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

by Williams, Stephen, 1949-

  Segal and Walker agreed that the police would formally arrest and charge Karla. Karla would then be released to her par—

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  ents, on their surety. Karla would waive her right to a preliminary hearing.

  They would then all wait on a presentencing report—the appropriate psychiatry and so forth. Her actual trial should take no more than a day, providing they could proceed unencumbered, without interference from any third parties, such as the media.

  Between her arrest and her trial, Karla would remain at hberty and make herself available for police interviews and counsehng. Segal would make every effort to get the Attorney-General to agree to transfer Karla to a provincial psychiatric institution where she would serve her sentence.

  This deal would be contingent on Karla’s absolute truthfulness. She w^ould disclose the full extent of all her participation and impart all her knowledge. Any perjury—any lie—would scuttle the agreement.

  After Segal left, Karla came in with her parents. From 7:00 until 8:30 p.m. he talked to his chent alone, about his discussion with Segal. He told her how much material was coming out of the house—not that any meaningful forensic analysis had yet been done—and that they had found a videotape which he described to her. As far as Walker could determine, they had not found anything else of substance—yet.

  Walker told Karla unequivocally that her options were very limited. They could easily charge her with first-or second-degree murder. The deal he had worked out with Segal for two ten-year manslaughter terms to be served concurrently was, even if he did say so himself, nothing short of genius.

  Whatever abuse or beatings she had sustained would only go so far with a jury. Given the crimes, and the fact that she could have saved the dead girls’ lives—that Kristen French would probably have never been kidnapped but for Karla’s participation—a jury would invariably ignore the abuse, of which there had been only one provable incident.

  There was also the distinct possibility that witnesses would come forward and give testimony that she was into kinky sex, that she herself was sadistic.

  In Walker’s opinion, the police had taken great care with the

  search warrants. It was unlikely they would have any room to maneuver there. The crime-scene people had only been in the house for five days. In all probability, they would stay in there for weeks if not months.

  God only knew how they would interpret whatever else they might fmd in the house. The longer they obfuscated, the greater the danger. It had been Walker’s experience with criminal behavior that victory most often belonged to the expedient.

  Karla unequivocally accepted the terms of the plea bargain— but she was very afraid of prison. Walker told her that there was a good chance they would be able to get her transferred to a provincial psychiatric hospital. There was even one nearby, in St. Thomas. She would get therapy. It would be easy time.

  Walker had retained well-known Toronto lawyer Robert Bigelow to advise him about the red tape and subtleties involved in getting an individual convicted of a capital offense moved from a federal penitentiary to a provincial psychiatric hospital.

  Bigelow was also advising him about parole issues and possible psychiatric consultants to examine Karla. While Walker and Bigelow were talking first thing Friday morning, February 26, Inspector Bevan had gone to the OPP lab in Toronto.

  The video-lab technician enthusiastically pointed out what he had beheved to be many similarities between the girl in the video and still photographs of Kristen French. That was what Inspector Bevan wanted to hear. The technician had not, however, been able to isolate any frame that showed the fingertips of the girl’s left hand. He could not conclusively say it was Kristen French.

  Karla was already drunk when Wendy Lutczyn got to 61 Dundonald around 1:3() p.iM. on Friday, February 26. Dr. Patti Weir, the vet from Martindale, had been there since around noon. Karla had stopped by the clinic on Wednesday, on her way to the Humane Society to pick up Buddy. I

  The dog had been in the pound since Paul Bernardo had

  been arrested the previous Wednesday afternoon. Karla said she was very lonely. She invited Wendy and Dr. Weir over to visit.

  Dr. Weir brought over some books from her church. Patti and Karla had been talking about God and faith when Wendy arrived.

  Wendy was happy to see that. Wendy’s maternalism bordered on neurosis and she felt responsible for Karla. After all, she was the one who had made the anonymous calls to Karla’s mother when Karla came back to work after New Year’s.

