Invisible darkness : the strange case of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka

by Williams, Stephen, 1949-

  The task force was represented by the staff sergeant brothers, Murray and Steve Macleod as well as Detective Sergeant Bob Waller from Halton Region. Waller was the one who had driven up to Midland and informed the Mahaffv^s that the body pieces the poHce had found at Lake Gibson were their daughter’s.

  Inspector Bevan informed those at the meeting that Karla had told her lawyer Paul Bernardo had committed both murders and that she wanted immunity. Bevan said that the victims had been videotaped. Karla admitted she had helped dispose of their bodies. Detective Irwin looked at his shoes.

  Copies of all the Metropolitan Toronto Police surveillance reports were handed over to the Green Ribbon Task Force. Surveillance on Karla w^as immediately initiated. Detective Irwin had been so efficient with the tap on Bernardo’s line; perhaps he could do likewise on Karla’s phone?

  At this meeting Detective Irwin was told that he would handle the post-arrest interview of Paul Bernardo with senior Niagara Regional Police Sergeant Gary Beauheu. Exactly when that would happen was still being discussed between Irwin’s boss. Staff Inspector Marrier, and Inspector Bevan.

  From that day forward, all Metropohtan Toronto Police working on the case would work out of the task force head—

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  quarters in Beamsville, Ontario. While Detective Irwin made arrangements to check into the Parkway Suites Hotel, over near the Pen Center, Inspector Bevan began to work out the rationalization for his pending deal with Karla Homolka.

  As much as fortuity and police incompetence had facilitated Paul and Karla’s five and a half years of murder and mayhem, fortune eventually determined Karla’s fate. If coincidence really was God’s way of maintaining His anonymity, He was singularly absent in St. Catharines when Inspector Bevan and various members of the Green Ribbon Task Force first became aware of an unpublished esoteric article titled “Compliant Victims of the Sexual Sadist.”

  The article, which would soon be published in the April, 1993 issue ofTlie Australian Family Physician, was written by FBI Supervisory Special Agent Roy Hazelwood, Janet Warren, an associate professor in the Department of Behavioral Medicine and Psychiatry at the University of Virginia, and Dr. Park Dietz, an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of CaHfornia and one of the most famous forensic psychiatrists in the United States.

  Roy Hazelwood was a clean-cut Texan who kept a Bible prominently displayed on his desk in the Behavioral Science bunker and once proudly told an interviewer that twenty-two of his sexual sadists had killed at least 187 people, mostly women—far more than “your big names, like Bundy and Gacy.”

  He called sexual sadists the “creme de la creme” of sex criminals and said they were the largest challenge to society and law enforcement yet.

  Hazelwood talked matter-of-factly about women who signed slave contracts and sold themselves to sadists for a dollar, about sadistic perverts who collected detective magazines and had a fascination with hanging. He knew of sexual sadists who explained in precise, graphic detail what they were going to do to their victims because the victims’ fear heightened the sadists’ sexual arousal. After one such litany of horrific deeds, graphi-STEPHEN

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  cally described in minute detail, one apocryphal sadist asked his victim if she “had any questions.”

  “Compliant Victims of the Sexual Sadist” explained Karla’s criminal behavior as that of a victim, not a malingering perpetrator. For Inspector Bevan’s purposes it really did not matter whether or not Paul Bernardo v/as technically a sexual sadist for whom torture and killing were integral elements of his paraphilia or deviation: no one would argue that Paul Bernardo was not sadistic, or with the fact that two schoolgirls were dead. Bernardo’s status as a sadist was moot, as was Karla’s victimhood.

  The sexual sadist, as a singularly defined criminal phenomenon, was a new figure on the law-enforcement landscape. As a unique figure, he had been introduced by the same trio of authors who wrote “Compliant Victims of the Sexual Sadist.” Over the previous three years they had also published “The Sexually Sadistic Criminal and His Offences” in TJw Bulletin of American Academic Psychiatric Law Journal (1990), followed by “The Criminal Sadist” in Tlie FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (1992).

