The authors of the study characterized these women as “compliant victims.” They concluded that while all the women “express a willingness to exchange their compliance in return for the attention and affection of the sadistic male, there also appears to be a more subtle dynamic operative in which some of the women became assimilated into the sexual aggression of their partner.” They believed that all of the women who engaged in this type of behavior did so only after meeting their partner, and in those cases where the women participated in murder, they would not have done so on their own, independent of the men. Alternatively, the authors felt the males would have murdered even if they had not met their female partner—at least in those seven cases out of the twenty.
Finally, the study concluded: “It is also our opinion that these men and their behaviors do not reflect the more extreme end of the continuum of behavior associated with ‘wife batterers.’ Although some men who batter their wives may also be sexual sadists, it is our impression that the majority of them are not.”
Hybristophilia
Psychiatrists are still trying to unravel the exact dynamics of the relationship between Bernardo and Homolka. Karla was a dominant, smart and aggressive young woman, yet she became totally submissive to Paul. She was no doubt a high-dominance personality and believed that she needed a strong and willful man in her life. The psychopath Bernardo matched the bill. The final link in the formula was Homolka’s total lack of any sense of morality. Despite her intelligence, for whatever reasons, she lacked a moral compass. (Karla was tested for psychopathy and did not score highly on the psychopathy scale, although it is possible that she was smart enough to manipulate her results.) When she came together with the psychopathic Bernardo and went along with him into his fantasies, the path to murder was laid.
If labels are needed for what is wrong with Karla, than hybristophilia could fit the bill, also known as the “Bonnie and Clyde syndrome.” The term is derived from the Greek word ὑβρίζειν (hubrizein), meaning “to commit an outrage against someone” (which in turn is derived from ὕβρις (hubris)) and “philo”, meaning “having a strong affinity or preference for.” It is best described as an attraction in a female toward an aggressive, dominant, sadistic male. It’s why so many women correspond with serial killers and even marry them. A hybristophiliac is not a masochist—seeking out ritual and physical sexual submission—but is aroused by the sadism of her partner toward other victims. Some argue it’s an overdeveloped primitive survival mechanism in the female brain that draws her to mate with and tame for herself the most vicious and aggressive of males in a herd to guarantee her own and her offspring’s survival and dominance. It may explain why women are so frequently excited by and attracted to “bad boys” over “nice guys” and why true crime serial killer literature is so avidly read and consumed by female readers. The serial killer is the ultimate “bad boy” in that instinctual matrix that still lives on and lurks in our brains from thousands of years ago when humans lived like animal herds—a period that over the roughly one million years of humanoid existence is relatively recent—like yesterday. Out of a million years, we have been “civilized” for only about 12,000 years. (That’s like 12 cents out of $100, for a sense of scale.) All sorts of violent, sexual and cannibalistic impulses previously necessary for a species to survive throughout that time, still pulsate, spark and seethe in the primitive human brain, waiting for just the right combination of socialization, trauma, environment, genetics and bio-chemistry to unleash a monster.
What makes so many of the other cases of male-female criminal partnerships different from Bernardo is that in most cases, at least one, if not two of the partners could be described as very obviously and visibly “losers” or overtly dysfunctional. Myra Hindley was meek and stupid with low self-esteem while Ian Brady was smart and cocky but an underachiever with Nazi atrocity fantasies. Both Martha Beck and Carol Bundy were conventionally unattractive, obese with google-eyed Coke-bottle glasses, while their mates were also underachievers with evident mental health and behavioral issues.
Closest to Karla Homolka, Charlene Gallago might have come from “respectable” roots, but her partner Gerald was a convicted sex offender from a family of sex offenders. They were all dramatically dysfunctional or socially marginal before they began killing. This was not completely the case with Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. Even with Paul’s dysfunctional family history, most people were not aware of it, and he successfully maintained a mask of a sane, productive, functioning, hardworking, attractive man making his way up the middle-class ladder of success to potentially greater and better things. Bernardo was no Ian Brady or Gerald Gallego. His mask was very well constructed and was very hard to see through because it was built on a popular consumer society cultural construct of what a “successful” young middle-class male should be aspiring to. Bernardo adopted it like a chameleon’s skin. The same for Karla: a popular girl in her high school, attractive in the conventional sense, smart and ambitious, she was not the “troll” that Martha Beck, Myra Hindley or Carol Bundy were. But she was morally numb. A suburban Mean Girl craving approbation. She was a Facebook ‘like’ slut before there was Facebook. And now these two handsomely beautiful objects of middle-class taste and values, invisibly ugly and evil on the inside, mated. Now the killing would begin.
Prince Charming
By the time Paul Bernardo arrived in St. Catharines to see Karla the following weekend after meeting her, she had told all her Exclusive Diamond Club friends that she had met her Prince Charming. He called at her home and met her parents, and then the two went out to see a movie: The Prince of Darkness, a horror film about the unleashing of an evil spirit into the world. Afterward, Karla had invited some of her friends to her home for a small party. All who met Bernardo agreed with Karla—he was a dream boy. During the party, Karla and Paul slipped away into her bedroom upstairs. When they closed the door, Bernardo noticed Karla’s jean jacket hanging on the handle: It had a pair of handcuffs sewn to it as decoration. Karla told Paul that he could use those on her. He handcuffed her to the rails of her bed and they had sex. Friends of Karla’s remarked that she kept a sexy lingerie teddy hanging in her room with a pair of handcuffs intertwined with it, and that might have been before she met Bernardo.