  Karla was on medication to help calm her down and she was drinking white wine like it was water. By the time Wendy got there, Karla was flying. But she was very sad too. She kept saying she had no one to talk to. Sure, she had been able to talk to her lawyer, but he was not a psychiatrist. Karla really felt that she needed to have somebody—a friend or a psychiatrist, or both—to talk to or she was going to explode.

  They started talking about the dog—the Homolkas’ house was so small and Buddy was so big, what were they going to do? Karla said it was okay, her dad was tolerating him, but she was going to have to make other arrangements for Buddy when she went to prison.

  Dr. Weir and Wendy were aghast. “What makes you think you’re going to prison?” they stammered in unison. She was going to be charged with two counts of manslaughter, Karla told them, so where did they think she was going?

  Patti and Wendy wondered whether Karla should be telling them that and Karla said probably not, but she really needed somebody to talk to. Then she told them not to tell anybody. Karla said she was meeting with her lawyer later in the day. She and her lavsryer were planning on going to the police station the next day—on Saturday—for her to make a statement.

  If she went on Saturday and confessed, then she would only serve three out of ten years at Kingston Penitentiary. Karla said that was how parole worked. She would be eligible for parole in three and one-third years.

  If she did not do that she would probably be charged with two counts of first-degree murder, and then she would go to prison for life and never get out.

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  “She was pretty near drunk when I left,” Dr. Weir recalled. “She was on sedatives, and then she’d been drinking a lot of wine. She’d probably had about three glasses of wine while I was there. I left about 1:30 and then Wendy didn’t come back to work. Karla finally let her go late in the afternoon and Wendy said by the time she left, Karla had had an awful lot to drink.”

  Late that same afternoon, Inspector Bevan spoke to Murray Segal and told him that the video-lab technican had pointed out many similarities between the comatose girl in the video and Kristen French.

  Segal told the inspector that he and George Walker were arranging to bring Karla Bernardo to the Green Ribbon offices to give an “induced” statement.

  That was all Inspector Bevan needed to hear. He went directly to the French and Mahaffy families. He told them about the exact terms and conditions of Karla’s deal.

  He was candid about circumstances, as far as he and the police were concerned. The question was whether the families wanted to take a chance and hope they found hard evidence in the house or do the deal.

  He told the Frenches and the Mahaffys that the police had learned a great deal about the nature of the relationship between compliant victims such as Karla and sexual sadists such as Paul Bernardo. Inspector Bevan elaborated on what they had learned—from friends of Paul and Karla’s whom they had been furiously interviewing, as well as from George Walker and Karla—about the bizarre nature of the relationship between Paul and Karla Bernardo.

  In the final analysis. Inspector Bevan said taciturnly, it was really up to them. They could wait or take the deal. The families told him they were prepared to accept the Crown attorney’s best advice.

  Karla was in bad shape when she arrived at Walker’s office at 5:30 P.M. She looked wan
and thin. She was volubly agitated and seemed heavily depressed. Over the two hours she was in his office. Walker lost confidence in the current plan.

  Defense consultant Robert Bigelow had congratulated Walker on the fact that Walker had managed to avoid any sexual-assault charges against Karla. Those would have made her life much more difficult than a couple of manslaughters. He and Bigelow had also discussed the efficacy of having control of the cHent’s psychiatric and psychological assessments.

  Bigelow had suggested Dr. Graham Glancy, an expert in battered-woman’s syndrome and posttraumatic stress disorder, to do a workup on Karla. For some reason which was not perfectly clear to Walker, Dr. Glancy had declined.

  Walker had then called the psychologist, Dr. Allan Long. Dr. Long was prepared to step in. Walker knew Dr. Long. Everybody knew Dr. Allan Long. Dr. Long was a tall, lean drink of water, who was always at the ready. He was a very accommodating man, who, at seventy, had been around the block a dozen times. Dr. Long suggested his colleague. Dr. Hans Arndt, for the psychiatric assessment. If Karla needed to be hospitalized. Dr. Arndt could arrange it. Walker said he would get back to Dr. Long.