  The articles explained that the term “sexual sadism” had been coined by Richard von Krafft-Ebing after the Marquis de Sade, a bad fellow in the seventeenth century who had coerced a variety of prostitutes, peasants, his wife and other degenerates into orgies involving bondage, whippings, paddlings and buggery. Krafft-Ebing had published Psycliopathia Sexualis: A Medico-Forensic Study in the fifties. The book was not available in EngUsh until 1965.

  Of the thirty alleged sexual sadists Dr. Dietz and Mr. Hazelwood had been able to interview or study, they had identified seven women who had apparently participated in the sadists’ diabolical sex crimes. Among those seven, three women actually had been married to their sadist.

  Law enforcement frequently stereotypes women. Instead of accessories or partners or accomplices, the authors chose to call their newly discovered female sex criminals “compliant victims.”

  This theory placed Karla on a par with her dead sister and

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  the two dead schoolgirls, Kristen French and Leshe Mahaffy. Regardless of what role Karla had played, what her motives had been, or how much enjoyment she had derived from the crimes. Inspector Bevan had the rationalization for Karla’s bizarre criminal behavior in these articles. Even before Bevan had the slightest idea about exactly what Karla had done or knew the true extent of her participation, he had her excuse. To the members of the Green Ribbon Task Force Karla Homolka became the perfect “compliant victim.”

  On Saturday morning, Karla’s Auntie Patti drove her to George Walker’s office. During their two-hour meeting, Walker outlined the reality of Karla’s situation—no matter what, Karla was going to jail. She had to understand and come to grips with the fact that there would be no blanket immunity. The only significant questions were how much time Karla would do and where?

  Walker had Karla sign an authorization for him to continue negotiations. The handwritten document names Ray Houlahan, Murray Segal, Casey Hill and Scarborough Crown Attorney Mary Hall as the people with whom Walker was negotiating.

  One other thing: if Karla wanted any kind of a deal, she would forget her new boyfriend in Brampton and immediately move back home with her parents.

  Things would have been different if Paul had stayed with Marie Magritte. She truly loved Paul. And she was beautiful, too. For Marie, Paul truly was the king.

  Paul called Marie for the first time in a long time four days before Valentine’s Day. He called about 1:00 a.m. Paul told Marie everything. About how he was working on a rap album; that he and Karla had split up. Marie had not seen Paul since December 21, 1990, when he had rented a hotel room at the Royal York so they could have sex. That was two days before he and Karla raped and killed Tammy Lyn Homolka.

  Paul explained to Marie that he and Karla had been arguing a lot. Karla was bisexual, he said. He told her about Michelle Banks, the hooker in Ariantic City and that he had videotaped the whole thing.

  “He said that Karla Hked brunettes, because they were her opposite,” Marie remembered. “It really bothered him that she could get off easier with a girl than she could with him.” Their conversation lasted five or six hours.

  Paul told Marie he was coming to Toronto on Saturday to see their mutual friend Gus, and he asked if he could see her, maybe take her to St. Catharines to see his house. Marie said she was working at Swiss Chalet from nine to five on Saturday. She could meet him after work for a coffee, if he wanted.

  Around 9:30 p.m. on Saturday evening, February 13, 1993, Paul met Marie outside Honey Bee Donuts next to the Swiss Chalet. She agreed to go over to Gus’s house. When they got there, Jason Mooney and Gus were planning to go downtown. They went in Jason’s car.

  It was close to ele
ven by the time they got down to a club called My Apartment, on Peter Street near the SkyDome and Lake Ontario. There was a lineup, so they went up the street to Club Max instead. Marie and Paul talked. They drank. They danced.

  Paul had really changed. To Jason, who now managed Casey’s Roadhouse on the outskirts of Lindsay, Paul had once looked like something out of GQ^ magazine. Now he looked really stupid. He was twenty-eight years old and he had the sides of his head buzzed. He had numerous rings in his heavily pierced ears. On the other hand, Marie was raven haired and very pretty.