Paul was charming and bright around her parents and appeared to be an attentive boyfriend. He called Karla his “Little Princess.” He would visit every weekend and Wednesday, bringing flowers and gifts. Homolka would always be ready for him with a syrupy-sweet little note. Hundreds of these notes would be entered into evidence later at his murder trial. After some time, Homolka convinced her parents to allow Paul to spend the night at their house on the couch, so that they could spend more time together during his visits from Scarborough. During the night, Paul would sneak up to Karla’s bedroom for hot muffled furtive sex under her covers and make his way back down to the couch before her parents got up.
Karla soon became aware that her Prince Charming seemed to want to have less vaginal sex with her and preferred that she fellate him instead. Whenever they had vaginal sex, Bernardo seemed to be unable to climax and appeared bored and distracted. They would drive to a popular fishing location, Lake Gibson, and there Bernardo would have Karla perform fellatio on him in the car. Early in their relationship, one night at her house, Karla witnessed Bernardo sneak out into the night and go around the back of the house to watch her 12-year-old sister, Tammy, undressing to go to bed. It was the beginning of Paul’s obsession with Tammy.
Scarborough Rapist
In December 1987, two months after he met Karla, Bernardo committed what is thought to be his first of a series of extremely brutal and violent rapes in Scarborough. Between May of 1987 and December of 1992, Bernardo raped or sexually assaulted at least eighteen women in Scarborough, Peel Region, and St. Catharines and, in tandem with Karla Homolka, killed at least three women in St. Catharines and Burlington.
The rapes were every woman’s worst-case scenario
nightmare: The victims often got off the bus near their home late at night. They were jumped or “blitzed” from behind by a stranger from the dark, dragged out of view behind bushes, forced face down on the ground and ordered to keep their eyes closed as they were beaten, raped, and sodomized viciously. In the first several cases, the rapist failed to successfully penetrate the victim, but as his crimes escalated and as he became more comfortable with his attacks, the later victims were vaginally and anally raped and forced to perform oral sex. The beatings escalated as well. One of the later victims had her collarbone broken.
Toronto Police launched a massive operation to apprehend the serial rapist and even turned to the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit for advice. Just how ‘hit and miss’ FBI profiling can be is evident from the report the FBI submitted to the Toronto Police:
Your offender is a white male, 18 to 25 years of age… we believe your offender lives in the Scarborough area. He is familiar with Scarborough, especially the initial assault sites, and, therefore, in all probability lives in the immediate vicinity of those first assaults. The offender’s anger towards women will be known by those individuals who are close to him.
He will speak disparagingly of women in general conversation with associates. He is sexually experienced but his past relationships with women have been stormy and have ended badly. In all probability he has battered women he has been involved with in the past. He places the blame for all his failures on women. If he has a criminal record, it will be one of assaultive behaviour. The arrests will likely be for assault, disturbing the peace, resisting arrest, domestic disturbance, etc. His aggressive behaviour would have surfaced during adolescence. His education background will be at the high school level with a record of discipline problems. He may have received counselling for his inability to get along with others, his aggressiveness, and or substance abuse. He is bright, but an underachiever in a formal academic setting. He is nocturnal and spends a good deal of time on foot in the target assault area.
We believe your offender is single. The offender has an explosive temper and can easily become enraged. This rage transfers over into the rest of his life. He blames everyone else for his problems.
His work record will be sporadic and spotty as he cannot hold a job due to his inability to handle authority. He is financially supported by his mother or other dominant female in his life. He is a lone wolf type of person. He can deal with people on a superficial level but prefers to be alone.
Paul Bernardo’s name as a possible suspect was first raised in police correspondence in January 1988, after the fifth rape in Scarborough. A woman contacted a personal acquaintance who was a police officer asking for advice on how to recover money she had loaned to Bernardo. After informally speaking with her, the Toronto Police officer filed the following report to the Scarborough Rape Task Force:
METROPOLITAN TORONTO POLICE SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT
SEXUAL ASSAULT 22 Jan 1988
Possible Suspect: Paul Kenneth BERNARDO, 24 yrs. 21 Sir Raymond Dr., (Guildwood & Galloway) M/W, 6", 180 lbs., light brown collar length hair, clean shaven, mole under nose, slightly crooked nose, ukn. eyes, no accent; no scars/tattoo. wears: right hand gold ring with 3 diamonds; possibly a high school ring with red stone. drives: white capri unk. lic. knife: stiletto type (blade not folding) in dark leather case
Info from: Sgt. McNiff 2753 of 52 Division (Island Station) local 2035 …
VIA–[I. F.], 18 yrs., [address, telephone number]
Ms. [F.] is a daughter of friends, and as a result of the information detailed in the following supplementary, asked to see the writer to obtain advice. Her desire was to learn how to end the relationship, and to get some money back that was owed. It was the writer who linked the a/m person to being a suspect to the sexual assaults, rather than any revenge factor in Ms. [F.]