  Karla was acting so strangely that night that Walker thought she might actually need psychiatric help. He called Murray Segal later that evening and called off Karla’s meeting with the police and further negotiations. He might even have suggested that she was suicidal. For a man so concerned about his client’s state of mind, it took Walker an inordinately long five days to have her examined by the doctors.

  Karla and her parents were in Walker’s offices until 7:00 p.m. They dutifully signed the formal authorization, which Walker then had legally witnessed. In precise terms, the document recorded the details of the plea resolution that had been reached between Murray Segal and Mr. Walker.

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  George Walker filed the authorization with the court in St. Catharines first thing the following Monday morning.

  On Monday, Karla kept her appointment with her general practitioner, Dr. Christina Plaskos. Christina did not mind if Karla called her by her first name. In fact, she had encouraged Karla to do so.

  Dr. Plaskos noted that Karla appeared to be “under a tremendous amount of stress and [was] quite emotional,” while she was in her office. But Karla was “not suicidal,” or even “depressed.” Karla knew that she was in deep trouble, and in Dr. Plaskos’s opinion that had caused her to become quite emotional.

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  or the son of a railroad worker, George Walker had done well. He had put himself through university and law school on hockey scholarships. As a big defenseman, he had been positively graceful on the ice. However, by the time he was drafted by the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League, he had decided Clarence Darrow spoke more eloquendy to him than Gordie Howe.

  Walker learned his legal lessons well. He had one of the most

  successful criminal law practices in southwestern Ontario. He drove an immaculate, pearl-gray Jag, enjoyed homes on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border, had a beautiful, blond wife and spent every January at his villa—which they called Journey’s End—on the island of Montserrat.

  Montserrat was a verdant enclave for the rich and famous, with tap water more potable than Evian. Although Walker was neither rich nor famous, he happened on the property at exactly the right time in 1981. The only other Canadian on the island was Quebecois chanteur Gilles Vigneault, whose villa was just up the road from Journey’s End.

  From the patio overlooking Walker’s in-ground pool, the ramparts of Air Studio, owned by former Beatles manager George Martin, are readily visible across the valley. Until Hurricane Hugo destroyed the studio in 1989, the biggest rockers in the world flocked to Montserrat to record their albums.

  Walker recounted with relish an afternoon drinking beer with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. They had often seen Sting in the half dozen restaurants that served indigenous giant frog—listed on the menus as “mountain chicken.” Another time the Walkers swore they saw vegetarian Paul McCartney eating aguoudi, a mountain-dwelling beast that looked like a cross between a gopher and a pig.

  With Karla secure in the psychiatric ward of Northwestern General Hospital, George Walker gratefully climbed on a plane bound for the island first thing Sunday morning, March 7. When he and Lori had returned from Montserrat two months before, on a whim, he had booked the last excursion fare for the season so he could return during the first week in March and spend seven days by himself What Karla had told him had taken its toll. He had recently spent too many sleepless nights sitting in his La-Z-Boy, downing Classic Coke, eating junk food and watching CNN. Now he needed the break.

  After his plane reached cruising altitude Walker put Karla out of his mind, pushed back his chair and ordered a scotch. “Damned iguanas,” he thought to himself, “they’ve probably eaten all my hibiscus by now^.”

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  Dr. Arndt truly did not know whether Karla was mad or just bad. Always clutching the teddy bear, half dressed in baby dolls, she sat across from him, quietly answering his every question.

  “You are having dreams?” inquired Dr. Arndt.

  “Nightmares, just like the Guns N’ Roses video “November Rain”—^you know, the one where the bride dies.” Karla replied. In her dreams, Paul killed the bride. Plagiarized rock videos hardly qualified as legitimate nightmares; then again, the subconscious was a strange country.

  In another one of Karla’s dreams. Tammy, Kristen, LesHe and Paul were coming to get her. And the previous night, in her dream, Paul had come into the hospital with a scalpel and started cutting her up with no nurses around to stop him. That’s why Karla had gone running to the nursing station—“to make sure that the nurses were there and to get more VaHum.”