  By 2:00 a.m. Marie was really drunk. On the way back to St. Catharines, Paul had to pull off to let her out of the car twice. When they got to the house. Buddy was so excited he pissed on the floor. Paul made pizza. They sat on the couch. Paul showed Marie some pictures: Christmastime, Karla and him, his dead sister-in-law.

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  They did a little typing on the computer:

  “Marie loves Paul with all her heart and soul and promises to have wild and violent sex with him tonight and every night… . In response, he promises to be a faithful, loyal dog in which sex with any other female is punishable by death by order of her majesty, the Queen Marie, and she will punish him if he is unfaithful.”

  “Dear Paul you are my first and my only love. I love you.” Paul pecked out, “I love you, I love you too always and forever no matter what you think, we should be together, not really together. Love me, hate me, fuck it, let’s have sex. Oh, by the way, are you a virgin?”

  “No,” Marie typed in her reply. “Paul took my virginity. (What did he do with it?) He stored it in his heart forever.”

  They went upstairs and got into bed. It was 6:15 a.m. on Sunday morning. Around seven they woke up. Marie remembered saying she had to get back and then she feel asleep again.

  Inspector Bevan was in his office early Sunday morning when he got the call—Bernardo had gone off to Toronto, picked up a girl and they were both in the house. What should they do. Staff Sergeant Murray Macleod wanted to know? By the time Bevan mobilized the Emergency Task Force and the OPP about that helicopter with the infi-ared scanner, it was around 10:00 A.M. Marie and Paul Bernardo walked out the front door, got in the Nissan and drove off.

  Murray Segal and a tall, leggy, blond assistant prosecutor named Michal Fairburn arrived at George Walker’s Niagara Falls office around 10:00 a.m. on Valentine’s Day, Sunday, February 14, 1993, to further discuss the issue of Karla’s plea bargain, or as Segal preferred to call it, plea resolution.

  Walker had a valentine for Segal. He told Segal in much greater detail about Karla’s involvement with her sister’s death and the fact that a lot of the sex acts with her sister, Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French had been videotaped.

  For his part, Segal was curious about a discrepancy: Walker’s client maintained there were ten boxes of cement containing Leslie’s body parts; the press had reported seven.

  In fact, when the cement casket containing Mahaffy’s torso was taken into account, there were eight cement blocks. Why was Karla Homolka adamant that there had been ten? Walker rephed that, as Segal knew, the media was not known for accuracy, and his client was simply mistaken. Nevertheless, it still puzzled Segal. By noon, Mr. Segal and Ms. Fairburn were on their way to Beamsville for a meeting with senior members of the task force.

  Inspector Bevan and Murray Segal had never met before. Segal outlined the discussions with Walker. He told the police something that Inspector Bevan did not know—that Karla was also involved with her sister’s death.

  Segal went over mformation that the task force already had. He brought up the embarrassing fact that Bevan and the entire task force had been chasing a phantom Camaro for almost a year. After the meeting, Murray Segal and Michal Fairburn were fully cognizant of the fact that Inspector Bevan had failed to link Paul Bernardo or Karla Homolka to the murders they had been so vigorously investigating.

  After he dropped Marie off in Toronto on Sunday morning, Paul went up to Patrick Johnnie’s garage. P.J. knew right away that Paul was under surveillance. The cop just sat across the road in his unmarked car. This guy was not even trying to be inconspicuous.

  Patrick Johnnie and the boys who hung around the garage were used to seeing cops conspicuously parked around the area.

  One of Johnnie’s friends went across the street, and Uke the smart aleck he was, he sarcastically told the cop that it was Sunday, so he had better hang around because something really big was going to happen.

  P.J. never had the slightest inkling that Paul Bernardo was a “skin beefer.” Skin beefers were perverts, sexual deviates who hit on children. And that was pretty strange, because Patrick

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  Johnnie was normally hard to fool. That Sunday was the last time he saw Paul Bernardo.

  Jim Hutton picked up Karla at the Segers’ on Monday night. He took her back to his apartment on Steeles Avenue. She seemed a bit troubled, but that only made Jim want Karla more. They had sex repeatedly. Karla knew she had broken through at least one barrier. Jim let her stay overnight.

