the day she was abducted.
(Court exhibit #145)
Kristen Dawn French,
circa 1992. (Canapress)
Number One Sideroad,
where Kristen French’s body was found,
April 30, 1992. (Court exhibit #51-2)
Constable Michael Kershaw (left) and Constable Richard Ciszek enter 57 Bay'iew for the last time
on April 30, 1993. (Canapress)
Bathroom after the poHce vacated 57 Bayview on April 30, 1993. (Police photo)
The Moloch. Mark DeMarco’s Masonic skull,
circa 1873. (Private collection)
f
Karla in hospital after flashlight beating, late evening,
January 6, 1993. (Private collection)
Paul in police van just before his trial began
in May, 1995. (Canapress)
INVISIBLE darkness 277
pletely forgotten about Norma, even though Norma—or rather, Norma’s picture—had made a brief cameo appearance in Karla’s epic movie; the one in which Karla had played her dead sister with such aplomb.
As she had done with Jane before, Karla lured Norma to 57 Bayview for Paul. Where Jane was guileless, Norma was cunningly naive. Where Jane was awkward. Norma was assured. Whereas Jane was short. Norma was tall. It did not much matter to Paul.
As she had done with Jane, Karla called Norma out of the blue. Like Jane, Norma came right over. If possible. Norma was more impressed. She could not believe how nice their house was. In Norma’s estimation, Paul and Karla had everything. With Norma, Karla was far more open. She told Norma that they were smuggling cigarettes and booze and doing “money scams.” Like Karla, Norma was attracted by the dark side and by dangerous men. Norma was the one all Tammy Lyn’s friends said was heavily into drugs. Paul and Karla did all the same things and used all the same tricks on Norma. Except Karla did not give Norma a taste of her potions. After Jane and the 911 call in August, 1991, Paul had banned Karla’s use of Halcion and halothane.
In late November, they took Norma Christmas shopping at the Eaton’s Center in Toronto. Karla insisted that Norma not hurt Paul’s feelings and take what he offered her. Paul outfitted Norma at the Jean Machine.
Every Christmas Karla helped her mother, Dorothy, sew stuffed bunny rabbit toys to sell in the gift shop at the Shaver Clinic where Dorothy worked.
They also made Santa Claus dolls. The Homolkas’ Santas had long faces and big beards. When the beard was lifted a big penis dropped down. Dorothy’s colleagues had always wondered about the propriety of flogging well-endowed Kris Krin-gles to chronic-care patients.
Paul and Karla took Norma to the SkyDome in Toronto for the Credit Valley Kennel Club Christmas Classic on December 13.
They had dinner at the CN Tower. Norma got a strawberry daiquiri straight away. Karla had to show^ her identification before she got hers. They stayed for two revolutions—each revolution took seventy-two minutes.
Back in the room at the Royal York Hotel, Karla took video footage of an agile Norma doing back flips across the room. Norma was really into gymnastics.
“Do more, do more,” urged Karla. She said the same thing when she photographed Paul and Norma kissing.
Then Karla got drunk and fell asleep. After Norma rejected Paul’s advances—Norma did not Hke to be hugged and kissed—she and Paul tried to set fire to the hotel. Paul videotaped the fire trucks and pohce as they arrived in front of the hotel, from their window.
He and Norma had taken a can of hair spray, and lit a serving cart on fire. The police woke up everyone on the floor and questioned them. When they came to their door, Karla pretended he had been in bed with her. Paul messed up his hair and looked stunned. When they asked, he cheerfully gave pohce his address and phone number.
Christmas had always been a very difficult time for Paul. The ambivalence of his existence and the duplicity of his family weighed most heavily during the festive season.
The reahty of his circumstances—the fact that he was a bastard, that his mother was crazy, that his father had molested his sister and was a peeping torn—was in the starkest contrast at Christmas, when the family always pretended to be happy and normal. Some of his most violent rapes had been committed during yuletide.
Since Karla had helped kill her sister, it had become a bad time for her as well. Karla knew that Paul held her responsible for kilhng Tammy. He had made that abundantly clear. She had not meant to, but none of those perfectly reasonable rationalizations cut any ice with Paul.