  When Karla was first admitted to the hospital on March 4, she had not realized that her roommate was a nun. When she did, she did not get the joke. Karla was not subtle. She never bothered to mention Sister Josephine to Dr. Arndt.

  Karla stayed in hospital for seven weeks, talking to doctors, taking tests, talking on the telephone, visiting with her family, talking to Sister Josephine, reading and sleeping.

  Dr. Arndt gave her a lot of drugs. Karla liked drugs. But they never seemed to work as well as she would have hked. She always wanted more. Karla took so many drugs she had a mild seizure, but now the first week was over.

  Karla talked to Dr. Arndt a lot. Talking to psychiatrists was called therapy. She understood these things from her extensive reading, including Michelle Remembers, which was a kind of textbook study about the therapeutic relationship between a deeply troubled young girl and her handsome, understanding psychiatrist.

  In Michelle Remembers, Michelle wore black all the time. A teddy bear like Bunky figured prominently in Michelle’s life. In the book Michelle told her psychiatrist, “I loved the bear so much I wanted to become the bear.”

  Michelle also told her therapist that she was afraid when she started talking, because talking would start her remembering things. “I know that some of the things that happened weren’t normal, weren’t things that normal people do …” Michelle had said. That was just the way it was for Karla.

  During their therapy session on March 10, Karla told Dr. Arndt she felt her mother suspected Paul had had something to do with Tammy’s death. “I don’t think my parents will hate me,” she told Dr. Arndt. “They could never stand losing another daughter.” That was why Karla could never commit suicide. She couldn’t do it to the parents for whom she cared so deeply.

  As far as Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French were concerned, Karla did not feel any remorse.

  “There was nothing I could do for either of them,” she candidly told the doctor.

  Karla told Dr. Arndt about Jim Hutton. “Guess what?” she said, and then told him that while she was staying with her aunt and uncle in Bramptom she had met this guy named Jim and he drove a car exactly like Paul’s. He looked a bit like Pa
ul too.

  “Wasn’t that strange?” Karla asked Dr. Arndt.

  Karla had “trusted him enough” to have sex with him. Jim was, for her, someone “to help me erase Paul from my mind.” Her parents knew about Jim, but they didn’t know Karla was still in contact with him. Karla called Jim from the hospital on March 15.

  Paul had taped many of the sex scenes with the dead girls, including the one with her sister, Tammy Lyn. Karla told Dr. Arndt that she had watched them all at one time or another.

  Karla had not been able to fmd the videos when she went back to the house, but she was sure the police had them by now. l^r. Arndt felt as if he were being pumped for information.

  The video “with the hand,” as Karla called the videotape the police had found on February 21 … She could not remember exactly whose hand it was, but she told Dr. Arndt that she knew the i^irl was alive.

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  Dr. Allan Long interviewed Karla for the first time on March 13, and outlined the tests he wanted to give her. The battery would include the Halstead Reitan neuropsychological test, the Halstead category test, a tactile finger recognition test, fingertip number writing, Reitan Indiana aphasia screening test, the Reitan Klove sensory perceptual examination, a seashore rhythm test, and seashore speech sounds perception test, a tactual performance test. Trail Making Test Forms A and B, the hand dynamometer, the Wechsler adult intelligence scale—revised (WAISR), the Wechsler memory scale—revised (WAISR), the Forer sentence completion test, an adjective checklist, the thematic apperception test (TAT)—Parts A and B, the Cattell 16 P F test, the Cahfornia psychological inventory and Jackson’s personality research form—E, the Rorschach psychodiagnostic instrument, or inkblot, test and the Minnesota multiphasic personahty inventory, or MMPI.

  The Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory was the most important. It established the benchmark against which all other results would be measured. The MMPI required Karla to answer 550 statements about behavior, feelings, social attitudes and psychopathological symptoms—T for “true,” F for “false,” or ? for “cannot say.” The answers would then be scored according to scales established by the test’s authors, psychiatrist J.C. McKinley and psychologist Starke Hathaway.