  Karla told Jim that some terrible things had happened that she could not talk about. She told him that he would probably hear more about it in the next couple of days—in the news.

  Jim was not really listening. To him, Karla was just a very nice, young girl with a flare for the melodramatic, like most girls, and a vivid imagination. He dropped her off in front of the Segers’ apartment building on Tuesday morning.

  There had been considerable tension between Inspector Bevan and Staff Inspector Steve Marrier over when to arrest Paul Bernardo. Marrier had wanted to pop him right away, in early February. His attitude was understandable. Science said Bernardo was the Scarborough rapist. As such, he was a menace to society.

  Inspector Bevan had a different perspective. He had barely had time to assimilate his good fortune—Karla, and what the implications of a close relationship with her implied.

  At that particular moment in time, the last thing Bevan wanted to do was arrest the husband before a deal with the wife was done. The longer Bernardo was fi”ee and under surveillance, the longer Inspector Bevan had to get his ducks in a row. With Bernardo still on the streets, but under heavy surveillance, who knew what else might turn up? The search warrants were still not completed.

  The courage of Inspector Bevan’s convictions was among the politicians at Queen’s Park and the bureaucrats in the Crown’s law office. Countless milHons had been wasted on the task force—probably more than ten million dollars. Bernardo’s

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  arrest would be Bevan’s call. They were going to do the deal with Karla—it had all been sketched out between himself, Segal and Walker—and then they would arrest Bernardo.

  Bevan was waiting for that when Sue Sgambati happened. Sue was a big-eyed, petite blonde who worked for Global Television. According to Inspector Bevan, she had confronted him on Wednesday, February 17, and threatened the integrity of his investigation.

  This particular blond media personality had a penchant for high, tight miniskirts and cowboy boots, which might partly explain why the inspector deigned to speak with her when he would not speak with anyone else associated with the media.

  Bevan was bemused when Sgambati made her demand: either give the media some cogent information about what was going on—something they could use—or she was going to go to air that evening with what she knew.

  To the inspector’s chagrin, Sue Sgambati knew a lot. She knew they were watching someone and where that someone hved. If Bevan did not give them somethmg to work with, she would report—in detail—that the Metropolitan Toronto Police were closely watching a Port Dalhousie man who was a prime suspect in the Scarborough rapes.

  On February 17, Sergeant Mickey Riddle and Gary Beaulieu interviewed Norma Tellier and Jane Doe about their relationships with Paul and Karla.

  Around noon hour, the detect
ives plucked Norma out of school and took her to a hotel room they had set up for mter-viewing. They wanted details about Karla’s version of events.

  “We’d like you to tell us in your own words—and with as much detail as possible—what you are aware of that has happened, what Karla may have told you that has happened, and nothing will shock us,” Sergeant Riddle told the teenager. “Nothing will surprise us. We have studied greatly compliant victims, as far as people who are abused. Karla is an abused wife.”

  To comfort an obviously nervous Norma, Sergeant Riddle

  earnestly told her that Paul Bernardo was the focus of their investigation.

  “That man—I don’t know what your feelings of him are at this time—has magical powers of some sort over individuals,” he said. “We know that. Karla has lived a living hell for quite some time and we would not be surprised at anything she did under the powers of Paul Bernardo… .”

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  nspector Bevan called the arrest team together at 3:00 p.m. and told them the mvestigation had been compromised by the media and that Bernardo had to be arrested before the evening news. Nobody felt properly prepared. Even though the inspector did not have Karla Homolka’s deal in his back pocket, he now saw Bernardo’s quick arrest as a way to put it there more quickly.

  Detective Irwin had eschewed collaboration with Sergeant

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  Beaulieu on their interviewing techniques for his voluminous search warrant. He had been working on it night and day since early February and it still was not finished.

  The two police officers who arrived at Bernardo’s door were definitely pumped. Detective Kelly from the Metropolitan Toronto Police force jnd Constable Symonds from the Green Ribbon Task Force walked up to Bernardo’s front door at 4:00 P.M. The blinds were drawn. Bernardo answered the door. He was dressed in white sweatpants and a black t-shirt.