INVISIBLE darkness 279
Tammy’s death exacerbated Paul’s already hopelessly conflicted psyche. The tension between them grew and their resolve floundered. In Tammy Lyn’s demise were the seeds of their destruction. When Paul went to war against Karla, he went to war against himself.
The previous Christmas, Jane had abandoned Paul and Karla, never to return. Then there was the incident with Janine Rothsay in the bathroom. Somehow, they got through it.
It was December 23, 1992, the second anniversary of Tammy Lyn’s death. Paul and Karla’s landlady, Rachel Delaney, had just left. Mrs. Delaney had come over with a Christmas gift for Paul and Karla. Paul thanked her and invited her in for a drink.
With a little dusting of snow outside and carols playing softly in the background, the scene at the Bernardos was a Hallmark card come to life. The house was illuminated, inside and out, with a bevy of Christmas lights. Paul and Karla sat demurely in the living room, chitty chatting with their young friend—Rachel could not remember her name, but she had an incredible mane of auburn hair. Fortune had certainly smiled on the Delaneys when it delivered these perfect tenants. Rachel finished her drink, said, “Merry Christmas,” and left.
Norma got a shirt, a stuffed animal, a watch, a necklace and an anklet—it was all expensive—and then they watched an episode of “Sesame Street” that Norma had taped for Karla so she could see a character named Elmo.
When Karla went upstairs and came back down in her pajamas, walked around the corner and went into the spare bedroom. Norma was taken aback. Karla said she just felt like sleeping in the spare bedroom.
Norma ended up beside Paul upstairs in the master bedroom. Where else was she going to sleep? But Norma never liked being cuddled or mauled, and of course that was all Paul wanted to do.
Because Paul was always trying to feel her up aq^d put his penis in her, Norma wore a lot of clothesjwhen she went to 57 Bayview. On that particular night she was wearing a pair of underpants and her usual body stocking. Over the body stock—
28o STEPHEN wiili^ms
ing she had pulled on a pair of Calhoun boxer shorts—they were black with Christmas lights on them. The outline of the bulbs glowed in the dark. She had on a purple T-shirt.
When she moved onto the foam-rubber mattress they had on the floor beside the bed, Paul followed her. He managed to push back the crotch of Norma’s body suit and put his penis in her.
Then Norma went to sleep. When she woke up she was up on the bed beside him again. She had no idea how she had got there. Paul was still sleeping, so she went downstairs. Karla was still sleeping too. Norma went back upstairs, got her socks from the foot of the bed and left.
Keith Parker took the last bus at midnight from Toronto and arrived in St. Catharines at 1:30 a.m., Christmas Day. There were no taxis, but Keith did not have any money any^^vay. He started walking in front o{ the hospital on Queenston Street. A car drove slow^ly by and Keith thought the driver was looking at him. Then the car pulled over. Keith bent over and looked in. The driver was looking at him all right, so Keith just kept walking. When he got to the first set of Hghts on Queenston, he saw^ a car coming and stuck out his thumb. When he realized it was the same car, he pulled in his thumb and kept walking.
The guy stopped and asked Keith if he wanted a ride. He was dressed in a two-piece suit, with a shirt and tie. The tie was undone. He introduced himself as Paul. It was a nice c
ar. He looked all right, after all, so Keith got in. He had a mobile telephone in the car and the dash was lit up like a Christmas tree.
They talked. Keith told Paul that he had come down to see his girlfriend and kids.
“I don’t have any kids,” Paul said wearily, emphatically. He said his wife was with her family and that he did not care about Christmas—Christmas was for kids. Paul was acting really strange. He did not look at Keith, he just stared straight ahead. Then he turned the stereo up really loud. Keith asked him to
stop and let him out on Hartzell Road by Norma Jean’s Restaurant.
But Paul just kept driving. Keith told Paul to stop a second time. Paul turned the stereo down and said, “What?” Keith said that he wanted to get out. They had just passed where he was going. Paul slowed down by a used-car lot and turned the corner and Keith got out. He leaned in, shook his hand and wished him a good Christmas.
Paul told Keith he was not doing anything and he was going to drive around all night. Keith was welcome to join him, but Keith dechned. He said no and left. Keith thought Paul might be a homosexual, but he never tried anything. His eyes looked really weird.