NOTE: details are sketchy–the writer was not taking notes and was not speaking to Ms. [F.] from the point of view of a police officer.
In the early part of 1987, [I. F.] met and started dating Bernardo. They had a normal relationship, with probably sexual relations though this was not stated by [F.]
Bernardo is described as manipulative and aggressive. His behaviour progressed from gesturing to slap her in a joking manner, to threatening to do so, to giving her light taps, which became harder and harder.
On at least one occasion in November, when they were in his car, he wanted her to have sex with him. He pulled out the knife, and wanted to have an orgasm while he held it to her throat: she states she did not have sex with him this way.
In late November, the two were out for the evening, and on the way home, he drove to an isolated factory area. He had been smacking her, and yelling at her. They had an argument, and Ms. [F.] wanted to leave the car, but he wouldn't let her. He worked himself into a frenzy, and was looking for the knife, but didn't find it. At one point, he started talking to himself, and banging his head on the steering wheel saying: “Why do I do this, why?” She got out the car and hid from him. He spent some time looking for her, making promises and threats. She wandered until she found the home of a friend. This was the last time she saw the man. (Prior to the final escape, she had gotten away once, he had caught her, punched and kicked her and rolled her in the mud bringing her back to the car.)
On an earlier occasion, Bernardo had driven [F.] and her girlfriend to a house in Markham, the home of the Van Smirnoffs. The girls were taken to the basement of the home, where two other young men were waiting: the girls thought they were going to a party. It is this officer's opinion that the men had the intention of having group sex. It was only that the girls wanted to get out (despite threats and assault) and the fact the mother of the house was awoken that this did not occur.
Ms. [F.] asked this officer for advice. Despite having been taken to Scarborough General twice for injuries, she did not want charges laid. Her main desire was to have money returned to her she had lent to Bernardo; further she was afraid he would come back and force himself on her. To date, he has not done so.
For purposes of your enquiries, from Ms. F..'s statements, the parents of Bernardo and Van Smirnoffs do not seem like normal parents in that they allow things to go on in their home that normal parents would not. Bernardo is negative on CNI, CPIC, MANNIX. [Police databases.]
Toronto Police sergeant McNiff’s gut feeling that Bernardo was a perfect suspect candidate was bang-on 100 percent correct. But this was 1988 and Toronto Police still routinely worked on paper, not in the electronic digital domain. His report was just another piece of paper in a mountain of paper that needed to be carefully read, remembered, filed and prioritized. There were no easily available computers for analysis and case management, nor easily shareable data platforms.
The report landed on somebody’s desk, was filed away and promptly forgotten. As one investigator later said, “Back then everything was on paper. It was a paper driven process. There was paper everywhere. It was a nightmare. There were walls and walls of stuff.”
Had police followed up on the report and took a closer look at Bernardo in 1988, Tammy Homolka, Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French would still be alive today, women in their forties, probably mothers with children. But the McNiff report was filed away and forgotten.
“Your little girl wants to be abused”
In the meantime, Bernardo was letting his true sexual colour emerge with his 17-year-old girlfriend, Karla. He now ordered her to call herself disparaging names when she performed fellatio: "'cocksucker,' 'cunt,' and 'slut.'" They had to be in that precise order. In the car at Lake Gibson, Karla would have to say as she began fellating him, "My name is Karla. I am 17. I'm your little cocksucker. I'm your little cunt. I'm your little slut."
Bernardo’s rape victims reported that he had demanded that they comply with a similar script.
Then in December, Bernardo announced that since Karla was not a virgin when they met, they should have anal sex. Karla refused and this became a source of stress in their relationship f
or the next two months. Bernardo demanded that Karla invent a name for his penis. She came up with “Snuffles.” A letter sent by Karla to Paul included a love coupon, which stated: “The bearer will receive one cute little blonde 17-year-old to put on her knees between his legs and satisfy his wishes.” In an accompanying note, Karla wrote:
Dear Paul,
You’re a dream come true. You are the best, my Big, Bad, Businessman. I’ve been fantasizing what playful things to do with your body all day. Your strong chest. Your muscular arms. Your beautifully shaped legs. Your hard, flat stomach. And Snuffles, oh wonderful Snuffles. The pleasure I get from touching, from licking, from sucking Snuffles, is indescribable. You know what I love? Having you stick it inside me and making me gasp for air while my parents are in the next room. I love it when you shoot it into my mouth. I want to swallow every drop, and then some. The power you wield over me is indescribable. When we sit together on the couch I have to use all my strength to keep from ripping off your clothes. You make me so horny… I love you an amount I never thought possible. Words can’t even come close to expressing my feelings. With you in my life, I feel complete. Whole. With you by my side nothing can go wrong. You have opened my eyes to a new way of thinking and being. I will love you forever, no matter what.
Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka: The Ken and Barbie Killers (Crimes Canada: True Crimes That Shocked The Nation Book 3) Page 3