul Bernardo. I don't think so.
48:56
Speaker 3: I think Paul Bernardo is the deviant.
49:02
Speaker 1: Before we wrap, a few show notes. First, in nineteen
49:06
Speaker 1: ninety six, when in prison, Paul Bernardo fell victim to
49:10
Speaker 1: a targeted attack, and our producer John Dedau tracked down
49:14
Speaker 1: one of the inmates who carried out the assault. This
49:18
Speaker 1: man is now released, but gave a fascinating account of
49:21
Speaker 1: his time incarcerated with Bernardo. It just didn't fit into
49:25
Speaker 1: this episode, so we're gonna post it in full inside
49:28
Speaker 1: Unmarked Case Files, our research portal where you can examine
49:32
Speaker 1: the evidence for yourself. Next, if you want to explore
49:36
Speaker 1: the Charles Manson case through my research and interviews, including
49:40
Speaker 1: with Charles Manson himself, my book Charles Manson The Last Words,
49:44
Speaker 1: is available on Kindle and Amazon. Finally, on a personal note,
49:49
Speaker 1: I just released my first novel. It's called a Plague
49:52
Speaker 1: of Steel. It's a grim dark fantasy war story, very
49:56
Speaker 1: much in that Abercrombie Lane about what war leaves behind.
50:00
Speaker 1: It's available now on Kindle, Amazon and Kindle Unlimited, and
50:05
Speaker 1: if you do dive in, please leave a review, which
50:07
Speaker 1: is the lifeblood for independent authors like myself. This episode
50:12
Speaker 1: of Unmarked was produced by John Adoe and edited by
50:15
Speaker 1: Dave Alderson. Our additional producer is Jesse Demiray. Until next week,
50:21
Speaker 1: this is Unmarked.