Everything had started out all right. The Homolkas got up and opened their presents. Everybody was happy. Later, after dinner, Karla must have been drinking. She was crying and crying, saying she wanted a baby. Paul said, “Oh Kar, it’s okay, you know, in a few years …” She whined about wanting a baby all the time.
Then Karla went to sleep on Lori’s bed. Paul was lying beside Karla. Lori was lying on the floor. They were all staying in Lori’s room. Paul and Karla had been there Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Paul and Lori stayed up talking most of the night. He was saying things like, “I can’t understand your sister. She always has to be mothered… . She never does anything for me, she always has to do it on command. Like, I always have to tell her to do things, like hug me or kiss me. I’m the one who needs the mothering.”
Paul was naked under the blanket. Lori thought he was talking nonsense. He told her if she ever needed someone killed, he knew people who would do it and nobody would be the wiser.
“Yeah, okay, whatever, Paul. I’ll let you know,” Lori said, but for the first time Paul was scaring her.
Then he told Lori about his “looping” theory. As Lori recalled, it had something to do with dying: people die, but they
do not really die, they keep living. He told Lori he was going to write a book. It involved spiders and all sorts of different things.
At 2:30 in the afternoon on Thursday, December 27, Paul and Karla made a cigarette run. Late in the afternoon, they headed up to Sutton to visit Patrick Johnnie and his girlfriend, Linda. Paul had estabUshed a friendly relationship with P.J. since he’d ferried him across the border for Patrick’s Florida vacation.
PJ. had an interest in a restaurant on the outskirts of Sutton called Happy Daze. They went there for a few drinks and left around midnight.
On the way home, Paul talked about Norma. He told Karla he had had sex with her. What Paul had, Karla wanted. Paul said he was not sure that Norma was “Hke that,” and he was not sure that Norma liked Karla. Karla said it didn’t matter.
“I can put her down just Hke Jane,” Karla offered. But Paul had already banned the use of Karla’s potion, so he hit her, hard, a couple of times, just to teach her a lesson.
Norma went over to Paul and Karla’s on Saturday with her fi-iend Brian. Paul had been drinking. Norma had a glass or two of champagne, just for old times’ sake. In Norma’s estimation, Karla was sober. She looked fine.
“Why won’t you love me, why won’t you love me?” Paul kept repeating, and Norma kept saying because she didn’t, she just didn’t. Besides, she had a boyfriend. Norma said she just wanted to be friends.
Then Karla told her, “Paul’s the best thing that could ever happen to you. He could love you. He could give you anything you wanted.” And Paul said, “Yeah, you could have the world by the tail.”
Norma went out and walked around the block. When she came back they started arguing again. Norma said, “I’m never coming back here,” to which Paul replied, “Fine.”
“There’s eleven years’ difference in our age,” Norma said. “You’re twenty-eight, I’m seventeen. I don’t want to have anything to do with you… .” After Norma left, Paul whacked Karla several times again. After all, Norma’s recalcitrance was probably her fault.
Paul needed to get away. So he went to Montreal with his young friends Gus and Arif Malik on New Year’s Day. They had gone across the border to the Pleasure Dome for New Year’s Eve. Paul had arranged to have Gus’s fire-engine red IROC Camaro stolen so that Gus could collect the insurance money. They took Paul’s car to Montreal. The first night they went to the Metropolis and drank their faces off.
As far as Erica Moore was concerned, the bad one in the bunch was Gus. Paul was a sweetie. The other guy, Arif—she never got his last name—he was just an idiot.
She and her two girlfriends, Danielle and Natalie, had gone down to the Peel Pub in downtown Montreal. It was the day after New Year’s and they figured a few drinks would do them some good. From the Peel Pub they went to a dance club called L’Esprit. That’s where they met Paul, Gus and Arif From L’Esprit they went to another bar called Ralphies, and then they went back to the boys’ hotel.
Erica’s girlfriends, Arif and Paul fell asleep. Erica stayed up talking to Gus. They were just sort of being sarcastic, gratuitously insulting one another. At one point, she and Gus were kissing and then he pinned her down—as a joke—but Erica was drunk and confused and didn’t Hke it, so she told him to get off. Gus was a really big guy.
In the morning, when they woke up, Paul told Erica that he did not take kindly to insults. Then he said: “Party’s over, bitches,” and showed them the door. Erica thought Paul was one of the nicest persons she had ever met.
r»i I A nnrr
1 ri f”’ ‘ ‘ ‘
twenty-three
aul came back from Montreal even more conflicted than when he left. In loose psychiatric terminolog', he was disassembling. He hit Karla across the back of her head several times with his flashhght. Karla saw the ftiture.
Dorothy Homolka had received two anonymous phone calls advising her to look at her daughter’s face. On Tuesday, January 5, Mrs. Homolka went to the Martindale Animal Clinic at lunchtime to see her daughter’s face for herself
The callers were right. Karla’s eyes were raccooned and she looked awful. They went to McDonald’s, where Karla finally admitted to her mother that Paul had hit her. In spite of her mother’s imprecations, Karla insisted on going back to work. She agreed that she would abandon the matrimonial home that night. But when the Homolkas showed up at the appointed hour, there was no one home. Lori called and called. They sent the police and an ambulance, but there was no one home, so they left. Finally, around 9:30 p.m. Paul answered the phone. He said everything was fine and put Karla on the phone. She told Lori to just let it be, everything was all right.
Remarkably, the Homolkas let it be overnight and throughout the following day. With their neighbors, the Andersons, they went to the house the following night and this time found Karla home alone. She was in worse shape than she had been the day before. She told her mother that Paul had made her go on a cigarette run the night before and hit her all the way from St. Catharines to Niagara Falls.
Even so, the Homolkas still had to work at persuading Karla to leave. She kept going on about her things. Climbing the ladder in the garage, Karla started rummaging furiously through all the junk on the upper platform. She said they had plenty of time. Paul had gone across the border with someone named Patrick Johnnie and would not be home until much later. Karla sat on the white loveseat and intimated that Paul had killed Tammy Lyn. Dorothy Homolka suspected it anyway. After they left, Karla’s father ran back into the house and grabbed as many of the pictures of his dead daughter as he could carry.
They got Karla to C
orrina Hannah’s apartment. Corrina was a friend of Lori Homolka’s and her husband was a Metropolitan Toronto Police officer, so her place was a good choice for a safe house. Corrina told Karla she had been abused. She knew what to do. They called the Niagara Regional Police, who came and took Karla to the hospital. The doctor in emergency at St. Catharines General said it was the worst case of abuse he had ever seen and gave Karla an injection of Demerol.
In the meantime, the Green Ribbon Task Force discovered a cream-colored Camaro abandoned in the Welland Canal’s overflow channel north of York Road and west of Highway 55. Inspector Bevan was almost sure it was the car they were looking for, but he contained his excitement. The wreck in the ovei”flow made all the news reports that night.
When Paul got home, the police were waiting for him. They put him under arrest and took him down to the station on Church Street, where he had been interviewed the night Tammy died. They charged him with assault with a weapon. Released on his own recognizance, Paul finally got home around three in the morning.
After that Paul could not regain his equilibrium. Karla was really gone. He popped pills and drank vodka. He confi-onted Mrs. Homolka m the parking lot outside the Shaver Clinic. He called the Homolkas on the telephone—Karla’s father told him to go to hell.
He got two of his fi-iends to go over to the Martindale Clinic in search of Karla. Paul moaned and cried and orchestrated a sound poem of epic proportions—sitting in his music room long into the lonely night, he proclaimed his undying love for his lost love and continuously exclaimed his commitment to die for it. He howled and howled. So did the dog. He recorded everything. He dubbed “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” by the Platters over his howling dissertations.
Paul told Patrick Johnnie he needed another car. He said he had inadvertently hit Karla with a flashlight and after she left she had probably called him and the Nissan in to Customs. P.J. fixed Paul up with a lawyer to defend him on the assault charge. And he fixed up an old Mercury Marquis that Paul selected from the cars P.J. happened to have scattered around Brown Hill and Sutton.
Invisible darkness : the strange case of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka Page 28